It's uncertain where personal technology is heading, but judging from CES, it smells
- Reference: 1705061648
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/01/12/ces_analysis/
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Forty years ago, the Consumer Electronics Show launched as a televisions-and-stereos showroom for buyers; now that almost everything has some sort of digital interface, CES covers almost the entire range of manufactured products.
Where else can you find an app to [1]measure the cognitive decline into dementia next to a new type of battery technology next to a [2]drone-cum-glider capable of making a 100km flight? There's no rhyme or reason to any of it, no through-line beyond "it has some chips in it," nor any grand narrative to bring sense to it.
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All of this plays out against the archetypal insta-city (Shenzhen may be bigger, but Las Vegas older and weirder), a town where gambling and commerce have become so intertwined it's become difficult to detect where the luxury shopping ends and the gaming tables begin.
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That confusion feels like the real theme of this CES, exemplified by the keynote from Sony. Throughout a meandering presentation that highlighted many of the divisions of the sprawling giant, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida talked up the pivotal role Sony plays with "creators," without ever landing a clear message on what Sony means for creatives, or how this relationship brings coherence to its product offerings.
Maybe quickly slapping a skin over ChatGPT and rushing into a very public demo wasn't the best idea?
A friend later pointed out that Sony announced an Apple Vision Pro competitor during the keynote - something I'd nearly forgotten amidst all the motherhood statements about the importance of creatives.
Presentations from Hyundai and Kia illustrated the nature of the confusion confronting these huge firms; Korea's biggest car maker revealed grand plans for a "hydrogen economy," while somehow neglecting to mention its electric vehicles are among the most-highly-praised on the market.
Meanwhile, Kia wants us all to adopt entirely new logistics standards and infrastructure – so that the carmarker can make it all more efficient - so long we do it their way. In both cases, trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment (and a lot of political dealmaking) represent a significant barrier to the realisation of either of their dreams. For both, the whiff of monomania has them more excited than doing the right thing, right now.
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The high water mark for confusion at this CES looks to have been set by Volkswagen, which touted ChatGPT integration with their in-car Ida voice assistant. Hilarity ensued. During the live demo, Ida was asked to render its opinion of the greatest automaker in the world. Everyone in the audience quickly learned that ChatGPT doesn't rate VW. Oops. Maybe quickly slapping a skin over ChatGPT and rushing into a very public demo wasn't the best idea?
[7]Kia crashes CES with modular electric vehicle concept
[8]Welcome to 2024: Volkswagen really is putting ChatGPT into cars as a gabby copilot
[9]It's not all watching transparent TV from a voice-commanded bidet. CES has work stuff too
[10]Wireless priesthood begins blessing Wi-Fi 7 hardware
The one company that seems to know what it is, what it's doing, and how to use technology to accelerate it into the future is the show's big sponsor: Walmart.
The world's largest retailer announced a new tie-up with Microsoft; Satya Nadella came on stage with Walmart CEO Doug McMillan to tout a deep integration of Azure and OpenAI. It has two key elements; the first of which has already been released in Walmart's iOS app. Its search box has become a conversational interface, so you can ask the app: "I am having an anniversary party next month, how should I prepare?" Generative AI will provide both suggestions and buying options, all available through the Walmart application. This looks to be the first real "search killer" spotted in the wild.
Nadella's long game looks increasingly like a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the AI-blind
Behind the scenes, Microsoft and Walmart are using AI and deep analytics to manage the entire Walmart supply chain - from each of their vendors all the way to a customer's home. Walmart reckons they can know exactly when you're going to need your next carton of milk, and will be able to make sure it's delivered (even placed into your refrigerator) so you never run out. It's a breathtaking vision of supply chain integration and management, enabled by artificial intelligence.
All of this would have been a significant bit of engineering; Microsoft and Walmart have clearly been working on this for most of the last year, and it means that Walmart now has capacities at least as great as its biggest competitor – Amazon – when it comes to supply chain management and customer fulfillment.
For Microsoft, it means the battle has been joined on two fronts: against Google for search, and against Amazon for retailing. Nadella's long game looks increasingly like a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the AI-blind.
Finally, my favourite gadget of this CES came from Japanese giant Sharp. Their Nara research lab has [11]prototyped what's said to be a world-first "olfactory sensor" – a miniaturized spectrograph analyzing a sample of air, and using a trained AI model to match the sample to one of many known smells. Unlike sound and vision, we've never had that many sensors for smell, so this is quite a breakthrough. It's big (10cm x 8xm) but they have plans to shrink the unit and speed it up by parallelizing its design.
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While Sharp imagines their first customers will be using it to measure the bouquet of wines, it has a wide range of applications in healthcare and well beyond, and could transform what we can sense about our environment. Amidst all of the confusion, it feels as though bloodhound Sharp has sniffed out a path forward. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://voinosis.com
[2] https://jedsy.com
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZaFwN1v6RYB9IAK2HkarYQAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZaFwN1v6RYB9IAK2HkarYQAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/10/kia_modular_evs/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/volkswagen_deloitte/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/ces_new_tech/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/wifi_7_alliance/
[11] https://global.sharp/blog/2024/01/09/20098/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZaFwN1v6RYB9IAK2HkarYQAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Ida know...
Ida's answer
"Trabant"
Walmart and Microsoft. Excellent pairing! I avoid both like pest.
CES Review
So, new battery technology, a long range drone solution, smell sensors and, no doubt, a raft of other useful and novel products beyond the main hall, instead writing a snarky gripe piece about
Very big indeed
8xm? Apparently it's so large they had to invent an entirely new metric prefix. I wonder how they got it into the building...
Re: Very big indeed
I suspect they hid it inside an atom... SI prefixes are lowercase for magnitudes below 1.0 (with exceptions for h,k,da which pre-date the SI)
Hilarious!
"Behind the scenes, Microsoft and Walmart are using AI and deep analytics to manage the entire Walmart supply chain - from each of their vendors all the way to a customer's home. Walmart reckons they can know exactly when you're going to need your next carton of milk, and will be able to make sure it's delivered (even placed into your refrigerator) so you never run out. It's a breathtaking vision of supply chain integration and management, enabled by artificial intelligence."
Wahahaha!!!! Wal-hell is constantly out of stock on items when you actually visit one of the stores, and you're telling me those clueless b-stards are claiming to use AI to help?!
They need a LOT more than AI to get their brick-and-mortar stores operating efficiently. It is a constantly-frustrating experience going to one, hell they didn't have a major brand of frozen pizza in stock for 3 times I visited. They have what they want, not necessarily what *you* want.
Re: Hilarious!
It's a plan to force the US to become vegan:
"We're sorry your local Walmart didn't have any of what you ordered, but based on Walli the Walmart AI's nutritional analysis of your purchase history, we've sent you your regular calories and nutrient as 12 pints of soya milk, 140 fresh avocados, 12 lbs of tofu, 4 sacks of quinoa, 4 lbs of egg replacement, three packs of polystyrene you can pretend are cheese, 14 trees of brussels sprouts, 8 crates of kale, and 20 lbs of mushrooms, and 150 pints of organic virgin coconut oil."
Re: Hilarious!
"They have what they want, not necessarily what *you* want."
We live in a small rural town where Walmart is pretty much the only option for groceries. I've noticed the same thing. They mostly stock items that have the most margin, not the items you are looking for. Most of the time this means one of their poor quality brands. Some of their own-branded items are okay, but most are just dreadful.
About once a month, I drive to a city about an hour away to shop at better stores. We also buy a lot of groceries online now.
Walmart has been going downhill for a while now. I'm sure partnering with Microsoft will really "improve" things!!
Where's my smellovision?
Perhaps needs to be integrated to the TV with a big fan, infra-red heater, water spray, and something akin to but harder than a Nerf gun, for proper special effects.
Of course, scat fans probably just want the picture and the scent, so perhaps there's an early adopter market while the makers work on the other elements.
Who smelt it, dealt it!
That Sharp "olfactory sensor" will quickly identify the culprit. Taser integration will be in the next version.
"I am having an anniversary party next month year, how should I prepare?" let's see it cope with that.
So? Who did Ida say is the greatest automaker on earth?