CES was a big show with more space than ever before at 2.75 million sq. ft. (255,500 m2) and the total attendance was expected to be over 170,000. The event seemed very busy this year and there were more companies, it seemed, in hotel suites which really slows down our coverage. On the other hand, there were around twenty companies that we had on our list last year that weren’t present this time. A number were AR companies that are now even more focused on B2B applications, but there was a variety of companies.
What about the trends? I covered TV in the introduction to our Part 1 report, which covered TV. Outside that category, displays were disappointingly low on the priority list. Voice was everywhere and every kind of device with an internet connection (and that will include cars) will be voice enabled. Amazon’s Alexa seems to be winning the most share, but Google is also very well supported. If you have enough processing and an internet connection, voice is a very powerful input mechanism and it is getting better and better. The advantage for voice is that the more voices that Google and Amazon get to analyse, the better that they will get. In the very long term, that could be a challenge for displays as a human/machine interface. However, for now, you still need a display.
I’ve several times quoted the research from Ruwido, the remote control maker, that voice works really well when you know exactly what you want. It’s not so good for browsing. The eye can take in a lot more, more quickly than the ear can, so for selecting between a list of choices should be quicker with the eye.
Anyway, the next big topic was the rapid changes in the automotive market. It really is changing very rapidly and we were amazed at what companies such as Nvidia can show. There is a huge pressure to move to further levels of automation and the technology is developing very, very fast. Some of the images and concepts don’t take into account the kind of safety issues that Faurecia raised. These will complicate the use of automotive cars. However, the push to produce driverless Ubers will be huge. Although the head of Volkswagen thinks people will want their own space, the number of cars is bound to come under pressure if cheap Uber (or Lyft) cars become pervasive. They will change many environments and mainly for the better, I think.
5G was also a strongly promoted concept and is happening quickly, partly because of the trend to autonomous vehicles, which really need this level of data communications. If you think you have seen big data up to now, as the old song goes, “You ain’t seen nothing’ yet!”. Big data will be a hot topic.
There was a fair amount on VR and AR. Some of our news is in this section, but because of a family illness issue, some of our report is delayed, but we will get it to you. The new HTC Vive Pro had a much better display and we also quite liked the standalone AR headset from Lenovo, although it could do with a better display. Jasper had some great technology for microLED substrates, which could be very critical to the development of AR and Nanosys showed, for the first time, electrically-stimulated quantum dots.
In monitors, the main innovation was the use of a slim light guide plate from Corning in a monitor being offered by Dell. That could set a new fashion for slim displays and may even help move the market to QDOG (Will QDOG Have its Day?). Asus had an inkjet printed OLED monitor. Other analysts were blown away by the quality, but I’m not sure why I wasn’t. Asus, Acer and HP all showed an amazing 65″ monitor for gamers, the BFGD. PC makers had lots of slightly revised ‘this years model’ PCs with the new 8th generation Core processor and the first AMD/Intel module was seen in the Dell XPS 15. There were PCs based on the Qualcomm/Microsoft design that should be here in a few months.
There were some new UltraHD projectors and UST projectors – the projector market is having to work double hard to catch up with the quality and value of flat panels.
Overall, there was plenty to keep us occupied. I hope you enjoy our coverage! Bob.
