Guest commentary: Connectegration took center stage at CES-2024
By Dave Newton
The Las Vegas Convention Center had 15-ft letters, “A.I. for All — Society, Devices, Experiences” and that’s All I saw for four days: A.I. gathering, analyzing, and managing endless pipelines of data, All into endless applications of connected-integrated IoT.
A quick word on the great new shuttle access to the convention halls via a circulating fleet of 100 Teslas driving attendees through round ‘wormhole’ underground tunnels with changing LED colored lighting arriving at various stations with escalators up to the exhibit halls.
Very cool!
North Hall showcased digital healthcare apps and devices like Withings watches, scales, and monitors; BeamO for blood oxygen, heart rate, and body temp; CharmCare’s wearable blood pressure monitor; CERAGEM’s modular smart-bedding with thermal spine massage and health-stats monitoring; and Vivoo A.I’s image processing home UTI-test.
These are just a few examples among dozens of smart-Medtech A.I.-IoT personal health-tracking, diagnosis, and management. Way beyond Gordon Gecko’s 1985-era blood pressure device.
Sony, Samsung, and LG shared big visions for future A.I. impacts on society and lifestyle.
I also loved the joint Sony-Honda Afeela smart electric car with a digital touch-screen hi-rez dashboard stretching from the driver’s door to the front-passenger door, with dozens of video-audio-performance apps redefining the personal experience of riding in a car.
The Harman automobile digital dashboard also has amazing features, design, and hi-rez imaging.
LG showed off a new 57-inch wrap-around video monitor for future autonomous vehicles to display driving and climate info, movies, games, and phone comms.
Samsung debuted Premiere 8K wireless video projectors and new MusicFrame art reproductions that hang on the wall but are also robust wireless speakers — nice to have a Monet or Van Gough as an audio output for your smart TV or Spotify playlist.
LG had its new transparent flatscreen TV (like MuxWave) to display movies, artwork, posters, and signage in open spaces like sporting venues, airline/train terminals, and office building lobbies.
Samsung and LG debuted 2.5mm ultra-thin “wallpaper” OLED screens that peel on and off surfaces.
Finally, Skyworth showed off ceiling-mounted mini-projectors for each room in the house to share wall-sized TV viewing, artwork, gaming, or mood/sleep imaging.
Everyone now makes an electric bike, scooter, razor, one-wheel personal transport, including car-makers Bugatti, Dodge, and BMW — with folks cruising all around the exhibit halls. L’Oreal Paris continues to merge A.I. machine learning with personal digital imagery to “see” beauty products on you before you buy.
Personal audio was again a huge presence, with indoor/outdoor speakers from JBL, Focal, Samsung, SoundFun, Lodge, and Santa Barbara’s Sonos — which is expected to debut its newest Roam alongside long-awaited headphones and maybe a new TV-streaming product in 2024.
There were dozens of vintage turntables with box wireless speakers, including the Victrola Stream that boasts “It Works with Sonos.”
Funny, they all look exactly like what I had in my New Jersey bedroom 50 years ago when I was in high school listening to Springsteen, BTO, Bad Company, and Grand Funk vinyl albums — sans the wires.
Camarillo-based Scosche showed off its newest Mag-Safe BaseLynx modular charging system, compared to Qi2 rivals Belkin Boost or Anker MagGo — although Satechi is very close in ultra-stylish functionality.
Insta360 showed its Ace-Pro mini digital video camera with easy-intuitive A.I. editing, to shoot hi-rez personal outings anywhere in the snow, surf, and underwater.
I loved my demo of the newest PlayStation VR, as a Ghostbuster firing my plasma-proton pack light stream at monsters in an amazing New York City setting. Equally as fun was the rich hi-rez immersive graphics on my test drive on Sony’s Gran Turismo simulator.
But my favorite was the Skwheel-1 electric skis that strap in my own shoes, can hit 50mph, run for 30km, and get me outdoors moving exactly like my snow skis at Mammoth — except I can now ‘ski’ on grass, rock, beach sand, hiking trails, or Cabrillo Blvd. Very cool!
Not sure I’m ready to fully buy into the message throughout the 3 million sq. ft of exhibit space, that A.I. can only enrich my life while building my brighter future.
Many non-digital experiences still remain superior, and how much of my personal info will be data-analyzed with machines learning TMI about me?
My Fall-2024 new book “Wait . . . What?!” will tackle tech’s role and issues in everyday life.
It’s definitely here to keep you connectegrated.
Dr. Dave Newton teaches Executive Development programs in Data Analytics, Strategy, and Finance for The Rady Center at UC San Diego, GLOMACS-Dubai, and the UK’s Oxford Management Centre.
