Every year the Consumer Electronics Show takes place in Las Vegas. Mostly. CES 2023 is up and running and everyone who’s anyone in the tech space is taking advantage of the event to show off what they’ve got coming up. With so much tech crammed into a single space, it’s a perfect time to see where the industry as a whole is headed.
It’s not just about who is making the most noise. The metaverse folks are out there, punting everything from virtual worlds to haptic gloves to entertainment solutions. They’ll certainly be noisy but the idea’s time hasn’t come yet. It’s about who is offering the most exciting tech (likely to make it to market).
But there’s also loads of ‘business as usual’ going on at CES 2023. Even that tells us something — though we’re not likely to like it very much. Here’s what the immediate future of tech looks like. Long story short — if you’re medically inclined, you’re in for a very interesting time. Ditto for transportation in general and artificial intelligence. Consumer tech? Not much is really noteworthy. So far. Maybe the rest of the year will be more exciting.
The elephant in the virtual room
Say what you want to about the metaverse (and we have), the concept has itself a set of serious believers. This is true at CES 2023 and it’ll remain true for a few more years yet. The cool thing about a technology that isn’t yet feasible is that it’ll take a few years for the hype to die down. It’s hard to have a failure when you’re unable to properly make an attempt, after all.
Meta and Facebook, currently the idea’s largest punters, seem largely absent from CES 2023. But there are a few interesting candidates stepping in and making a case for the metaverse. One of these is Canon (yes, that Canon), which is launching VR-powered meeting software. For some reason. Called Kokomo, it sounds an awful lot like Meta’s Horizon platform. It’s… a weird move from the company. An idea that makes a little more sense is the Metaverse Glove from a Japanese company called AI Silk. It claims to allow users to experience “tactile feedback when they “touch” metaverse objects”. That’s at least on-brand. A prime use-case for a fully virtual world, or better ideas on how to build one? Absent, so far.
But hey, HTC is showing off its new VR headset that you’ll definitely own by the end of this year. Right?
Building better people
One of the major features in Las Vegas this year, and probably for the year in general, is tech that will improve users’ lives in one way or another. At the end of last year, we got a look at a smart ring designed especially for women. Project Leonardo is all about making gaming (on the PlayStation 5) much more accessible. Watch-maker Citizen is getting in on the self-improvement act, with a little help from NASA and Watson, IBM’s AI. There are loads of oddities in this line at CES this year. Then there’s the Withings U-Scan, which is a smart device that you pee on. Because at-home urinalysis is a thing now. So is an exoskeleton that’s also a seat, because warehouse workers really have a rough deal. Oh, and an actual ‘power suit’.
These, and other technologies on display at CES, strongly suggest that improving the human experience is going to be high on everyone’s list for the near future. It’s here that there’s the potential for considerable innovation. There are many aspects to human existence. The possibilities for improvement are almost endless, provided you can stick a tracker or sensor somewhere and measure data. Just don’t ask too many questions about what’s being done with that data besides giving it back to you to look at, mmmkay?
Do smart homes still Matter?
Smart home tech only really has one place to show its face, unless it’s in a company’s own product showcase. That would be CES. This year is no different, with everyone from Samsung to LG to Ring to GE (and a bunch of smaller companies) revealing devices that’ll connect to a home network and… do things. But almost all of them have one thing in common — they’re all compatible with, or have planned compatibility, with the new open-source Matter standard. Which is great, don’t get us wrong. But 2024 will probably be the year when we see what sort of difference proper interoperability makes to the smart home scene.
Can’t spell ‘brainy’ without AI*
Artificial intelligence is at the heart of almost every product being shown off at CES. There are also software services being touted, like adding AI-powered video upscaling to GPUs. CES 2023 seems like an odd place for Nvidia to announce that, but sure, why not.
AI is being used to power all manner of interesting products and services. An autonomous tennis coach robot that’ll lob balls at you? That’s a real thing. A smart bed? Also at CES and yes, it’s got AI. It’ll help to stop you snoring, apparently. There’s an aquarium with an augmented reality overlay that serves up fish info that we really want to see in person, called… the AI Aquarium.
AI, in general, seems destined to infiltrate our lives more and more. It’s not so much a near-future trend as it appears to be a long-term one. Until an AI goes rogue and offs a bunch of users, anyway. Maybe then we’ll slow down and think about them.
Making the most of mobility
Cars that drive you. Cars that entertain you. Cars that think for you. Cars that connect to your devices. Okay, we’ve got most of these already, in various shapes and forms, but there’s plenty more where that came from. BMW’s brought an iVision Dee vehicle to CES 2023 that offers colour-changing abilities (up to 32 shades over 240 panels). It’s just as customisable inside and there’s a windscreen heads-up display that’ll turn up at retail sooner rather than later. And that’s not to mention AFEELA, the new concept and car from Sony and Honda. Then there’s battery tech, flying cars, electric motorcycles…
CES 2023 shows that mobility in general continues to move deeper into the tech space. You might remember that many car lines suffered as a result of the chip shortage. Well, they’re not solving that problem by using fewer chips. Future shortages could be caused by the motor industry’s demand for sensors if current trends continue. But all that means, for right now, is that motor vehicles will become more like tech products in the short term. And in the long term. That will probably seem like a mixed blessing before long.
The usual suspects (are mostly boring)
Everyday consumer technology, as seen at CES 2023, is a relatively sedate lot of announcements. Samsung’s announced customisable fridges. LG’s introduced its new TV lineup. Asus announced updates to basically every product it makes. But there’s very little exciting going on from the everyday product lineup. Don’t get us wrong, there are a few off-the-wall ideas but CES is supposed to be where the weird and wonderful come out to play. Asus gambling on lenticular displays and Samsung stealing LG’s Rollable concept for itself shouldn’t be the limit.
Hopefully, this isn’t an indication of the ideas consumer technology has for the remainder of 2023. It’s entirely possible that all the really cool stuff is lying in wait for a time when there’s not so much competition flying around. But it’s also just as possible that 2023 will be, for the most part, a year of recycled ideas and minor updates because to do otherwise is to risk losing money. But since that’s happening anyway, perhaps it’s time for the biggest players in tech to start taking a few chances.
*Also, taint.
