CES 2018 Starts Early With Trend Talk, Keynote Controversy

Pre-Game Show

By PERRY MICHAEL SIMON in LAS VEGAS: CES 2018 doesn't officially start until TUESDAY (1/9) but the annual technology extravaganza got off to its unofficial start SUNDAY (1/7) with media events scheduled for SUNDAY, most notably a "2018 Tech Trends to Watch" presentation by CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION Market Research department Senior Director STEVE KOENIG and Senior Manager LESLEY ROHRBAUGH that was light on numbers but shed light on what electronics manufacturers hope will be their future.  

Perhaps caught by surprise last year when non-electronics firms like AMAZON and GOOGLE swept into the field with the success of "digital assistants" like AMAZON Echo and Dot and GOOGLE Home "smart speakers," this year's trends include the integration of those and other voice-controlled systems in other "vessels" like cars and other devices; the focus of the industry, however, is on the development and deployment of 5G, artificial intelligence moving from the Alexa command-driven style to more natural conversation, a renewed push to get virtual reality and augmented reality into the mainstream ("this is going to be game changing," KOENIG said of AR, "this is going to redefine the mobile experience"), and increased "smart city" deployment.  The trend talk replaced previous CES opening trends talks by former CTA Chief Economist SHAWN DUBRAVAC and KOENIG that offered more numbers and projections and split the overview into domestic and international presentations.

The Numbers: Bright Projections

The numbers were released separately this year, in a report that projected U.S. consumer technology retail revenues to hit $351 billion in 2018, a record and a 3.9% increase from 2017. The semi-annual U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report has also added for the first time a projection for consumer spending on music and video streaming services, which the report projects at $19.5 billion, a 35% increase from 2017 (the number includes video services like NETFLIX as well as music services like SPOTIFY).

Also in the report, U.S. sales of connected devices are projected to increase 6.6% to 715 million units, boosted by smart speakers, smart home devices, VR/AR headsets, drones, and wearables.  And the top 5 revenue categories -- smartphones (showing slight growth in 2018), laptops, televisions ("better than expected" in 2017) and 4K UHD TVs, Automotive electronics (projected to be up 5.9%), and tablets (projected to decline by 13%) -- are expected to continue to represent just over half of all wholesale industry revenue in 2018.

"Technology is improving our lives in more ways than ever - and consumer enthusiasm is growing just as quickly as companies can bring their innovations to market," said CTA President/CEO GARY SHAPIRO of the report.  "Our forecast incorporates several key economic factors including a strong stock market, continued job growth and stable rules for international trade to forecast these record-setting sales for breakthrough technologies and longtime market leaders alike. And the driving themes of 2018, including voice computing, artificial intelligence and connectivity that make our lives better and more efficient, will be on display across the show floor this week at CES 2018."

"Consumers are rapidly adopting new, emerging technology products -- with voice-activated smart speakers as the stand-out of 2017 and 2018 -- sparking growth in smart home devices, as voice interaction adds a new level of convenience and excitement to our lives," said CTA SVP of Research and Standards BRIAN MARKWALTER. "At the same time, core categories - such as smartphones, laptops and TVs -- continue to surpass expectations. 2018 will prove to be a milestone year for TVs, especially as LCD 4K UHD TVs make up half of all TVs sold in 2018."

Lack Of Female Representation In Keynotes Creates Controversy

As attendees arrived in LAS VEGAS for the event, the fact that for the second straight year no women were among the scheduled keynote speakers drew a backlash that included a hashtag (#CESSoMale) and prompted the CTA to add A+E NETWORKS President/CEO NANCY DUBUC and 605 CEO KRISTIN DOLAN to a keynote session on the future of video.  The individual keynote addresses will, however, remain all-male this year, with FORD's JIM HACKETT, HUAWEI's RICHARD YU, and INTEL's BRIAN KRZANICH featured.

More Pressers

SUNDAY's presentations included a press conference by NVIDIA, showing off gaming displays (65-inchers, 4k HDR with NVIDIA's G-SYNC gaming video technology) and a partnership with VOLKSWAGEN to include NVIDIA's artificial intelligence technology and in its I.D. BUZZ electric concept car.  Meanwhile, SAMSUNG used its "First Look" event to unveil a new up-to-146-inch modular, bezel-less TV called "The Wall" with MicroLED technology.

MONDAY started with LG unveiling its "ThinQ AI" branding for its artificial intelligence product line, which it intends to run across platforms and in many environments (car, home, and office, for example).  The company is also integrating GOOGLE Assistant into its OLED TVs and other devices, notably a smart speaker.  LG announced some of its new offerings before CES began this year, including its LG DISPLAY division's "rollable" OLED and an 88-inch 8K OLED; at the press conference, several Internet-connected, AI-controlled laundry and kitchen appliances were demonstrated, although the demonstration using LG's CLOi robot in the kitchen did not go smoothly.  Another feature announced by LG was the ability of the ThinQ AI to identify equipment problems before they happen, alerting service centers.

TOYOTA President AKIO TOYODA showed off the company's e-Palette concept vehicle, an electric autonomous trailer of sorts that can be used for everything from deliveries to mobile meeting rooms or retail stores.   PANASONIC, meanwhile, continued its move away from the days when it was primarily a television and audio brand, touting its work with connected cars (and, separated by most of the session, featuring its deals with both AMAZON and GOOGLE for voice control of its in-car systems, both of which can now be used offline), "smart cities," and battery development while giving briefer segments to its new OLED TVs, updates to its Technics turntable line and still and video camera offerings, and its entry into the smart speaker segment (using GOOGLE Assistant as the AI).

Having pre-announced several of their product introductions before the show, SAMSUNG emphasized how its products -- and other manufacturers' products -- will work together "seamlessly" using a new "SmartThings" app.  President/CEO TIM BAXTER alluded to "setbacks" (exploding Galaxy Note 7 phones being prominent among them) but said that the company had rebuilt its position and had taken the lead in appliance sales.  The company's President HS KIM asserted that by 2020, all of its connected devices "will not only be IoT ready, they will also be intelligent," developing predictive intelligence through its Bixby voice-controlled assistant.  Also unveiled at the press conference was a whiteboard-like computer called the SAMSUNG Flip and a new notebook computer, the Notebook 9 Pen.

SONY's late afternoon press conference MONDAY showed off a new series of OLED TVs, a soundbar that can emulate DOLBY Atmos, wireless sport headphones, sensors for autonomous cars, an autonomous vehicle that resembles a smaller version of the e-Palette introduced in the morning by TOYOTA, and a revised version of the Aibo robotic dog.

Intel CEO Talks Data (And That Pesky Security Problem, Too)

KRZANICH's INTEL keynote came with an elephant in the room, the fallout from the Meltdown and Spectre CPU exploits and security flaws in Intel CPUs, and KRZANICH wasted no time in talking about it, thanking the industry for coming together to battle the problem and asserting that the flaws have resulted in no complaints of security breaches accessing customer data.  After advising customers to apply all updates and patches to address the issues, KRZANICH moved on to what was undoubtedly a more comfortable topic, the rise of data, powering practically every technology and poised to lead advances in artificial intelligence to be applied in medicine, transportation, advertising, and many other areas of life.  Most of the presentation focused on advances in 3-D video for virtual reality that will be used at the Winter Olympics.

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