CES 2016: What to Expect
Shelly Palmer
Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University
The newly named CTA? (Consumer Technology Association, formerly the Consumer Electronics Association or CEA) will hold the newly named CES? 2016 show (Consumer Electronics Show, formerly International CES) this week. Here’s what to expect.
Things You Can Talk To
If you’re not a lover of the QWERTY keyboard (designed in 1868 by Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, with the specific intention of slowing you down so that the letter strikers were less likely to jam), rejoice! It may be nearing the end of days. “Hey Siri,” “OK Google,” “Alexa,” “Cortana” — we are getting close to a time where voice recognition will be really useful. Expect to see enhanced and extended voice command capabilities in practically every device that might need them. We’ll be talking to a lot of inanimate objects this year. It should be fun.
Man/Machine Partnerships
From wooden spears to stone axes, our partnerships with tools predate history. At CES 2016 we’re going to see man/machine partnerships taken to a new level. We’re already partnered with services like Google search, IMDB and Wolfram Alpha to outsource our memory. We’re partnered with services like Google Maps and WAZE to outsource our way-finding. Now we’re going to partner with our cars to outsource part of our driving. Semi-autonomous tools such as lane assist, self-parking and adaptive cruise control are just the beginning. By 2020 the big car makers will have fully autonomous vehicles ready to go.
There’s more to man/machine partnerships than self-driving cars. We’ll see conventional robots for manufacturing, anthropomorphic robots for companionship and game-play and much better versions for housekeeping and other chores. Roomba has a robo-vacuum that not only cleans your floor, it can create an invariant map of your floor plan. Is that data set the “price” of a clean house? Let’s hope not. I don’t want my robovac ratting me out to the local zoning authorities because my bathroom hallway isn’t up to current building codes.
Everything That Can Be Connected Will Be Connected
If you can put a sensor in it, it will have a sensor. If you can computerize it, it will be computerized. If it would benefit from the ability to transmit and receive, it will have two-way communication capabilities. This is “the” story of CES 2016. Absolutely everything that can be connected will be connected. Therefore, we are going to drown in data. Nothing can stop it. The velocity of data is increasing and will always increase. There’s no other way to think about it.
Data, Data and More Data
By 2019 analysts predict that only 49 percent of data in the cloud will be from PCs, and the biggest drivers of the shift will be smartphones and IoT.
Analysts expect the Industrial Internet (another name for IoT, the Internet of Things) to generate over 500 zettabytes in 2019 — 49 times current cloud traffic. Of course, consumer cloud usage will grow as well.
You’re wondering what a zettabyte is. OK, let’s do it. One bit or binary digital is the smallest (and largest) unit of computer data. Bits are generally arranged and stored in eight-bit multiples called bytes. One thousand bytes equals a kilobyte or KB. One million bytes equals a megabyte or MB. One billion bytes equals a gigabyte or GB. One trillion bytes equals a terabyte or TB.
We all know about how much we can store on a one-terabyte drive, so let’s do the rest of the ordinals related to the number of terabytes — it will be easier to deal with.
A petabyte or one PB is equal to 1,000 terabytes. An exabyte or EB is equal to a million terabytes and a zettabyte or ZB, the size of the number we are trying to understand, is equal to one billion terabytes. If that’s how much data we’ll store in the cloud by 2019, you might as well know that 500 zettabytes is equal to half a yottabyte, and a yottabyte or YB is equal to one trillion terabytes. Now, that’s a yotta data — sorry, I couldn’t resist.
TVs Will Be Better and Cheaper
Get ready for super-thin, super-cheap, super-awesome 4K TVs. If you’re buying a TV today, you don’t really need a 4K set, but if you’re going to buy a set when these new models become available (in about a year or two), you will enjoy amazing color space, incredible dynamic range (whiter whites and blacker blacks), astounding resolution and unnoticeable refresh rates. We’re even going to see flexible screens on display which, when productized, will usher in a true paradigm shift.
VR and AR
VR (virtual reality) is all anyone is going to talk about at CES this year. Someday, it will find its place. It’s the 3D TV of CES 2016 (Please don’t send me hate mail — I know VR is going to be big and awesome someday. The day is not today, the year is not this year. Over time, VR will evolve into what it’s going to be. Today, it represents a parlor trick, not a paradigm shift.) The hype machine is working overtime. In practice, it is very, very, very early days.
It is also early days for AR (augmented reality), but you can expect this technology to find fast adoption in both industrial and consumer uses. Its capabilities are tied to cloud computing power and network capabilities, which can both be calculated on well-understood industry power curves.
Drones for Everyone
Delivery drones, camera drones, tiny drones, spy drones, follow-me drones, smart drones — there’s a drone for everyone. If you are considering any type of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), you’ll find some version of it at CES. I’m a particular fan of camera drones that follow the action and have obstacle avoidance built in. I’m also a fan of super-tiny indoor drones — they’re just fun!
It’s Important to Be Important
One undeclared, but in-your-face, battle at CES will be for the right to be the center of your personal communications universe. Today, and for the foreseeable future, this honor is bestowed on your smartphone. But what single app will win the day? Samsung wants to “own” you. So does Apple. In fact, almost anyone with a hope of winning this battle is doing everything it can to get a prime spot on the lower right-hand side of your smartphone screen — just under your right thumb (left for lefties). What technology at CES will be important enough for you to give it your thumb? It’s a good filter to use as you walk the show.
We’re live blogging from CES. You can visit ces.shellypalmer.com to learn about our Floor Tours and Events, see Featured Exhibits, get access to our 2016 CE Trend Report and maximize your time at the show. See you in Las Vegas.
About Shelly Palmer
Named one of LinkedIn’s Top 10 Voices in Technology, Shelly Palmer is Managing Partner at Palmer Advanced Media, a technology-focused strategic advisory practice that helps Fortune 500 companies and growth-stage companies with digital strategy, data science, marketing, branding, and business development. He is Fox 5 New York's on-air tech and digital media expert and a regular commentator on CNBC and CNN. @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.
Independent Consumer Services Professional
8 年It never ceases to amaze, confuse, & disappoint me when I read articles about how advances in technology are going to do so much to better the future of the human race, and the authors of these articles virtually never even mention the one 'advancement' that unless it is successfully addressed in the very near future---and the intellect that was capable of coming up with the mind boggling 'advancements' that were responsible for creating both our present 'quality of life', as well as all of the other technological wonders that exist in the world today should have no trouble doing so---will virtually assure that these 'advancements' and any others that come after them, WILL NEVER come close to realizing their full potential/usefulness, if they are ever even used at all!!! . If our country/world is going to continue to flourish in a manner that is acceptable to all peoples of the world, it is absolutely imperative that all sectors of our society continue to advance/improve in a manner relative to any additions/advancements to our current storehouse of knowledge & technology which may be relevant to that progress---if we hadn't been 'derelict in our duty' for the last 200 or so years, and had been following this principle(and a few others that can be found at the 2 links below)we would now be living in a relatively 'utopian' society instead of a world in chaos & turmoil!!!! . I find it extremely hard to understand how the kind of intellect that is capable of coming up with the amazing technology alluded to above, can be so completely blind to this fact: "that the many different 'infrastructures' that comprise the makeup of certain key sectors of our society are mandatory to the continued existence of the kind of country that AMERICA has always been". They also seem to be blind to the fact that these sectors of society must continuously be advanced/improved & maintained in a manner that is easily accomplished as new knowledge & technology becomes available!!! . Adding to the above 'ignorance', is the fact that for some time now, there has been a race that is running rampant out there in society in the form of a frantic and madcap quest for UNNECESSARY 'social' and technological advancement in certain areas of both the public and private sectors of our society, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, OTHER, MUCH MORE IMPORTANT AREAS OF IT(many of which are imperative to the continued existence of any free society)ARE BEING COMPLETELY NEGLECTED OR IGNORED ALTOGETHER, even though they can be easily 'upgraded' to the max with just existing technology!!!! . In the private sector for instance, seemingly intelligent investors of every size & shape are trying to find & fund new 'start ups' that are based on creating & marketing BOTH more & more 'gadgets' and other 'creature comfort' type things, AS WELL AS trying to create various 'futuristic' type projects(drones to deliver consumer products to households, a nationwide compressed air tube to take people from coast to coast, consumer space flights, outposts on both the moon and mars, driverless cars, etc, etc.), all of whose success are dependent upon our country having/maintaining a strong & stable economic infrastructure, so that if any of these ventures eventually proved to be fiscally/technically feasible, there will still be ample people left in the country with enough money/resources to be able to use/purchase them. . Unfortunately too, as intelligent as 'the powers that be' in both the public & private sectors of our society think they are(they are after all, members of that same 'species' of life whose intellect was responsible for creating both our present 'quality of life', as well as all of the other technological wonders that exist in the world today), they seem to be blind to the fact that, among other things, our current economic policies have permanently weakened the very foundation upon which, not only the success of the above alluded to projects depends, but also that upon which our continued quality of life as well as the entire economic & political future of both our own country & the rest of the worlds depends on as well!!!! . We should therefore IMMEDIATELY put some of these more 'creature comfort' type advancements TEMPORARILY on hold, and allocate a big portion of our time, effort & money to doing whatever it takes in order to 'shore up' our nations rapidly deteriorating economic infrastructure(and those few other key sectors of society which upon which our country's continued survival is inexorably dependent on as well)before we have passed 'the point of no return', at which time even an instant return to sanity/common sense will be to late to save us. . P.S.: IF I MAY BE SO BOLD AS TO SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING: GIVE ME 300 million dollars, and in less than a decade, WE(THE AMERICAN PEOPLE & MYSELF)will do our part in 'changing the world' by transforming AMERICA into the kind of country that it would be now if THE TRUTH & THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE had been properly respected for the last 200 years or so!!!! Discount Convenience Stores(https://discounstores.weebly.com) cureforusa(https://cureforusa.weebly.com)
Designer ○ STEM Educator ○ R&D
8 年I miss Qwerty boards on smart phones.
Technical and like-able product design engineer. #ono
8 年CTA is already trademarked for the Colorado Technology Association. FYI.
Founder of Crowdsourced Public Safety Maps
8 年I wish data was easier to display and promote at CES. Devices you can see touch and feel. Data is just hard to promote.