Unexpected Take-Aways From CES

Moving straight from CES to another conference, made me delay a bit my CES insights, however it gave me a chance to really pull my thoughts together.  

There were of course some of the normal insights from CES:  cool cars (the Mercedes concept car!) , amazing gadgets(Samsung’s Ballie!), and awesome networking (SparkOptimus, Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands).  But I think the more interesting insights are around those unexpected take-aways.

My Top Three Unexpected Take-Aways:

1) Data is the soil. Data? Yes data. We’ve written and talked about it for so long, but it was front and center at CES.  I know we say data is the oil, but I love the direction that data is the soil that everything else grows from.  If you think this is old news, think again! Data is at the heart of EVERY major tech trend in the coming decade.  In fact, Industry Analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, said “if your device doesn’t have sensors, doesn’t connect to a phone, and doesn’t enable use of your data, why do it in 2020?”

 The list became very big at CES of new things using data to drive improvements for society:

1.    Alexa powered cars leveraging GPS to pay for your gas

2.    Smart Pajamas collecting data on steps, monitor your sleep, and detect a fall.  

3.    The Voice control facet from Moen tracking personal preferences.   

4.    AO Air with a “Bluetooth brain” that constantly tracks your respiratory activity

5.    Massage chairs that capture your heart rate

6.    Bosch using data for signaling to retailer’s consumer behaviors

7.    Toothbrushes that monitor your brushing habits for dental insurance

8.    Multiple healthcare companies leveraging data to diagnose patients earlier

9.    Electronic Caregiver collecting data on balance for the elderly

10. The Hyundai / Uber flying car collecting data on flight patterns.

And the question is “how does a user safeguard their data?”.  I love Werner Vogels, our CTO, quote on this topic “security is on one hand and privacy on the other. Privacy — what is acceptable to share, what is not acceptable to share — is often much more of a societal or individual decision.” Ensure you know what your new gadgets will be collecting. At Amazon from day one, security and privacy have always been a top concern. There’s no business without security to protect customers’ data, and we have very strong controls around this. Your data is your data, and we operate internally with a least privileged model, so we’re continually taking permissions from developers to see what’s the minimum set of privileges they actually need to do their job.

(NOTE: The scenarios that we’ve seen in the past year — with compromised home automation devices running a very open version of Linux — are scenarios that absolutely should not happen. That’s why Amazon FreeRTOS, IoT operating system, offers very strong identity and encryption in combination with IoT Device Defender to provide control over where data can flow and where not.)

However, one session I went to also questioned the length of time that data will be so crucial (maybe 7-10 years out!). They urged everyone to not base the longer-term strategy on the needs today for massive amounts of data. There are recent innovations that may lessen the need for lots of data like reinforcement learning (think Deep Racer from AWS) and few-shot learning techniques.

2) Application of AI/ML/IoT in industry. Of course, you expected me to mention artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML). But the aha moment for me was in all the applications of the technology in all different industries. 

For example,

1. Neon (From Samsung) helps lifelike avatars respond naturally to human interactions
2. Meat grown in laboratories - Cultured meat made by using stem cells from the fat or muscle of an animal. (#eFood)
3. Water from Air! Watergen's GENNY is a water-from-air system for the home or office that is able to create fresh drinking water from air! (#eAir)
4. Bone systems to treat people. For example, Better communications with Bone Connectivity with smart glasses to enhance your hearing. (#eHealth)
5. Golf AI embedded platform to enhance your play. (#AIPlay)
6. Cellular systems to treat people like a non-invasive, wearable diabetes alert device that uses the breath not blood to monitor this disease. (#eHealth)
7. Plasmonic materials like AerSIP which incorporates multi-gas sensing nanotechnology, microprocessor, algorithm and communication for plug-and-play integration into 3rd party IoT devices! (#NanoTech)

 At the AWS booth, we also showcased applications of AI! For example, we showed integration of Alexa, AWS machine learning and Amazon Rekognition capabilities to power an in-vehicle digital assistant. In another demo, we were able to demonstrate interactions between smart home systems and cars powered by Alexa and even how our AWS cloud technologies can help automakers manage autonomous fleets. I even got to demo our integration of our AWS Cloud and Alexa into paying for gas!

3) Private and Public Partnership. Yes, that’s right. I met with companies and country governments from France, Netherlands, Korea, India and more and the discussion was on how the public/private partnership could really drive benefits.  Partnerships between private companies and government provide advantages to both parties. Private-sector technology and innovation, for example, can help provide better public services through improved operational efficiency. The Korean dinner was a night to see public and private entities innovating together.

One of my favorite examples came from what the French Government is doing around the French Tech 120.  I was on a panel with Kat Borlongan, Director French Tech Mission, who helps to drive the start-up community with the French Government.  Here’s how France is partnering together between public and private!

• 3 wishes. French Tech 120 can go into Aladdin-mode and request up three things of the French Tech Mission and its Correspondents throughout the year. Within the limits of legality, of course.
• Bizdev opportunities with the state. Expedited approval as supplier companies, and business appointments with ministries and government agencies.
• On top of the 3 wishes, unlimited access to a range of services offered by 40+ ministries and government agencies, designed to meet the needs and speed of startups in hyper-growth. 4 categories: international development, funding, go-to-market and support with government-related issues.
• A wide (and totally legit) berth for experimentation: Government support to build customized regulatory and legal sandboxes. This means French Tech 120 companies, especially those in areas that move too fast for proper regulation, may benefit from regulatory and legal exemptions over a pre-determined period of time.
• Plus, they get year-round support from a dedicated “Startup Engagement Manager,” to help them make the most of the program.

Who knew and Wow!

Overall, CES was an amazing learning experience!