What to expect from CES 2019: smart speakers and toilets – 07/01/2019 – Market



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The promise was flying cars. We have rather "smart toilets".

The annual convescote of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a strange event. Promoted as a glimpse into the future, it often becomes a rush of the Shenzhen supply chain. The new Kohler Numi 2.0 toilet, which offers voice control via the Alexa system on heating, exhaust and lighting "dynamic" seats, is the proof.

The explosion of the camera that takes place in Las Every year in the month of January, Vegas tends to produce far more strange things than big advances, ranging from curved television screens to controlled coolers Internet, robotic pillows, smart underwear and self-guided luggage.

Warning billing by Apple served to highlight the pitiful state of the smartphone market, the search for the next big project becomes more and more urgent. Virtual reality and self-guided cars, both highly publicized in recent years, continue to resemble distant perspectives, and artificial intelligence is so often mentioned at CES that it seems to devalue the whole concept.

Of course, virtual badistants such as Alexa are gaining traction with consumers and the entire industry is gearing up for a major campaign to promote 5G wireless networks this year.

About 180,000 participants are preparing for the sensory bombardment that will suffer in the 225 thousand square meters of exhibition space. Below, see the questions that should elicit the most obsession at CES 2019.

5G

If the consumer electronics industry has a message you want participants to take, starting by the CES this year is that the 5G "has arrived". Leaders of chip makers such as Qualcomm and Intel, mobile operators such as AT & T and Verizon and technology companies such as IBM will focus on their new wireless networks, which promise higher speeds and more low.

US cities like Los Angeles and Houston are already seeing the first tests of 5G networks and smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung, have promised to launch handsets that will work with this new technology in the coming months,

But for the 5G to warrant a deafening hyperbole, it needs to produce more than super-fast access to YouTube on tiny screens. If the CES does not present new types of convincing devices capable of operating 5G networks, the new technology could lose momentum.

Smart Speakers and Virtual Assistants

Smart Speakers like Amazon Google Home is the closest successor that the tech industry has found for the smartphone. Amazon, for example, has announced that it has sold "tens of millions" of Echo handsets last year.

Amazon continues to dominate the market, but Google's counterattack was launched with a major marketing campaign at CES last year: Google Assistant Ads, created by the leader of Internet search services, busy billboards, building gables, and the flanks of Las Vegas monorails.

The effort seems to be paying off: according to the group of D 'after eMarketer studies, Echo's US market share is expected to fall to less than two-thirds for the first time this year, Google Home recorded a 31% increase in sales. EMarketer estimates that 74 million people will use a smart speaker this year in the United States, the equivalent of more than a quarter of the country's adult population.

Link Alexa and Google Assistant to an ever-growing variety of home appliances that have been the focus of CES for the past two years. TVs are at the heart of Amazon's efforts, which are trying to thwart Roku's efforts to become a gateway to "connected TV".

Amazon and Google now hope to release their robots from the "smart home". allowing them to circulate, with integration to the helmet, "smart glbades", cars and even bicycles.

Electric Vehicles

Self-propelled cars have not yet advanced from their test tracks in California and Arizona to the rest of the world. but that does not mean that transport has been excluded from the CES card.

There will be more delivery robots, drones [aeronaves de pilotagem remota] and electric skids at this week's event, as well as new forms of onboard entertainment technology and driver badistance . , for conventional cars. Elaine Chao, United States Secretary of Transportation, and John Krafcik, Director General of Waymo, are among the hottest speakers.

The rapid growth that Bird and Lime, startups offering shared electric scooters, won last year opened the doors to a new frenzy of short-range transportation systems. The Segway-Ninebot, from China, whose vehicles are used by almost all shared scooter services, will present its new "Model Max" scooter, designed to be more resistant and reliable in all weather conditions.

Tony Ho, vice president of Segway-Ninebot, predicted that the new generation of two-wheeled electric vehicles will be equipped with sensors that would alert businesses in the event of a fall or even "semi-automated navigation" if they were parked inappropriately. "What we are doing right now is transforming micro-mobility devices into robots," he explains.

Consequences of the ubiquity of the Technology

ET has always seemed well separated from the real world, but even Las Vegas will not be able to escape the debate about the impact of technology on society and on the people who use it. – Security and privacy in the way that the trade war of US President Donald Trump can affect the 15,000 Chinese who attend the event is expected.

Last year, a warning of shareholders about the effects of dependence on smart phones for health, published shortly before CES, did not elicit a significant response from electronics managers.

Control features time dedicated to apps cations and more rigorous controls for the use of parents have been added to the iPhone and Android operating system. Smaller manufacturers have developed simplified alternatives for smartphones, such as Palm and Light Phone, designed to keep users connected without distracting them.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that cell phone addiction and obsessive use is becoming a socially important problem," said Ben Wood, an badyst at CCS Insight.

But he added that it was not possible to determine the extent to which technology companies are facing the problem. "More material is not the solution, but it seems to be the industry's reaction at the moment."

Translation by PAULO MIGLIACCI

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