With more than 4,400 exhibiting companies and more than 2.7 million square feet of exhibition hall, CES is overwhelming. Here’s what to expect from the upcoming show, from AI and self-driving cars to 5G networks and foldable phones and 8K televisions.
Tech shapes our daily life, impacting not just how we read and work and play but how we interact, how we learn, how we grow. And just days from now in Las Vegas, CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) will give us a window into what that will look like.
Unfortunately, it’s a really big window.
With more than 4,400 exhibiting companies and more than 2.7 million square feet of exhibition hall, it’s hard to glimpse tomorrow; that window is plastered in banner ads for Alexa, new televisions, and more iPhone cases than you can shake a fanboy at. Let me do the work for you. I’ve read the 687 emails I received in the last three weeks and synthesized all the announcements from LG, Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm, and everyone else. Here’s my list of the large trends that we’ll see in 2019, to help you make sense of the wonderful, mesmerizing chaos that is CES 2019.
Yes, there will be voice-powered devices at CES. Yes, there will be smart speakers running Alexa, and yes, Google Home will be embedded in TVs and lightbulbs and other things. But A. I. goes well beyond simply telling you what to wear. In one of the first keynotes of the show, I. P. Park, president and chief technology officer of LG Electronics, will detail the company’s vision for A. I., which can “solve this problem of using complex systems, so that the devices become smart — and smart devices mean they’ll know exactly what you want,” he told Digital Trends, in an exclusive preview of the keynote.
Baking A. I. into everything solves the conundrum that lies at the heart of modern technology, threading its way from your phone to your dishwasher to your air conditioner: “Currently, you need to be smart to use a smartphone,” Park joked. So look for smart tech in everything the company makes from here on out – and in everything EVERYONE makes. I read press releases about A. I.-powered security cameras, mattresses, memory chips, golf gear, grand pianos, televisions, translators ….
It’s been hard to miss brands shouting about their efforts to bring 5G networks to the world over the past few years. With substantially faster speeds and vastly lower latency times, the next-generation networking technology will interconnect everything from cars to computers to smart homes. Like the Internet back in 1999, this will change everything. But up until now, the advancements have been … let’s say more hope and hype than here and now.
No more.
In 2019, every major carrier will have pilot 5G programs up and running.
