My notes from CES 2014

My notes from CES 2014

I have been to CES a couple times in the past and I know it is a big show. But surprisingly, it keeps getting even bigger. After it broke record 130K attendees in past couple years, this year people expect it to be around ~150K when audits come in. What that means is every keynote worth attending takes at least a ~1.5 hour wait in line. Lines for lunch and coffee too. Even after my rigorous planning (demo/keynote timing, long walks between show floors etc.), I could only cover about half of my list. Nevertheless that was plenty to get a feel for what’s coming.

Here are the trends I saw and some thoughts at the end –

Wearables

Pebble Steele Smartwatch

This category was very hot this year - so much so that - there were almost no smartphone / tablet mentions this year in “best of CES” awards or even product announcements. Most of the new demo’s were about wearables. Some were cool like the Pebble Steel which definitely moves their smartwatch product from a geeky plasticky gadget-watch to a more mainstream/fashion accessory that regular people will feel comfortable wearing.  (Some other smartwatches were like wearing a big phone on your wrist. See Neptune Pine). Also, I saw several upgrades to current health / fitness bands, smart dog collars too.

LG announced LG LifeBand touch and heart-rate headphones. Intel was especially big on this trend. They announced a $500K funding competition “Make It Wearable” for startups/dev’s. Qualcomm already has announced their Toq smartwatch at Uplinq. It is pitched as a developer edition watch for now to push the category (and their BOM parts like mirasol display for it!).

Home Automation / Entertainment / Internet of Things

Intel based Baby Monitor

Chipset makers and OEMs like Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, LG looked big on this, as they want to own this space - what with smartphones / tablets saturating. Qualcomm is also pushing for an open standard for software framework called AllJoyn in this space and had demos for several home devices “talking” with each other. Intel showed a market-ready baby monitor that has sensors for baby’s vitals and the alerts are sent to other devices at home (like mommy’s phone or even a coffee mug with a display). Intel also announced its Edison ultra-small computer that you can use to enable hobby-based home automation projects.

Intel Edison

Samsung announced their SmartHome service to control various appliances via Samsung phone, TV or Gear watch. Same with LG which allows to control appliances via SMS. Mantra here is: Buy our appliances and devices so you can control them all seamlessly. (Standardization, anyone?)

Sony’s multiple synchronizable (projected or mounted) displays demo (on wall, ceiling, coffee table) was impressive. You can use all of these displays separately or in a sync.

Sony "Throw" projector

Several use cases can be enabled by this. E.g. play “music to sunset” with all displays showing a relevant (different) imagery. Or play “street scene in Paris” in-sync on all displays. Impressively immersive, but this looked a bit expensive proposition for mass-market appeal but not too far away in future. Their futuristic interactive display projected on a coffee table (or a wall) that you can interact with (touch and move UI widgets) was pretty cool. 

interactive UI projected on a table

Wall display (mirror when off)

Ultra-HD TVs, 4K Content, TV/Social integration

Pixels have gone up to 4K and TVs can come in curved panels (switchable by user between flat v/s curved). They look really immersive. In the soccer match demo on Sony’s dual-4K TV, one could clearly see faces of players and stadium viewers. Also, with social integration, you can “watch TV with the world” with all the social feeds time-sync’ed with the content e.g. A missed goal in a soccer game and you can see a burst of reactions from twitter on a side panel, or in your wearable glasses.

Sony, Vizio, Samsung, LG are heavy on UHD TVs. Mostly planned in mid-2014. TV Sizes are going beyond 85-100inches now.

YouTube had 4K streaming (VP9) demos running at partner booths like Panasonic TVs. Netflix announced they will roll out the next season of “House of cards” in 4K. (I would have preferred the sequel of “Breaking Bad” in 4K, but I digress). And yes, Sony had (expensive) camcorders for 4K recording by consumers.

Car Automation / OS / Electronics

There was so much action around cars that CES felt like an auto expo as well. Intel has partnered with BMW i3 car integration. Qualcomm introduced an automotive chipset 602A (Quad core, 320 GPU, bunch of multimedia / gps features). 

Intel-BMW i3 integration

Google announced (with Audi, GM, Honda, Hyundai and NVidia) Android in car platform via a global alliance called Open Automotive Alliance (OAA). Get ready for Android homescreens in car (and new levels of tracking :-))

Samsung/BMW announced that Samsung Gear watch can control the car features now.

AR/VR

Chipset companies like Qc, Intel are pushing several AR/VR experiences like gaming & for kids education (e.g. QC & Sesame street partnership). For gaming, Intel has partnered with OEMs for kinect-like RealSense interactions on laptops etc. Played with it a bit, was pretty good at detecting palm/finger-level with a decently accurate depth sensing.

Some Thoughts on privacy

Privacy is soon slated to get out of control for consumers. So far they think they can turn off their one device (or features), but in future there will be smartwatch-like wearables and your car still up for tracking data about you. The expansion path of Smartphones/Tablets ->TVs -> Automotive (Cars) seems to be natural evolution for chipset, OEMs, OS and data mining companies. However, Combine that sort of tracking with data mining of content consumption habits (inputs to your brain) and social network comments (outputs of your brain), and you can almost roughly digitally clone someone’s brain.

Will consumer awareness itself get to a point for them to demand more control of their data, with open technologies like Firefox OS for all their devices? Or would it still be the OEM/carrier partners who want to break free of the OS-maker stranglehold on services and revenues?