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Hey CES, Where is my Flying Car?
January 13, 2023
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This is part one of a two part column
Walking the halls of CES in Las Vegas last week, it's seductive to get caught up in the whole “urgent disruption and innovation” frenzy. I’ve been to CES five times and witnessed significant, business-altering change. I’ve also seen big themes, like autonomous cars, smart speakers, and 5G, which haven’t come even close to expectations. These transformations and many others went from explosive and happening “right now” to “not so fast.”
Driverless vehicles have numerous technical challenges, like changing lanes or navigating in snow. After much fanfare, this category is not expected to hit it big for years.
Despite big aspirations with voice technology like smart speakers, commerce and consumer customization have been elusive. Most people only use voice for simple tasks like getting the weather and listening to music. So, Amazon is taking a $10 billion write-off with Alexa. That doesn’t mean voice isn’t growing. Indeed it is, but it’s bending and adapting differently, as often happens with technology.
5G was hard to find at this year’s conference. Three years ago, it owned the keynote slot and was heavily touted as the future of everything from augmented reality, driverless cars, and rapid downloading of movies. Right now, it feels like slightly faster 4G. Again, not gone, but the hype was absent from this year’s CES.
Flops, failures, and the role of innovation
Like many of the 100,000 people that showed up this year, I use CES as my radar, or lidar (cooler, newer) for what consumers will choose and do. Often, the hard part is discerning the huge-important-holy-smokes thing vs. just a new thing.
I often think about this quote from 1996:
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” - Bill Gates
That’s it. Right there. Iteration plays a vital role in technological innovation.
Yes, a handful of blow-the-doors-off tectonic changes like smartphones, digital cameras, or flat-screen TVs are adopted quickly. But most innovation takes time and evolves or flames out because it wasn’t solving a real problem (Google Glasses) or the timing is off (5G). For every TikTok, there are thousands of silent thuds (Jawbone) or big flameouts (Theranos).
“In Silicon Valley there are a lot of big minds chasing small ideas” - Kara Swisher
I am also reminded of this quote from tech writer and super-podcaster Kara Swisher while roaming at CES. Oh boy, do you see this sentiment come to life. There are niche products and head-scratchers all over. Every year there are oddities like new electric toilets. I published photos of some on my CES recap blogs in previous years because it was fun. I won’t this time because most likely you will never buy one.
So, what happened at CES 2023?
I spent several hours at Eureka Park, an extraordinary two-floor extravaganza of start-ups from all over the world, looking for standouts.
Under the category of life-changing yet simple, we saw remarkable products, including wireless device chargers. This category is destined to evolve and grow because we all share the common pain point of charging everything from phones to wireless cameras. Imagine if they did it wirelessly and passively while you were sitting at your kitchen table.
On the flip side, I saw a visual music mood service for the metaverse. After 5 minutes, I couldn’t grasp the market. And yes, I miss the purpose of many devices, including an eye massager.
As I walked around with friend Buzz Knight, we asked each other many times, “what problem is being solved here?”
It’s fun when you see a truly big idea.
On an excellent private tour with Jacobs Media, we saw fascinating technology from a company that most people would not immediately associate with technical innovation.
John Deere was demonstrating autonomous devices for farmers. Among its various tasks, these robotics and sensors insert seeds at just the right angle and depth, improving the per acre yield for farmers at something like 60%. As populations grow and farmland decreases, this feels like smart stuff.
More than ever, I’m focused on the noise of change and the ease of use for consumers. So much of tech is from the point of view of the builder on forward. I’ve seen too many tech initiatives that are hard for consumers to figure out. Car companies are notorious for that, especially when it comes to audio.
I prefer to flip the focus and think about innovation from the consumer on back. Users are always right. For example, even after all the years of pushing podcasts, an ongoing obstacle for consumer adoption is the difficulty of finding and playing the right one.
The changing role of audio at CES 2023
That brings me to the task at hand for many of you reading this. While audio was not center stage at this year’s CES, as it was a few years ago, there is plenty of disruption occurring in vehicles that impact every audio producer, whether in radio, streaming, or podcasts. Access and presentation are on the lidar.
In my next post, I’ll reveal five trends and insights from CES 2023 that are important to all audio stakeholders.
Stay tuned.
Thanks to my CES sherpas Fred Jacobs, Paul Jacobs and Buzz Knight. It was great being back and taking it all in.
Thanks to author J. Storrs Hull for the inspiration of the blog subject line
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