The biggest tech show of the year is kicking off. We take a look behind the scenes.
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The tech sector enjoys its usual sunny start to the year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas, which kicks off today and runs until 12th January. By the end of this week, we will all know where tech companies believe our tech lives will take us in 2019. Over 4,500 companies exhibiting at CES are already vying for media attention, and plenty of (now traditional) sneak previews have been available since 6 January.
CES has run since 1967 and is the world’s biggest annual tech event. It will see more launches than any other event this year, although some of the “BigTech” companies will save their launches for stand-alone events later in the year. Apple, for example, does not have a stand at CES; although that hasn’t stopped its rival, Samsung, from announcing that Apple’s iTunes will be integrated in its smart tv’s from spring of 2019, offering movies and tv shows, but notably not music.
In 2018, voice assistance was one of the show highlights – and my year of arguing with Alexa reflects that this was bang on trend. But where is CES 2019 likely to take us?
China of course plays a significant role in this year’s CES, with a record number of exhibitors demonstrating the country’s technology. Although unsurprisingly, given the Huawei debacle of recent weeks, Huawei is apparently rather low key.
The UK is well represented. Last week I spoke to Larry Poon, co-founder and COO of UK IoT start up, “Imont”, which has a stand in the UK Pavillion. Larry explained that many of the start-ups representing the UK had been assisted by UK Innovations, which provided grants to UK start-ups allowing them to showcase their products at CES alongside some of the larger UK based companies, like the open source darling, Canonical.
And what areas does Larry expect to be key in 2019, apart from Imont’s secure IoT offering? “A lot of wearable smart devices, robotics and more drone type things are of interest to people. And, of course, everyone will be looking at 5G”.
Autonomous Vehicles: It’s not just vehicles, but everything from lawn mowers to suitcases which will go autonomous in 2019. And in the automotive space, we can expect myriad infotainment and E-vehicles on display. Fisker Emotion’s car was the belle of 2018, and this year there will be no shortage of new models, from both major car manufacturers and some relatively new automotive entrants. This year we can expect autonomous to mean autonomous, with the level of autonomy in vehicles hitting what is known as “Level 3”: fully autonomous vehicles, as opposed to vehicles offering autonomous functions.
IoT and Wearables: Always get a good outing at CES, and this year there will be an increased focus on health and interaction with the home.
As Larry pointed out, 5G is hitting the headlines, with chip company Qualcomm launching its beamforming tech. As with 2018, it’s unlikely that many big announcements will be made in the mobile space in 2019, as the mobile phone manufacturers and network operators are more likely to make those in their traditional winter sun spot, Barcelona, in February when the mobile world gathers for Mobile World Congress (MWC).
AI and augmented reality will be centre stage over the next few days. My personal favourite from CES? It’s going to be hard for any announcement this week to beat the IoT cat toilet!
