According to Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, CES Unveiled in New York on November 7th is the start of the “CES Season.” Never mind Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas or New Years; it is time to start thinking about CES 2020.
Also, never mind that there had previously been two other CES Unveiled events in Paris and Amsterdam. I guess I can’t really blame Mr. Shapiro: I called this time of year “Gadget Season” because of all the cool gadgets available, including some that aren’t particularly useful.
Gary Shapiro discussing the CTA and CES 2020 at CES Unveiled New York. (Credit: M. Brennesholtz)
Several years ago, the CTA changed its name from the Consumer Electronics Association to the Consumer Technology Association. All the speakers at CES Unveiled emphasized that many non-traditional but technology-heavy companies will be at CES 2020.
Last year, Viking Cruises was a keynote speaker and exhibitor, although they are not on the list of exhibitors for CES 2020. This year, the CEO of Delta Airlines will be a keynote speaker, although an airline is not traditionally thought of as a consumer technology company. CES is also a global event, with attendees and exhibitors coming from about 160+ countries. Shapiro emphasized that for multi-technology systems such as Smart Cities, CES is the one show in the world where attendees can see all the component technologies needed for the system.
There were really four parts to the CES Unveiled conference, attended by about 140 members of the press:
- Shapiro discussing the state of the CTA and CES,
- Karen Chupka, EVP of CES for the CTA, gave a preview of what will be at CES 2020,
- Ms. Chupka announced some of the CES 2020 innovation award winners and
- Lesley Rohrbaugh, Director of Market Research, and Steven Hummel, Sr. Resarch Analyst, discussing the CTA forecasts for the holiday selling season.
Shapiro discussed how technology can solve problems but also can also create problems as well: technology can be used for good and bad purposes. He agreed it is proper for governments to ban certain technologies and make them illegal for consumers to own. One technology, he said, it is clear should not be a consumer technology: nuclear weapons. Who can argue with that? Another example he used was a red-light changer, a device where an emergency vehicle like a police car, fire truck or ambulance can, in certain jurisdictions, change a red light to green as the vehicle approaches. He feels It is not right for a consumer to own a device like this in cities where the traffic lights are equipped for it – the consumer should wait his turn and not be able to change a red light to green.
The CTA is a trade association of manufacturers and other technology suppliers and Mr. Shapiro represents them, not consumers. As such, when there is doubt over whether a device should be legal or not, he comes down on the side of the manufacturers. His example of this was a radar detector, which is banned in some jurisdictions. He said it has good and socially useful applications, such as alerting drivers and making them pay more attention to their driving and speed.
Another device from history he said had both legal and illegal uses was the Betamax Video Cassette Recorder (VCR). It could be used both for time-shifting TV shows and making copies of them for sale, violating copyright law. At the time the products were developed, the courts came down on the side of the VCR manufacturers such as Sony against the content providers such as Disney and legalized the VCR.
Privacy an Issue
Another topic he discussed was digital privacy. He said Europe was on one end of the spectrum in terms of protecting consumer privacy with rules such as the right to be forgotten. Under this rule, an individual can force a company like Google to delete even true information from its search engines, so the individual’s transgressions will not show up in digital searches. The opposite extreme example in terms of privacy that he used was China. In China, there is no privacy of anything digital, especially if the government wants the information. In practical terms, this lack of digital privacy is also extended to Chinese companies that want to use or accumulate databases on individuals.
Privacy is also tied up in the development of certain forms of artificial intelligence (AI) such as facial recognition. Training facial recognition AI programs requires a vast database of facial images and data on the individuals represented in these images. This type of data is readily available in China but is severely restricted in Europe, so China has become the main center of facial recognition AI in the world.
On privacy, Shapiro believes the US should steer a course between the courses followed by China and Europe. This is a complex problem and I wish he had suggested exactly where the limits on consumer privacy in the US should be set.
One thing Shapiro did announce was a partnership with the World Bank Group to mobilize the tech community and create solutions focused on key challenges for emerging markets and developing economies through a joint global challenge. This program will be formally launched at CES 2020 and will initially focus on three particular world problems:
- Health,
- Gender barriers and
- Technologies that enable communities to be more resilient in the face of disasters and climate change.
Makhtar Diop, World Bank VP of Infrastructure (not present at CES Unveiled) said in the announcement,
“Across emerging markets and developing economies, thousands of entrepreneurs are coming up with innovative solutions to solve their countries’ most pressing development issues. In partnering with CES, we are calling on the tech community to come up with bold and practical ideas to solve specific challenges such as reducing the digital gender gap. The Global Tech Challenge is an opportunity to bring the voices of entrepreneurs from countries often under-represented to the global tech stage.”
The announcement did not go into details of this tech challenge program but more details will be given out at CES 2020. Shapiro expects not only that the CES 2020 exhibition will shed light on these developmental issues, but said there will be conference programs that address these questions directly.
Since the CTA is an organization representing industry, it was appropriate that he discussed the current US trade war with China and, seemingly, with the entire world. He said, “One step forward, two tweets backward.” Enough said.
Map of CES 2020. (Credit: CTA)
Following Shapiro, Karen Chupka took the stage to give highlights of the upcoming CES 2020, to be held, as usual, in Las Vegas.
She said Las Vegas is building an expansion of the convention center but the CES will not use it for CES 2020. It will be ready for CES 2021, so that show can be even bigger than previous CES shows, perhaps not necessarily what attendees, many overwhelmed by the current show size, want to hear. Perhaps the new convention center space will help CES avoid the current spread of CES over large areas of Las Vegas and make everything more accessible?
CES 2020 will be spread over three general areas: Tech East, which includes the convention center plus the Westgate and Renaissance Hotels; Tech West, which includes the Encore, Wynn, Palazzo, and Venetian hotels plus the Sands Expo center; and Tech South, which includes the Vdara, Aria and Park MGM hotels plus the Park Theater. Plan your visit and bring comfortable shoes! For complete details, see the official CES 2020 map.
At CES 2020, she said there would be 4500+ exhibitors and 1200 startups in Eureka Park. She said that 65% of fortune 500 companies will be at CES 2020. Again, some of the Fortune 500 companies she listed specifically would not normally be considered consumer technology companies, including Cigna, Novartis, Bank of China, Humana, USAA and Accenture. Others, like Coca Cola, are clearly consumer-oriented companies, but somehow I don’t think of Coke as a technology company.
Chupka listed the technology areas of focus, including
- ‘Travel and Tourism’; ‘Vehicle Technology’, including 10 of the world’s major manufacturers of cars and car components;
- ‘Data and Analytics, which will have a companion Super-Session dealing with privacy;
- ‘5G; AI;
- ‘Digital Health’, where the accompanying conference will offer Continuing Medical Education Credits to doctors and others that need them;
- ‘Smart Cities’; and
- ‘Eureka Park’.
Chupka also talked about the CES innovation awards. There will be a total of about 500 awards, most of which will be unveiled at CES 2020 itself. Twenty were announced at CES Unveiled in New York. Of these, only one innovation award went to a display-centric product, the Galaxy Note10+ 5G from Samsung Electronics, a very predictable choice. Previously, 33 awards were announced at CES Unveiled in Paris and CES Unveiled in Amsterdam. None of these other innovation awards appear to be display-centric.
CTA Holiday Wish and Gift Lists (Credit: CTA)
Lesley Rohrbaugh and Steven Hummel gave the results of CTA studies of the upcoming holiday selling season. They expect total holiday sales to be down slightly from last year, from $97.5B to $97.1B. This is still up from the 2017 total of $93B.
One of the things I found amusing was the difference between the CTA Wish list, i.e. what people want, and the Gift list, what people are going to buy for them, as shown in the Image. All five items on the wish list are major display-centric items. However, none of the five items on the gift list is display-centric. You may want a new smartphone, but you may well get a new case for your old smartphone.
The two emphasized that “Content is King” at this year’s holiday gift giving time. 71% of gift givers expect to give content to at least one person on their gift list, including video game discs, streaming services and Blu Ray discs as the top three forms of content. Audio content will also have a significant share of the content gift market, including CDs, audio streaming services and vinyl records.
Shapiro and everyone else on stage at CES Unveiled used the catch phrase “Are you CES Ready?” Given the size of CES 2020 and the number of exhibitors, I suspect there are a number of attendees that are looking forward to January with dread. – Matthew Brennesholtz
