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Here’s a tip whether you’re attending or just keeping tabs on the 2015 edition of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Get used to the word “connected.”
Connected this, connected that, connected everything. Heading into the tech industry’s annual consumer fête in Sin City, it is the one word that best sums up the buzz. Think connected cars, connected homes, connected people, and the myriad connected devices those people carry, or, as might increasingly be the case, the myriad connected devices people wear. All of these technologies have made prior appearances at CES, but they’ll take up even more of the desert air this year, from a self-parking BMW, to home automation advances, to the growing industry of developer frameworks such as Android Wear and Apple HomeKit.
At CES Unveiled, a pre-show gadget bazaar staged to tease the news media about this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), two trends have emerged: more wearables pitched for better accuracy (some even carrying “medical-grade” claims) and more gateway products designed to allow Bluetooth Low Energy-equipped gadgets to talk to a WiFi router at home or directly with the outside world.
The International CES ceased to be a show about TV sets and HiFi equipment a decade ago. Mobility — smartphones and automotive — has invaded more and more show-floor space since then. Aside from the 4K TV trend, this year’s CES appears to be all about embedded systems and personal gadgets — but not necessarily smartphones — that take advantage of MEMS sensors and connectivity.
Intel announced at CES 2015 the Broadwell family, its fifth-generation Core processors. The 14 new chips are essentially versions of the company’s 22nm Haswell architecture made in its new 14nm process, providing enhancements it hopes encourages PC and notebook users to upgrade.
Intel will offer dual and quad-core chips — 10 processors at 15W (both Core i5 and i7 chips) with Intel HD graphics, and four 28W products with Intel Iris Graphics spanning i3, i5, and i7 lines. The dual-core chips have 1.9 billion transistors, a 35% increase over the prior generation, and a 133 mm2 footprint that is approximately 50mm2 smaller than its predecessors. The 15W chips have data rates up to 3.1 GHz while 28W i7 cores hit up to 3.4 GHz.
The Broadwell chips have L3 caches ranging from 2 to 4 Mbytes, roughly the same as Haswell.
3D printing has lost its novelty value a bit, but new printing materials that MakerBot plans to release will soon make it a lot more interesting again.
MakerBot is one of the best-known makers of desktop 3D printers, and at CES this week it announced that late this year its products will be able to print objects using composite materials that combine plastic with wood, metal or stone.
At CES, I handled a 3D-printed hammer made from composites of maple and iron, and I came away impressed. It was a bit lighter than a real hammer but still had some heft to it, and the surface of the wood actually looked and felt like wood grain. It even smelled of wood, because there is real wood in the composite.
The iron head was a bit less convincing. The surface texture felt right, but it wasn’t heavy enough to be iron and it was too warm
A “deeply personal” picture of every consumer could be grabbed by futuristic smart gadgets, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission has warned.
Speaking at CES, Edith Ramirez said a future full of smart gadgets that watch what we do posed a threat to privacy.
The collated data could create a false impression if given to employers, universities or companies, she said.
Ms Ramirez urged tech firms to make sure gadgets gathered the minimum data needed to fulfil their function.
The internet of things (IoT), which will populate homes, cars and bodies with devices that use sophisticated sensors to monitor people, could easily build up a “deeply personal and startlingly complete picture” of a person’s lifestyle, said Ms Ramirez.
The data picture would include details about an individuals credit history, health, religious preferences, family, friends and a host of other indicators, she said.
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Android TV sets from Philips, Sharp and Sony are coming this spring — Google’s years-long effort to get a foothold in the living room is finally paying off. The search pioneer has announced that TVs from Sharp, Sony and TP Vision (aka Philips) will all run Android TV when they arrive this spring.
Google’s years-long effort to get a foothold in the living room is finally paying off. The search pioneer has announced that TVs from Sharp, Sony and TP Vision (aka Philips) will all run Android TV when they arrive this spring. Both Sharp and Sony will have multiple 4K models using the internet-savvy software, and every single Philips set will ship with Google’s technology on board. You can also expect to see the operating system on Razer’s Forge TV game console this February, and Huawei is building an Android TV media player that arrives later this year.
The folks in Mountain View aren’t about to declare victory. Major brands like LG, Panasonic and Samsung have all conspicuously shied away from Android TV in favor of other platforms,
Intel has today unveiled Curie, a low-powered module no bigger than a button, as part of its vision to lead in the wearables field. Company CEO Brian Krzanich announced the module, which will be built on a tiny new chip called the Quark SE, during his keynote at CES in Las Vegas — a year on from announcing the Intel Edison platform.
The module incorporates the low-power 32-bit Quark microcontroller, 384kB of flash memory, motion sensors, Bluetooth LE and battery-charging capabilities in order to power the very smallest of devices. Intel is hoping Curie will prove the flexible solution designers need to create wearables such as rings, pendants, bracelets, bags, fitness trackers and even buttons. It has been created with always-on applications in mind, so will be suitable for devices that relay notifications or constantly track a wearer’s activity.
“You could think of it maybe as Edison for wearables.”
Intel believes that predictions there will be 50 billion wearable devices by 2020 will not happen without platforms like Curie. “That’s not going to happen unless its approachable for people to build those devices,” says Bell.
Two of three groups aiming to establish a standard for wireless charging of mobile devices have agreed to merge with an eye to quicker adoption and economies of scale for the technology.
nterest in wireless charging technology has seen a surge as device makers try to make it easier for customers to recharge devices, without having to carry around power cables.
The groups are the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), backed by over 140 companies including Intel and Samsung Electronics, and the Power Matters Alliance, a 70-member group that has AT&T and Starbucks on its board.
They have agreed to merge their two organizations by mid-2015 and set up an as yet unnamed organization to “accelerate the availability and deployment of wireless charging technology on a global scale,” according to a statement Monday.
The two organizations agreed in February to make their wireless power standards interoperable globally.
The merged groups are expected to aim to offer users a choice of both technologies. “The ‘standards war’ narrative presents a false choice,” said Kamil Grajski, Board chair and president of A4WP. ”Consider that the typical mass-market smartphone contains a multiplicity of radio technologies (Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, 3G, LTE) each built around a vibrant ecosystem, whereas other devices are single-mode (Bluetooth headset).”
“The A4WP PMA merger is in the same spirit: enable the market to apply technologies to their best use cases,” Grajski added.
The groups had already proposed in February that A4WP would adopt the PMA inductive specification as a supported option for multi-mode inductive, magnetic resonance implementations, while PMA agreed to adopt the A4WP Rezence specification as the PMA magnetic resonance charging specification for both transmitters and receivers in both single and multi-mode configurations.
Will 2015 be the Year of the Outrageously Expensive TV or just another Year of Incremental Improvements in Technology? A few days in, it’s still unclear.
If you look at the early news coming out of the International CES this week in Las Vegas, it is clear that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a dominant theme. With more than 900 IoT exhibitors showing products and the opening keynotes at the show IoT related, the energy behind the technology is immense. But it may be too much.
Early reports from the show are somewhat disquieting in the breadth and range of IoT offerings that are “me too” kinds of wearables and convenience-oriented products of marginal value. Some of the highlights include a tea kettle you can remotely start with a smartphone app, an automatic plant watering device that reports plant status to the cloud, and a coffee pot that strengthens its morning brew if your fitness monitor shows you didn’t get enough sleep the night before. There are also innumerable variations on health and body monitors and smart watches on display.
Frankly, most of these new products invoke little more than mild interest in me at best, and usually elicit a big yawn. But then, I have been covering the IoT for some time now and not so easily impressed. I can see, though, how the general consumer could find these devices amazing and exciting the first time they encounter them. But that will only be a flash of interest based on the novelty of the technology. For consumer IoT to develop a lasting market, it will need to actually offer value. And for the IoT to deliver its full value, devices need to be able to connect with one another in true Internet fashion rather than be the isolated solutions that they are today
And this, to me, is the harm in the push for IoT at CES. It is generating excitement among consumers, but too much too soon. Consumers are a fickle lot, hard to keep satisfied, and when they discover that these nifty-sounding devices are actually little more than remote-controlled versions of what they already have that are hard to combine into anything more substantial, they will abandon the technology in droves. That can only harm the industry.
Sean Portnoy / ZDNet:
Intel Compute Stick: quad-core CPU, built in Wi-Fi, on board storage; plugs into any HDMI display, ships with Windows for $149, or Linux for $89, avail. March — CES 2015: Intel introduces Compute Stick with Atom quad-core CPU — Summary:The PC-on-a-stick will come pre-loaded with Windows 8.1 for $149
Summary:An explosion of operating system choices has appeared at CES 2015 — a shame that it is in an area where agility does not occur, and stability is key.
It’s striking just how huge this thing is. Every hotel on the strip is crawling with badge-wearing CES attendees. Many of the conference halls in the hotels are filled with booths, meaning the thing is spread out over a huge geographic area.
At CES on Monday, iDevices, along with Schlage and Chamberlain announced three new devices that will be compatible with Apple’s HomeKit. Announced in 2014, HomeKit is Apple’s attempt to organize the often disjointed world of home automation.
launching Switch, a plug that allows your iPhone to control the appliances, lights, and more that you plug into it
95-year-old lock-making company Schlage has an updated smart lock system called Schlage Sense. The lock allows you to enter your home by speaking to your iPhone. If your iPhone dies, you can always use the touch key pad or a good old-fashioned key.
Chamberlain announced that it’s Wi-Fi garage door control system, MyQ Garage
CES 2015 Concerned about a potential influx of unsafe and ignorant drone owners, the US Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is backing an initiative to teach safe flying.
The industry advocate said that with sales of personal drone ‘copters soaring over the holiday season, it would need to step up efforts to keep new owners from breaking FAA rules on the safe and legal operation of the crafts.
To that end, the group is going to put its sizeable marketing muscle behind Know Before You Fly, a hobby aircraft safety program backed by the Academy of Model Aeronautics and FAA.
Among the key aims of the project will be to spread federal regulations on operating drones and model aircraft, such as staying at altitudes below 400 feet and not operating within five miles (8km) of airports.
This year, the driving category seems to be The Internet of Things. Door locks, thermostats, appliances, light switches, automobiles—all seem to be fair game for digital-age upgrades. That’s in addition to the activity trackers, Internet-enabled televisions, next-generation games, and apps of all kinds that some 3,500 companies will spend the next week actively pushing on the convention-center floor.
(The sheer size of CES makes it extraordinarily difficult for smaller companies to stand out)
Just because the Internet of Things seems poised to dominate CES doesn’t mean that the industry and consumers will automatically embrace the technology over the next twelve months, at least in the way these companies might expect.
That doesn’t mean the Internet of Things won’t become the Next Big Thing. But it might evolve in ways that nobody at CES anticipates—and the company that takes the spoils might not even be present at this year’s show.
Some of the toy tech that has shown up at CES this week just makes me wish I was a kid again so that I had an excuse to play with it all day. Leading the pack was definitely the chirruping and highly animated Meccanoid robot from Meccano that seemed to constantly be surrounded by a crowd of adult-sized kids, all gazing at it longingly.
Rather than being crafted from the traditional metal, 4-foot Meccanoid is instead made from a lightweight polycarbonate, to keep him nice and light. Building him is just part of the fun though.
Meccanoid takes advantage of an open source robotic platform and on-board software called the “Mecca Brain” to use voice recognition to talk to you. A bit like Johnny Five, he has thousands of phrases and will play and interact with you, as well as remembering your birthday. Now that’s a true pal right there.
An accompanying app allows you to use motion capture to get Meccanoid to mimic your movements in real time. Of course because he is open source, Meccanoid can potentially be programmed to do all sorts of things.
Meccanoid isn’t available just yet, but when he is later this year the full kit that includes everything you need to build him will cost $400 (£265).
While many companies displaying their “smart home” innovations at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) seem to be catering to an audience for whom cost is no object, Echostar has brought to the show a home security system called Sage, under the Hughes brand, that marches boldly in the opposite direction.
Sage is a “home automation” kit, heavy on security devices, that can be installed by hand, according to the company, by a novice do-it-yourselfer. In the area of cost, said spokesperson Linda Haugsted, it liberates homeowners from monthly service fees.
Although reluctant to reveal the price of the Sage “starter kit” until it hits the market officially, she named Sage’s target competitor, saying, “We will be disruptive to ADT’s business model.”
ADT, a leader in home security, charges both for installation and requires monthly fees. Sage, after installation by the purchaser or with professional help, falls entirely under the homeowner’s control. Its current features include home-network links to security cameras, lights, locks, doors and windows, thermostats and various sensors.
The most important product at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show may not actually be a product at all. It’s a policy. Samsung Electronics has pledged that 90 percent of all devices it creates, including televisions and mobile devices, will be Internet-enabled by 2017—just two short years away. The remaining 10 percent will come on board by 2020. Considering that in 2014 Samsung delivered more than 665 million products to consumers around the world, it’s hard to understate how important this is to the overall move to turn the Internet of Things—the everything-is-connected tech Valhalla—from a plaything for early adopters into the mainstream of moms and microwaves.
There’s more: In addition to building this functionality into its own products, Samsung’s platform will be entirely open, rolling out the red carpet for developers and other software and hardware manufacturers to, basically, have at it. Samsung’s smart-home push has been anticipated for a long time, particularly since it acquired smart-home sensation SmartThings in August 2014, but few expected this level of openness. Samsung could have just as easily created a walled garden, forcing users to choose from Samsung or a specific partner devices to assemble a networked life of automatic temperature adjustments and TV-based alerts.
“The Internet of Things is not about things, it is about people,”
Creating an Internet of Things that did not place improving people’s lives at the core of its mission would be “like a bedtime story for robots.”
The move comes as Samsung’s hugely successful smartphone business is under significant pressure, particularly from lower-cost competitors in China. “When the mobile business ceases to be profitable, Samsung will have to force its way into some other industry that requires a lot of upfront capital and expertise in mass-manufacturing,” my colleague Sam Grobart wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek almost two years ago.
SmartThings is still at the core of Samsung’s push forward. Though Yoon didn’t emphasize it in his keynote, SmartThings unveiled the second version of its core Hub product—its version of a central command center for your house—earlier in the day, along with updates to its other hardware offerings.
Services also stand to be a big part of the Internet of Things marketplace as Samsung envisions it. SmartThings will offer the first, a premium subscription service (price to be announced) that will allow users to configure message and phone call alerts that can be escalated to friends and family. If you leave the oven on, you might get an alert; if the security alarm goes off, your down-the-street neighbors might get one, too. Without rigid boundaries between different manufacturers’ devices, it wouldn’t be surprising to see third parties figure out how to squeeze more functionality out of them for a fee. This is the Google Play store for your kitchen instead of your Galaxy.
There’s still a long way to go before this is all a reality. Samsung gave itself a two-year runway, and it’ll take a good bit of time after that for homeowners to embrace the devices. Buying a new smartphone is a lot easier than swapping out all your home appliances. For now, Samsung’s pledge of a well-developed, truly open Internet of Things starts with the SmartThings Hub, some well-credentialed corporate partners, and a lot of people who really want to see this succeed.
One of the interesting things about some of the TV announcements at CES has been the prominence given to the operating system. Opera has been banging on about its platform and app store for televisions recently. Roku has teamed up with some small players to build sets around their platform, and now others are making a fuss about the operating system, following LG’s leap into the fray with WebOS.
Now there are Samsung sets that are running Tizen, and Panasonic ones with Firefox OS, while Philips, Sony and Sharp are all going with Android.
To be fair, Google’s been trying to get something that works into the living room for a few years now; perhaps 2015 will turn out to be the year of both desktop Linux and a successful Google TV.
CES, the biggest tech exhibition on the planet, sets the stage for the year in tech. These trends from the show will shape technology in 2015.
Cars get more connected.
Drones and spycams. Watch out above! Drones were everywhere at CES, often hovering over attendees heads.
Wearables. Smartwatches may or may not eventually be a thing—while Sony and LG showed off new efforts, it appears the industry is on hold for whatever Cupertino brings to the table this spring.
4K goes mainstream. We’ve been seeing UHD TVs for two years now, and last year, Netflix introduced 4K streaming for House of Cards and some other programming at CES. But without enough media to watch, it was a wait-and-see proposition. That part’s over. Unlike with 3D, 4K is something everyone can appreciate immediately, and without wearing dorky, uncomfortable glasses.
3D cameras and printers. XYZprinting’s slick $349 da Vinci Junior, announced at the show, could be the catalyst for consumer 3D printing adoption. Lenovo, Dell, and Acer are among the PC manufacturers to unveil PCs with 3D cameras.
Virtual reality and curved screens. Granted, virtual reality has been a thing since the 1990s, and it’s been largely baloney throughout. But it’s different now.
The return of high-quality audio. I’ve been an audio buff for decades.
Now we’re seeing stereo systems that practically disappear into your room. Sonos was first with multi-room audio, but now everyone seems to have a solution, and where everything from showerheads to Christmas tree ornaments can deliver audio, it’s clear people are tired of seeing audio equipment mar their home décor—but they also want better sound quality.
Fast, lightweight PCs. Lenovo’s LaVie laptop and convertible are the lightest we’ve seen yet—just 1.7 and 2.0 pounds, respectively. They run on fifth-generation Broadwell Core i5 and i7 processors and SSDs, and the 13-inch displays can be configured with up to qHD resolution.
There are two printers being shown off at the 2015 Consumer Electronics shows which really spark our interest. They are the Voltera and the Voxel8. Each is taking on the challenge of printing circuits. They use similar techniques but approach the problem in very different ways.
The Voxel8 marries the idea of a 3D printer with a silver conductive ink dispenser. You start by modeling your entire design, hardware and electronics, all in one. The printer will then begin the 3D print, pausing when necessary for you to add electronics and mechanicals.
The Voltera is a PCB printer that uses silver conductive ink. It prints the ink onto a substrate. Pads made of the ink are used to solder the components in place after the printing is finished. The trick added to this design is the ability to print two layers, both on the same side of the board. There is a second ink material which is an insulator.
If you look at the early news coming out of the International CES this week in Las Vegas, it is clear that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a dominant theme. With more than 900 IoT exhibitors showing products and the opening keynotes at the show IoT related, the energy behind the technology is immense. But it may be too much.
Early reports from the show are somewhat disquieting in the breadth and range of IoT offerings that are “me too” kinds of wearables and convenience-oriented products of marginal value.
Frankly, most of these new products invoke little more than mild interest in me at best, and usually elicit a big yawn. But then, I have been covering the IoT for some time now and not so easily impressed. I can see, though, how the general consumer could find these devices amazing and exciting the first time they encounter them. But that will only be a flash of interest based on the novelty of the technology. For consumer IoT to develop a lasting market, it will need to actually offer value. And for the IoT to deliver its full value, devices need to be able to connect with one another in true Internet fashion rather than be the isolated solutions that they are today.
This actually was one of the points made by Samsung CEO Boo-Keun Yoon in his opening keynote today. Yoon called for an open industry ecosystem that will allow IoT devices to collaborate and share data. Such as ecosystem would allow the IoT to more readily deliver on its promises by enabling synergies to arise from the collaboration of multiple devices after installation, providing continual innovation in services as developers figure out how to recombine these devices in new and useful applications.
Perhaps it’s inevitable, though. The early days of the Internet went through a similar stage with vast enthusiasm for all things Internet, with online companies offering services from grocery shopping to custom-roasted coffee. Most of them eventually failed because they lacked value and could not scale, taking the entire industry into a depression that took years to recover from. During that recovery, however, the industry worked out the problems uncovered in that early bloom, building the basis for the substantive online systems we see today.
CES is pushing the IoT, and it seems to me that the result will be like the dot-com bubble that collapsed in the 90s. It won’t be pretty, but perhaps it is necessary.
TV technology was obvious a big talking point, although image resolution is no longer the main attraction. No one says “if and when 4K takes off” anymore. Sales of 4K panels are already big business, with pixel-dense TVs fast becoming the norm for any screen that aspires to be anything other than bargain basement tat.
Telly chatter instead was actually all about colour performance and HDR (High Dynamic Range).
High Dynamic Range displays offer extremely bright peak whites, without emphasising noise, sacrificing black level or bleaching out shadow detail. As a result, they can look astonishingly lifelike. The catch is that there is no consensus on just how bright an HDR display should be, although there’s no shortage of opinions either.
Behind booth doors, LG had a prototype HDR OLED display on show, but revealed scant details about its plans. Sony had a 4K sample on open display, running HDR test footage from Netflix’s Marco Polo show. Elsewhere, Panasonic invited visitors to look at an HDR prototype LED in a darkened booth.
Only Samsung actually appeared to have an HDR display ready to sell, specifically a 1000 Nit model due to ship this spring.
One new factoid to emerge from CES is that HDR will not be restricted to just 4K material, but will be introduced onto 1080p content too.
He mentioned it in passing while talking me through the state of play with Ultra HD Blu-ray. At the show, his prototype deck was running a simulated HDR demonstration from 4K media.
The other tellybox buzz at CES was Quantum Dot. QD is an advanced LED backlighting technology that offers extreme colour vibrancy, but it’s actually just one of several techniques now being pursued to create wider colour gamut displays.
LG used CES to introduce its ColorPrime TV range for 2015
Samsung is the other big brand backing Quantum Dot.
Anarchy in the UHD
The UHD Alliance seems to comprise all the same folks who already pontificate on a dozen other standards bodies and committees. Its stated aim is to bring content providers and hardware manufacturers together to create a uniform platform. When asked how it would achieve this, I was told: “We’ll issue a badge of certification.”
I can’t help feeling what the consumer electronics industry (specifically TV and home entertainment) actually needs right now is a singular vision, not infinite committees hawking logos.
One CES introduction which I think everyone should approve of is better Smart connectedness. 2015 will be the year of the improved TV user interface.
Samsung gave us the first look at its homegrown Tizen OS for TV, which appears to pay close homage to LG’s webOS platform, while LG itself offered some minor webOS improvements
Interestingly, Sony has turned to Android for its 2015 UI. The interface will be familiar to any mobile user, and majors on intelligent voice search.
Ultimately, the most interesting Smart UI came from Panasonic. Powered by Firefox, it’s slick and minimalist, yet retains much of the customisation
Inevitably there were plenty of 8K displays dotted around the show too.
OLED remains the odd duck of the TV business, with only LG championing the cause. At CES, the brand offered more OLED panels than ever, 4K flat, curved and adjustable. All looked predictably impressive.
Arguably the most interesting new screen tech to break cover at CES came from Sharp, which used its extra-subpixel Quattron technology (last seen making Full HD more 4K-ish) to create a faux 8K pixel image from 4K sources.
Side by side with a genuine 8K panel, it seemed almost indistinguishable.
Sadly, we’ll never, ever see this innovation in Europe, because Sharp actually sold off its entire European TV and AV business to Slovakian electronics brand UMC last year.
How do we manage all those blocks in an age of exploding block usage?
If you want to see what electronic design innovation is all about these days, come to the Consumer Electronics Show.
the array of technology development showcased here the first week of 2015 was breathtaking. The Sands was packed with almost countless wearables vendors, IOT systems houses, and 3-D printers
But for these guys — from a market standpoint — there’s a shakeout ahead: There are too many vendors in the wearables and IOT space making too-similar products.
Rise of IP subsystems
What’s enabling these systems innovations is of course IP. You’ve no doubt seen the slideware showing that the number of IP blocks in an average SoC has crested 100 and is moving quickly north. That’s 10 times the number of blocks than we designed in just a few short years ago.
This explosion in block usage is creating its own design complexity (how do we manage all those blocks?).
“Instead of dealing with SoC design at the lowest common denominator — the discrete IP block, SoC designers now look to move up a layer of abstraction to design with system level functionality to reduce the effort and cost associated with complex SoC designs today.”
“the start of a period in which large SIP providers will exert a concerted effort to create IP subsystems, combining many discrete IP blocks into larger, more converged IP products to offer better performance and to reduce the cost of IP integration into complex SoCs.”
Semico forecasts the IP subsystem market will double from $108 million in 2012 to nearly $350 million in annual sales in 2017. IP providers clearly understand that delivering IP is just one piece of the puzzle and that to enable system development there needs to be a subsystems push as well.
This trend — and the systems it enables — is going to drive much more rapid innovation in the months and years ahead.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > Now Hear This!
CES 2015 preview: 8 hot trends
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4438207/CES-2015-preview–8-hot-trends?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150106&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150106&elq=6db3b65852a342ad98aa923f6efbb3d2&elqCampaignId=21020
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Save Follow PRINT PDF EMAIL
Here’s a tip whether you’re attending or just keeping tabs on the 2015 edition of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Get used to the word “connected.”
Connected this, connected that, connected everything. Heading into the tech industry’s annual consumer fête in Sin City, it is the one word that best sums up the buzz. Think connected cars, connected homes, connected people, and the myriad connected devices those people carry, or, as might increasingly be the case, the myriad connected devices people wear. All of these technologies have made prior appearances at CES, but they’ll take up even more of the desert air this year, from a self-parking BMW, to home automation advances, to the growing industry of developer frameworks such as Android Wear and Apple HomeKit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES Unveiled: robots, wearables, and kid surveillance
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4438217/CES-Unveiled–robots–patches–plugs-and-kid-surveillance?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150106&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150106&elq=6db3b65852a342ad98aa923f6efbb3d2&elqCampaignId=21020
At CES Unveiled, a pre-show gadget bazaar staged to tease the news media about this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), two trends have emerged: more wearables pitched for better accuracy (some even carrying “medical-grade” claims) and more gateway products designed to allow Bluetooth Low Energy-equipped gadgets to talk to a WiFi router at home or directly with the outside world.
The International CES ceased to be a show about TV sets and HiFi equipment a decade ago. Mobility — smartphones and automotive — has invaded more and more show-floor space since then. Aside from the 4K TV trend, this year’s CES appears to be all about embedded systems and personal gadgets — but not necessarily smartphones — that take advantage of MEMS sensors and connectivity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel rolls 14nm Broadwell in Vegas
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/ces/4438203/Intel-rolls-14nm-Broadwell-in-Vegas?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150106&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150106&elq=6db3b65852a342ad98aa923f6efbb3d2&elqCampaignId=21020
Intel announced at CES 2015 the Broadwell family, its fifth-generation Core processors. The 14 new chips are essentially versions of the company’s 22nm Haswell architecture made in its new 14nm process, providing enhancements it hopes encourages PC and notebook users to upgrade.
Intel will offer dual and quad-core chips — 10 processors at 15W (both Core i5 and i7 chips) with Intel HD graphics, and four 28W products with Intel Iris Graphics spanning i3, i5, and i7 lines. The dual-core chips have 1.9 billion transistors, a 35% increase over the prior generation, and a 133 mm2 footprint that is approximately 50mm2 smaller than its predecessors. The 15W chips have data rates up to 3.1 GHz while 28W i7 cores hit up to 3.4 GHz.
The Broadwell chips have L3 caches ranging from 2 to 4 Mbytes, roughly the same as Haswell.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hands on with MakerBot’s 3D printed wood
Later this year you’ll be able to print with materials containing wood, metal or stone
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/563390/hands-makerbot-3d-printed-wood/
3D printing has lost its novelty value a bit, but new printing materials that MakerBot plans to release will soon make it a lot more interesting again.
MakerBot is one of the best-known makers of desktop 3D printers, and at CES this week it announced that late this year its products will be able to print objects using composite materials that combine plastic with wood, metal or stone.
At CES, I handled a 3D-printed hammer made from composites of maple and iron, and I came away impressed. It was a bit lighter than a real hammer but still had some heft to it, and the surface of the wood actually looked and felt like wood grain. It even smelled of wood, because there is real wood in the composite.
The iron head was a bit less convincing. The surface texture felt right, but it wasn’t heavy enough to be iron and it was too warm
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2015: Warning over data grabbed by smart gadgets
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30705361
A “deeply personal” picture of every consumer could be grabbed by futuristic smart gadgets, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission has warned.
Speaking at CES, Edith Ramirez said a future full of smart gadgets that watch what we do posed a threat to privacy.
The collated data could create a false impression if given to employers, universities or companies, she said.
Ms Ramirez urged tech firms to make sure gadgets gathered the minimum data needed to fulfil their function.
The internet of things (IoT), which will populate homes, cars and bodies with devices that use sophisticated sensors to monitor people, could easily build up a “deeply personal and startlingly complete picture” of a person’s lifestyle, said Ms Ramirez.
The data picture would include details about an individuals credit history, health, religious preferences, family, friends and a host of other indicators, she said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Android TV sets from Philips, Sharp and Sony are coming this spring — Google’s years-long effort to get a foothold in the living room is finally paying off. The search pioneer has announced that TVs from Sharp, Sony and TP Vision (aka Philips) will all run Android TV when they arrive this spring.
Android TV sets from Philips, Sharp and Sony are coming this spring
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/android-tv-at-ces-2015/
Google’s years-long effort to get a foothold in the living room is finally paying off. The search pioneer has announced that TVs from Sharp, Sony and TP Vision (aka Philips) will all run Android TV when they arrive this spring. Both Sharp and Sony will have multiple 4K models using the internet-savvy software, and every single Philips set will ship with Google’s technology on board. You can also expect to see the operating system on Razer’s Forge TV game console this February, and Huawei is building an Android TV media player that arrives later this year.
The folks in Mountain View aren’t about to declare victory. Major brands like LG, Panasonic and Samsung have all conspicuously shied away from Android TV in favor of other platforms,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel unveils button-sized Curie module to power future wearables
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-01/07/intel-curie-quark-chip
Intel has today unveiled Curie, a low-powered module no bigger than a button, as part of its vision to lead in the wearables field. Company CEO Brian Krzanich announced the module, which will be built on a tiny new chip called the Quark SE, during his keynote at CES in Las Vegas — a year on from announcing the Intel Edison platform.
The module incorporates the low-power 32-bit Quark microcontroller, 384kB of flash memory, motion sensors, Bluetooth LE and battery-charging capabilities in order to power the very smallest of devices. Intel is hoping Curie will prove the flexible solution designers need to create wearables such as rings, pendants, bracelets, bags, fitness trackers and even buttons. It has been created with always-on applications in mind, so will be suitable for devices that relay notifications or constantly track a wearer’s activity.
“You could think of it maybe as Edison for wearables.”
Intel believes that predictions there will be 50 billion wearable devices by 2020 will not happen without platforms like Curie. “That’s not going to happen unless its approachable for people to build those devices,” says Bell.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless Charging Standards Groups Agree To Merge
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/01/07/0033255/wireless-charging-standards-groups-agree-to-merge
the Alliance for Wireless Power and the Power Matters Alliance announced a plan to merge.
Two standards groups backing wireless charging plan to merge
http://www.itworld.com/article/2865614/two-standards-groups-backing-wireless-charging-plan-to-merge.html
Two of three groups aiming to establish a standard for wireless charging of mobile devices have agreed to merge with an eye to quicker adoption and economies of scale for the technology.
nterest in wireless charging technology has seen a surge as device makers try to make it easier for customers to recharge devices, without having to carry around power cables.
The groups are the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), backed by over 140 companies including Intel and Samsung Electronics, and the Power Matters Alliance, a 70-member group that has AT&T and Starbucks on its board.
They have agreed to merge their two organizations by mid-2015 and set up an as yet unnamed organization to “accelerate the availability and deployment of wireless charging technology on a global scale,” according to a statement Monday.
The two organizations agreed in February to make their wireless power standards interoperable globally.
The merged groups are expected to aim to offer users a choice of both technologies. “The ‘standards war’ narrative presents a false choice,” said Kamil Grajski, Board chair and president of A4WP. ”Consider that the typical mass-market smartphone contains a multiplicity of radio technologies (Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, 3G, LTE) each built around a vibrant ecosystem, whereas other devices are single-mode (Bluetooth headset).”
“The A4WP PMA merger is in the same spirit: enable the market to apply technologies to their best use cases,” Grajski added.
The groups had already proposed in February that A4WP would adopt the PMA inductive specification as a supported option for multi-mode inductive, magnetic resonance implementations, while PMA agreed to adopt the A4WP Rezence specification as the PMA magnetic resonance charging specification for both transmitters and receivers in both single and multi-mode configurations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 Bluetooth Devices for the Body at CES
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325174&
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2015: Year of the What?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325192&
Will 2015 be the Year of the Outrageously Expensive TV or just another Year of Incremental Improvements in Technology? A few days in, it’s still unclear.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow
CES Sampler: Selfie Drones, Mobile Health
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325194
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES Overselling the Internet of Things
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4438233/CES-Overselling-the-Internet-of-Things?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150107&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150107&elq=9ee18bc7e85049fa9f4c7ffd07851e69&elqCampaignId=21042
If you look at the early news coming out of the International CES this week in Las Vegas, it is clear that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a dominant theme. With more than 900 IoT exhibitors showing products and the opening keynotes at the show IoT related, the energy behind the technology is immense. But it may be too much.
Early reports from the show are somewhat disquieting in the breadth and range of IoT offerings that are “me too” kinds of wearables and convenience-oriented products of marginal value. Some of the highlights include a tea kettle you can remotely start with a smartphone app, an automatic plant watering device that reports plant status to the cloud, and a coffee pot that strengthens its morning brew if your fitness monitor shows you didn’t get enough sleep the night before. There are also innumerable variations on health and body monitors and smart watches on display.
Frankly, most of these new products invoke little more than mild interest in me at best, and usually elicit a big yawn. But then, I have been covering the IoT for some time now and not so easily impressed. I can see, though, how the general consumer could find these devices amazing and exciting the first time they encounter them. But that will only be a flash of interest based on the novelty of the technology. For consumer IoT to develop a lasting market, it will need to actually offer value. And for the IoT to deliver its full value, devices need to be able to connect with one another in true Internet fashion rather than be the isolated solutions that they are today
And this, to me, is the harm in the push for IoT at CES. It is generating excitement among consumers, but too much too soon. Consumers are a fickle lot, hard to keep satisfied, and when they discover that these nifty-sounding devices are actually little more than remote-controlled versions of what they already have that are hard to combine into anything more substantial, they will abandon the technology in droves. That can only harm the industry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sean Portnoy / ZDNet:
Intel Compute Stick: quad-core CPU, built in Wi-Fi, on board storage; plugs into any HDMI display, ships with Windows for $149, or Linux for $89, avail. March — CES 2015: Intel introduces Compute Stick with Atom quad-core CPU — Summary:The PC-on-a-stick will come pre-loaded with Windows 8.1 for $149
CES 2015: Intel introduces Compute Stick with Atom quad-core CPU
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ces-2015-intel-introduces-compute-stick-with-atom-quad-core-cpu/
The PC-on-a-stick will come pre-loaded with Windows 8.1 for $149, or Linux for just $89, when it starts shipping in March.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart TVs become next front in OS battle few asked for
http://www.zdnet.com/article/smart-tvs-become-next-front-in-os-battle-few-asked-for/
Summary:An explosion of operating system choices has appeared at CES 2015 — a shame that it is in an area where agility does not occur, and stability is key.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES: Building Booths and Simulating Reality
http://hackaday.com/2015/01/07/ces-building-booths-and-simulating-reality/
It’s striking just how huge this thing is. Every hotel on the strip is crawling with badge-wearing CES attendees. Many of the conference halls in the hotels are filled with booths, meaning the thing is spread out over a huge geographic area.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s view on smart home:
CES 2015: Three New Home Devices Enter Apple Ecosystem
Siri, make my life a little easier please
http://www.popsci.com/three-new-homekit-enabled-devices-enter-apple-ecosystem
At CES on Monday, iDevices, along with Schlage and Chamberlain announced three new devices that will be compatible with Apple’s HomeKit. Announced in 2014, HomeKit is Apple’s attempt to organize the often disjointed world of home automation.
launching Switch, a plug that allows your iPhone to control the appliances, lights, and more that you plug into it
95-year-old lock-making company Schlage has an updated smart lock system called Schlage Sense. The lock allows you to enter your home by speaking to your iPhone. If your iPhone dies, you can always use the touch key pad or a good old-fashioned key.
Chamberlain announced that it’s Wi-Fi garage door control system, MyQ Garage
Tomi Engdahl says:
Funster drone jock? Please don’t be a twit – US industry group
Insists: We commercial bods stick to rules
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/08/funster_drone_rules_consumer_electronics_assoc/
CES 2015 Concerned about a potential influx of unsafe and ignorant drone owners, the US Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is backing an initiative to teach safe flying.
The industry advocate said that with sales of personal drone ‘copters soaring over the holiday season, it would need to step up efforts to keep new owners from breaking FAA rules on the safe and legal operation of the crafts.
To that end, the group is going to put its sizeable marketing muscle behind Know Before You Fly, a hobby aircraft safety program backed by the Academy of Model Aeronautics and FAA.
Among the key aims of the project will be to spread federal regulations on operating drones and model aircraft, such as staying at altitudes below 400 feet and not operating within five miles (8km) of airports.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES Sampler: Selfie Drones, Mobile Health
Cutest drone takes flight
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325194&page_number=2
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2015: The Internet of Things, All the Time
http://news.dice.com/2015/01/06/ces-the-internet-of-things-all-the-time/
This year, the driving category seems to be The Internet of Things. Door locks, thermostats, appliances, light switches, automobiles—all seem to be fair game for digital-age upgrades. That’s in addition to the activity trackers, Internet-enabled televisions, next-generation games, and apps of all kinds that some 3,500 companies will spend the next week actively pushing on the convention-center floor.
(The sheer size of CES makes it extraordinarily difficult for smaller companies to stand out)
Just because the Internet of Things seems poised to dominate CES doesn’t mean that the industry and consumers will automatically embrace the technology over the next twelve months, at least in the way these companies might expect.
That doesn’t mean the Internet of Things won’t become the Next Big Thing. But it might evolve in ways that nobody at CES anticipates—and the company that takes the spoils might not even be present at this year’s show.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meccano’s Meccanoid robot could be the ultimate toy
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-01/09/meccano-robot
Some of the toy tech that has shown up at CES this week just makes me wish I was a kid again so that I had an excuse to play with it all day. Leading the pack was definitely the chirruping and highly animated Meccanoid robot from Meccano that seemed to constantly be surrounded by a crowd of adult-sized kids, all gazing at it longingly.
Rather than being crafted from the traditional metal, 4-foot Meccanoid is instead made from a lightweight polycarbonate, to keep him nice and light. Building him is just part of the fun though.
Meccanoid takes advantage of an open source robotic platform and on-board software called the “Mecca Brain” to use voice recognition to talk to you. A bit like Johnny Five, he has thousands of phrases and will play and interact with you, as well as remembering your birthday. Now that’s a true pal right there.
An accompanying app allows you to use motion capture to get Meccanoid to mimic your movements in real time. Of course because he is open source, Meccanoid can potentially be programmed to do all sorts of things.
Meccanoid isn’t available just yet, but when he is later this year the full kit that includes everything you need to build him will cost $400 (£265).
Tomi Engdahl says:
No Fee DIY Home Security Kit Debuts at CES
Hughes Marries Home TV & Security
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325218&
While many companies displaying their “smart home” innovations at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) seem to be catering to an audience for whom cost is no object, Echostar has brought to the show a home security system called Sage, under the Hughes brand, that marches boldly in the opposite direction.
Sage is a “home automation” kit, heavy on security devices, that can be installed by hand, according to the company, by a novice do-it-yourselfer. In the area of cost, said spokesperson Linda Haugsted, it liberates homeowners from monthly service fees.
Although reluctant to reveal the price of the Sage “starter kit” until it hits the market officially, she named Sage’s target competitor, saying, “We will be disruptive to ADT’s business model.”
ADT, a leader in home security, charges both for installation and requires monthly fees. Sage, after installation by the purchaser or with professional help, falls entirely under the homeowner’s control. Its current features include home-network links to security cameras, lights, locks, doors and windows, thermostats and various sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Pulvirent / Businessweek:
Samsung unveils its smart home strategy at CES, plans to develop open Internet of Things platform for developers
Samsung’s Smart-Home Master Plan: Leave the Door Open for Others
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-06/samsungs-smart-home-master-plan-leave-the-door-open-for-others
The most important product at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show may not actually be a product at all. It’s a policy. Samsung Electronics has pledged that 90 percent of all devices it creates, including televisions and mobile devices, will be Internet-enabled by 2017—just two short years away. The remaining 10 percent will come on board by 2020. Considering that in 2014 Samsung delivered more than 665 million products to consumers around the world, it’s hard to understate how important this is to the overall move to turn the Internet of Things—the everything-is-connected tech Valhalla—from a plaything for early adopters into the mainstream of moms and microwaves.
There’s more: In addition to building this functionality into its own products, Samsung’s platform will be entirely open, rolling out the red carpet for developers and other software and hardware manufacturers to, basically, have at it. Samsung’s smart-home push has been anticipated for a long time, particularly since it acquired smart-home sensation SmartThings in August 2014, but few expected this level of openness. Samsung could have just as easily created a walled garden, forcing users to choose from Samsung or a specific partner devices to assemble a networked life of automatic temperature adjustments and TV-based alerts.
“The Internet of Things is not about things, it is about people,”
Creating an Internet of Things that did not place improving people’s lives at the core of its mission would be “like a bedtime story for robots.”
The move comes as Samsung’s hugely successful smartphone business is under significant pressure, particularly from lower-cost competitors in China. “When the mobile business ceases to be profitable, Samsung will have to force its way into some other industry that requires a lot of upfront capital and expertise in mass-manufacturing,” my colleague Sam Grobart wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek almost two years ago.
SmartThings is still at the core of Samsung’s push forward. Though Yoon didn’t emphasize it in his keynote, SmartThings unveiled the second version of its core Hub product—its version of a central command center for your house—earlier in the day, along with updates to its other hardware offerings.
Services also stand to be a big part of the Internet of Things marketplace as Samsung envisions it. SmartThings will offer the first, a premium subscription service (price to be announced) that will allow users to configure message and phone call alerts that can be escalated to friends and family. If you leave the oven on, you might get an alert; if the security alarm goes off, your down-the-street neighbors might get one, too. Without rigid boundaries between different manufacturers’ devices, it wouldn’t be surprising to see third parties figure out how to squeeze more functionality out of them for a fee. This is the Google Play store for your kitchen instead of your Galaxy.
There’s still a long way to go before this is all a reality. Samsung gave itself a two-year runway, and it’ll take a good bit of time after that for homeowners to embrace the devices. Buying a new smartphone is a lot easier than swapping out all your home appliances. For now, Samsung’s pledge of a well-developed, truly open Internet of Things starts with the SmartThings Hub, some well-credentialed corporate partners, and a lot of people who really want to see this succeed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2015: The good, the mad and the pointless
Coming to a living room near you – yikes!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/08/breaking_fad_ces_2015/
OS wars – to sofa the slings and arrows…
One of the interesting things about some of the TV announcements at CES has been the prominence given to the operating system. Opera has been banging on about its platform and app store for televisions recently. Roku has teamed up with some small players to build sets around their platform, and now others are making a fuss about the operating system, following LG’s leap into the fray with WebOS.
Now there are Samsung sets that are running Tizen, and Panasonic ones with Firefox OS, while Philips, Sony and Sharp are all going with Android.
To be fair, Google’s been trying to get something that works into the living room for a few years now; perhaps 2015 will turn out to be the year of both desktop Linux and a successful Google TV.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toshiba steps up mobile connectivity at CES
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/ces/4438248/Toshiba-steps-up-mobile-connectivity-at-CES?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150108&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150108&elq=38036a09a0ee4eb0b85c32b116f11633&elqCampaignId=21073
Tomi Engdahl says:
8 Top Trends at CES 2015
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2474841,00.asp
CES, the biggest tech exhibition on the planet, sets the stage for the year in tech. These trends from the show will shape technology in 2015.
Cars get more connected.
Drones and spycams. Watch out above! Drones were everywhere at CES, often hovering over attendees heads.
Wearables. Smartwatches may or may not eventually be a thing—while Sony and LG showed off new efforts, it appears the industry is on hold for whatever Cupertino brings to the table this spring.
4K goes mainstream. We’ve been seeing UHD TVs for two years now, and last year, Netflix introduced 4K streaming for House of Cards and some other programming at CES. But without enough media to watch, it was a wait-and-see proposition. That part’s over. Unlike with 3D, 4K is something everyone can appreciate immediately, and without wearing dorky, uncomfortable glasses.
3D cameras and printers. XYZprinting’s slick $349 da Vinci Junior, announced at the show, could be the catalyst for consumer 3D printing adoption. Lenovo, Dell, and Acer are among the PC manufacturers to unveil PCs with 3D cameras.
Virtual reality and curved screens. Granted, virtual reality has been a thing since the 1990s, and it’s been largely baloney throughout. But it’s different now.
The return of high-quality audio. I’ve been an audio buff for decades.
Now we’re seeing stereo systems that practically disappear into your room. Sonos was first with multi-room audio, but now everyone seems to have a solution, and where everything from showerheads to Christmas tree ornaments can deliver audio, it’s clear people are tired of seeing audio equipment mar their home décor—but they also want better sound quality.
Fast, lightweight PCs. Lenovo’s LaVie laptop and convertible are the lightest we’ve seen yet—just 1.7 and 2.0 pounds, respectively. They run on fifth-generation Broadwell Core i5 and i7 processors and SSDs, and the 13-inch displays can be configured with up to qHD resolution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES: Meetups, Augmented Reality, and Robots
http://hackaday.com/2015/01/09/ces-meetups-augmented-reality-and-robots/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Circuit printers: Voltera and Voxel8
http://hackaday.com/2015/01/09/circuit-printers-voltera-and-voxel8/
There are two printers being shown off at the 2015 Consumer Electronics shows which really spark our interest. They are the Voltera and the Voxel8. Each is taking on the challenge of printing circuits. They use similar techniques but approach the problem in very different ways.
The Voxel8 marries the idea of a 3D printer with a silver conductive ink dispenser. You start by modeling your entire design, hardware and electronics, all in one. The printer will then begin the 3D print, pausing when necessary for you to add electronics and mechanicals.
The Voltera is a PCB printer that uses silver conductive ink. It prints the ink onto a substrate. Pads made of the ink are used to solder the components in place after the printing is finished. The trick added to this design is the ability to print two layers, both on the same side of the board. There is a second ink material which is an insulator.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.pcmag.com/ces
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > Eye on IoT
CES Overselling the Internet of Things
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4438233/CES-Overselling-the-Internet-of-Things?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20150109&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20150109&elq=6b84f503f0d64803b22799dd9cdf3056&elqCampaignId=21081
If you look at the early news coming out of the International CES this week in Las Vegas, it is clear that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a dominant theme. With more than 900 IoT exhibitors showing products and the opening keynotes at the show IoT related, the energy behind the technology is immense. But it may be too much.
Early reports from the show are somewhat disquieting in the breadth and range of IoT offerings that are “me too” kinds of wearables and convenience-oriented products of marginal value.
Frankly, most of these new products invoke little more than mild interest in me at best, and usually elicit a big yawn. But then, I have been covering the IoT for some time now and not so easily impressed. I can see, though, how the general consumer could find these devices amazing and exciting the first time they encounter them. But that will only be a flash of interest based on the novelty of the technology. For consumer IoT to develop a lasting market, it will need to actually offer value. And for the IoT to deliver its full value, devices need to be able to connect with one another in true Internet fashion rather than be the isolated solutions that they are today.
This actually was one of the points made by Samsung CEO Boo-Keun Yoon in his opening keynote today. Yoon called for an open industry ecosystem that will allow IoT devices to collaborate and share data. Such as ecosystem would allow the IoT to more readily deliver on its promises by enabling synergies to arise from the collaboration of multiple devices after installation, providing continual innovation in services as developers figure out how to recombine these devices in new and useful applications.
Perhaps it’s inevitable, though. The early days of the Internet went through a similar stage with vast enthusiasm for all things Internet, with online companies offering services from grocery shopping to custom-roasted coffee. Most of them eventually failed because they lacked value and could not scale, taking the entire industry into a depression that took years to recover from. During that recovery, however, the industry worked out the problems uncovered in that early bloom, building the basis for the substantive online systems we see today.
CES is pushing the IoT, and it seems to me that the result will be like the dot-com bubble that collapsed in the 90s. It won’t be pretty, but perhaps it is necessary.
CES Press Release
2015 International CES to Host Largest Ever “Internet of Things” Showcase
http://www.cesweb.org/News/Press-Releases/CES-Press-Release.aspx?NodeID=bc2c6e17-3991-4897-88ab-114f115dc8b9
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2015: Lack Of Killer Phones Sets Up MWC
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325260&
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2015: Lack Of Killer Phones Sets Up MWC
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325260&
With few new devices on display at CES, the major phone makers face increasing pressure to deliver at Mobile World Congress in March.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2015: The year of MAD TV science, but who can keep up?
Blizzard of buzzwords foreshadow epic changes to TV tech
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/22/breaking_fad_tv_tech_at_ces_2015/
TV technology was obvious a big talking point, although image resolution is no longer the main attraction. No one says “if and when 4K takes off” anymore. Sales of 4K panels are already big business, with pixel-dense TVs fast becoming the norm for any screen that aspires to be anything other than bargain basement tat.
Telly chatter instead was actually all about colour performance and HDR (High Dynamic Range).
High Dynamic Range displays offer extremely bright peak whites, without emphasising noise, sacrificing black level or bleaching out shadow detail. As a result, they can look astonishingly lifelike. The catch is that there is no consensus on just how bright an HDR display should be, although there’s no shortage of opinions either.
Behind booth doors, LG had a prototype HDR OLED display on show, but revealed scant details about its plans. Sony had a 4K sample on open display, running HDR test footage from Netflix’s Marco Polo show. Elsewhere, Panasonic invited visitors to look at an HDR prototype LED in a darkened booth.
Only Samsung actually appeared to have an HDR display ready to sell, specifically a 1000 Nit model due to ship this spring.
One new factoid to emerge from CES is that HDR will not be restricted to just 4K material, but will be introduced onto 1080p content too.
He mentioned it in passing while talking me through the state of play with Ultra HD Blu-ray. At the show, his prototype deck was running a simulated HDR demonstration from 4K media.
The other tellybox buzz at CES was Quantum Dot. QD is an advanced LED backlighting technology that offers extreme colour vibrancy, but it’s actually just one of several techniques now being pursued to create wider colour gamut displays.
LG used CES to introduce its ColorPrime TV range for 2015
Samsung is the other big brand backing Quantum Dot.
Anarchy in the UHD
The UHD Alliance seems to comprise all the same folks who already pontificate on a dozen other standards bodies and committees. Its stated aim is to bring content providers and hardware manufacturers together to create a uniform platform. When asked how it would achieve this, I was told: “We’ll issue a badge of certification.”
I can’t help feeling what the consumer electronics industry (specifically TV and home entertainment) actually needs right now is a singular vision, not infinite committees hawking logos.
One CES introduction which I think everyone should approve of is better Smart connectedness. 2015 will be the year of the improved TV user interface.
Samsung gave us the first look at its homegrown Tizen OS for TV, which appears to pay close homage to LG’s webOS platform, while LG itself offered some minor webOS improvements
Interestingly, Sony has turned to Android for its 2015 UI. The interface will be familiar to any mobile user, and majors on intelligent voice search.
Ultimately, the most interesting Smart UI came from Panasonic. Powered by Firefox, it’s slick and minimalist, yet retains much of the customisation
Inevitably there were plenty of 8K displays dotted around the show too.
OLED remains the odd duck of the TV business, with only LG championing the cause. At CES, the brand offered more OLED panels than ever, 4K flat, curved and adjustable. All looked predictably impressive.
Arguably the most interesting new screen tech to break cover at CES came from Sharp, which used its extra-subpixel Quattron technology (last seen making Full HD more 4K-ish) to create a faux 8K pixel image from 4K sources.
Side by side with a genuine 8K panel, it seemed almost indistinguishable.
Sadly, we’ll never, ever see this innovation in Europe, because Sharp actually sold off its entire European TV and AV business to Slovakian electronics brand UMC last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Drove CES 2015 Innovation? IP and IP Subsystems
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325454&
How do we manage all those blocks in an age of exploding block usage?
If you want to see what electronic design innovation is all about these days, come to the Consumer Electronics Show.
the array of technology development showcased here the first week of 2015 was breathtaking. The Sands was packed with almost countless wearables vendors, IOT systems houses, and 3-D printers
But for these guys — from a market standpoint — there’s a shakeout ahead: There are too many vendors in the wearables and IOT space making too-similar products.
Rise of IP subsystems
What’s enabling these systems innovations is of course IP. You’ve no doubt seen the slideware showing that the number of IP blocks in an average SoC has crested 100 and is moving quickly north. That’s 10 times the number of blocks than we designed in just a few short years ago.
This explosion in block usage is creating its own design complexity (how do we manage all those blocks?).
“Instead of dealing with SoC design at the lowest common denominator — the discrete IP block, SoC designers now look to move up a layer of abstraction to design with system level functionality to reduce the effort and cost associated with complex SoC designs today.”
“the start of a period in which large SIP providers will exert a concerted effort to create IP subsystems, combining many discrete IP blocks into larger, more converged IP products to offer better performance and to reduce the cost of IP integration into complex SoCs.”
Semico forecasts the IP subsystem market will double from $108 million in 2012 to nearly $350 million in annual sales in 2017. IP providers clearly understand that delivering IP is just one piece of the puzzle and that to enable system development there needs to be a subsystems push as well.
This trend — and the systems it enables — is going to drive much more rapid innovation in the months and years ahead.