CES 2023 preview: What to anticipate on the Las Vegas tech extravaganza

Subsequent week on the CES 2023 tech commerce present in Las Vegas, we’ll as soon as once more be capable of see and listen to in regards to the newest tech tendencies in particular person.

Final yr’s occasion additionally happened in particular person, however it was a shadow of its former self because the Omicron wave of COVID-19 took its toll. The occasion solely drew about 45,000 final yr, far under the 175,212 that confirmed up in January 2019. This yr, they’re anticipating round 100,000 folks to indicate up, in response to Gary Shapiro, CEO of Shopper Expertise Affiliation, the commerce group that phases the occasion.

Final yr’s occasion appeared like a ghost city. At the least it appeared that approach in footage, as I canceled my journey a few week earlier than the present after all people else canceled their appointments with me. The identical type of cancellation tsunami hasn’t occurred this yr.

This yr, the present will get underway on Tuesday morning with some digital sideline occasions from Nvidia and Acer. I believe it’s secure to say we’ll see loads of new chips and PC gaming rigs introduced. The distinction this yr is that, due to the recession, we will in all probability anticipate to purchase extra of those merchandise prior to we have been ready to take action through the shortages of the previous couple of years.

A number of thousand press folks will begin converging on Las Vegas on Tuesday and Wednesday for media occasions that formally start with a chat on tech tendencies by Steve Koenig, vp of analysis on the CTA, adopted by the opening CES Unveiled press occasion. If it’s your first time to the present, try my ideas and methods for CES. On Wednesday, huge corporations like LG, Panasonic, Samsung, TCL, and Sony can have their press conferences the place they showcase the brand new merchandise coming this yr.

By Thursday, the primary present flooring will open with practically 3,000 exhibitors throughout greater than 2.1 million sq. toes of area, Shapiro stated. That’s down from 4,500 exhibitors and a pair of.9 million sq. toes in January 2020. But it surely’s nonetheless a large present and it runs by Sunday.

And whereas CES continues to be a spot for the giants like Samsung and Sony, the present can have 1,000 new exhibitors and it’ll even have its conventional Eureka Park startup area within the Venetian.

The massive tendencies

Final week, PR Newswire reported that there was a 340% enhance in mentions in CES 2023 press releases, with greater than 66 mentions in 2022 in comparison with 2021.

NFT mentions have been up 200% to 12, up from 4. Sustainability mentions have been up 63% to 49, up from 30. Robots have been talked about 49 occasions, up solely 2% from 48 a yr in the past. The losers? Augmented actuality slipped 12% to 30 from 34, and wearable dropped 38% from 88 to 55.

In our interview, Shapiro stated we’ll see an “extremely sturdy” well being tech class. Shapiro expects we’ll see a number of meals tech, like from an organization referred to as Suvie, which cooks meals whilst you’re away and is prepared if you get residence.

Primarily based on the pitches I’m getting, I believe we’ll see a number of tech associated to AI, well being wearables, energy-saving units, the web of issues (IoT), sleep care, elder care, psychological care, good vehicles, robots and digital actuality (assume Sony and HTC on the very least).

AI

AI is type of an invisible product, however its presence shall be seen all over the place on the present. Generative AI startups could be arriving on the scene too late to make an enormous presence on the present, however everybody from huge corporations to startups shall be speaking about how AI is fueling a brand new era of merchandise.

Embodied, maker of the social interplay robotic Moxie, makes use of interactions enabled by generative AI to assist promote social, emotional, and cognitive growth in youngsters ages 5 to 10. It’s now transport the robotic that it has been exhibiting for a few years.

Sq. Off, a maker of good chessboards with an adaptive AI, shall be again to indicate off what it may with its partnership with Miko, a client robotics firm that makes AI robots for teenagers.

There are lots of people involved in regards to the encroachment of AI into our lives. Alice Little, an award-winning authorized courtesan at the moment working out of the Rooster Ranch brothel close to Las Vegas, stated in an announcement that AI tech will threaten the livelihood of intercourse staff, who’ve come to rely upon digital experiences comparable to Solely Followers through the pandemic.

She believes these sorts of creator platforms might be considerably damage by AI, significantly deepfake know-how that creates faux pictures of actual folks. We’ll see this debate play out in trade after trade.

Sensible inexperienced autos on the rise

AI can be going to get used within the newest autos. Greater than a dozen automakers shall be on the present, and so they’ll be exhibiting off electrical autos, assisted driving options and extra. John Deere, which has one of many keynote slots for its CEO John Might, will showcase AI-based tractors that may function across the clock.

Candela is manufacturing a brand new electrical “flying” C-8 client boat. It’s an electrical car that rides above the waves and is a sibling to Candela’s P-12 electrical hydrofoil ferry. Cenntro Electrical Group is will unveil 5 new electrical autos at CES, together with a hydrogen-powered semi and the manufacturing model of its iChassis. And as you possibly can see under, we’ll have our share of flying vehicles once more.

Aska shall be exhibiting off its first drive-and-fly electrical vertical take-off and touchdown (eVTOL) plane/automobile hybrid. It’s an electrical car you can drive on the highway like a automobile and fly within the air like a quadrocopter. Is it actual? Let’s hope so.

The metaverse

Wherever AI will get talked about, the metaverse can’t be far behind. And the place the metaverse will get talked about, Web3 will come up as properly.

It’s nonetheless early and a bit uncommon to see precise metaverse experiences on show on the present. Supply Digital and Sansar introduced they’ll showcase a “metaverse expertise” on good TVs, the place you possibly can interact in VR-like 2D or 3D experiences from the makers of Sansar, which spun out of Second Life’s Linden Lab and was offered in 2020 to Wookey Initiatives.

Whereas we could not see a ton of precise metaverse tasks on the present, we are going to hear folks speaking about it, particularly within the visions offered in keynote speeches and panels. Actually, I’m going to average a panel at CES on Friday January 6 about how gaming will lead the metaverse. It’s going to happen at 3 pm on Friday January 6 at LVCC North / N262 and have audio system from Area15, Upland, Holoride and Tilt 5.

With all this speak in regards to the metaverse, Shapiro isn’t so anxious that demand for an in-person CES will fall off.

“We’re very optimistic that CES is so necessary to folks all over the world — as patrons, buyers, suppliers, companions, media, consultants, market analysts — that we anticipate a powerful exhibiting in Las Vegas,” Shapiro stated. “However the digital platform shall be an necessary complement to most of the folks going to Las Vegas who’re simply too busy to get to the conferences or join with the exhibitors that they wish to. That’s what the platform shall be for, to serve these folks.”

As for blockchain, OpenCarbon is touting its first non-fungible token (NFT) market for carbon credit. The OpenCarbon platform delivers SEC-compliant, carbon offset monetary merchandise to effectively supply, assemble, handle and retire large-scale and sophisticated carbon asset portfolios.

The web of issues

LG is partnering with Asleep to create good residence home equipment that reply to human respiration and diagnose sleep phases to function at an optimum stage. So your air con and heating — and different residence home equipment — can reply to the way you’re sleeping at evening.

We’ll see loads of different examples of the web of issues creeping deeper into our lives. Let’s hope the theme of Ubisoft’s Watchdogs sport — that these units shall be utilized by hackers and governments to spy on us — gained’t come true.

You possibly can wager that the web of issues will additional infiltrate its approach into good houses, good buildings, and good whatevers. Synthetic intelligence — buoyed by successes in laptop imaginative and prescient, neural networks, and machine studying — shall be pervasive inside these IoT units.

VR and gaming gear

Sony will take the stage at CES to share particulars about its PlayStation VR2 headset and the video games coming for the gadget, which debuts on February 22. HTC is predicted to make an announcement and a lot of different VR headset makers are exhibiting up at CES.

And VR’s platform is all the time altering. bHaptics’s new TactGlove, may be worn like common gloves. It’s appropriate with business VR/AR headsets with camera-based hand monitoring programs, together with Meta Quest 2, and prices $300 per pair. The brand new haptic gloves have 12 Linear Resonant Actuator-type motors (LRA), which the corporate says permits delicate and complicated suggestions on the fingertips and wrists. 

Holoride shall be on the present once more show how one can play digital actuality video games within the again seat of a automobile — with out shedding your lunch.

On the gaming facet, we’ll see LG’s 27-inch OLED gaming monitor and Alienware’s newest 18-inch gaming laptop computer. Nvidia will probably speak in regards to the GeForce RTX 40-series graphics chips, and AMD will try and outdo Nvidia with its personal GPUs. MSI will present a flagship gaming laptop computer Titan GT77 that may function a 4K/144Hz Mini LED show. You possibly can wager there shall be a ton extra on show on the present.

Superior Micro Units CEO Lisa Su will kick off the present at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday with a keynote speech. So we’re prone to hear in regards to the newest Ryzen and Radeon chips.

As for TVs, some aficionados are hoping to listen to extra about QD-OLED as the way forward for cutting-edge TV tech, so it’ll be fascinating to see if anybody has something so as to add on that entrance.

Well being tech

Valencell unveiling the primary calibration-free, cuffless finger-tip blood stress monitor. Firms like Omron Healthcare have been whittling away at this sort of drawback for years. Dexcom has acquired clearance from the FDA for its glucose monitor Dexcom 7, which makes it a lot simpler to measure blood sugar ranges for folks with diabetes.

Withings, a pioneer of related well being will unveil its first foray into urine evaluation with a miniaturized well being lab that may change the best way folks monitor their well being from the consolation and privateness of their very own rest room. If this works, you could not must pee in a cup on the physician’s workplace or a lab a lot.

Whereas we urinate on common seven occasions a day, urine analyses are often carried out solely yearly when requested by your well being skilled. Now Withings is making it potential to conduct well being assessments from the consolation and privateness of your rest room regularly.

The brand new product features a pebble-shaped reader that sits inside the bathroom bowl. Its changeable evaluation cartridges are designed to evaluate particular biomarkers with out the necessity for exterior pattern seize or strips. It’s going to initially debut with two client well being cartridges to assist customers monitor metabolic insights and girls to handle month-to-month cycles with medical variations following sooner or later. 

And I’m anticipating to see extra options than ever that concentrate on aged folks and their caregivers, as tech has lastly woken as much as the demographic pattern of the child boomers become older. Tech isn’t going to be only for the younger anymore.

Japan’s Asilla is exhibiting off a safety digicam that sends you alerts to uncommon issues occurring in actual time, like if somebody falls on the bottom. We will anticipate to see extra of those merchandise, as Synaptics has created fall-detection sensors that use AI to detect if folks have fallen and need assistance.

Meals tech

OneThird, a Dutch meals tech firm, will present a “ripeness checker” designed to be used by grocers or grocery retailer customers. It lets them shortly scan an avocado and get correct details about when it’s prepared for consumption – no squeezing essential.

Apparently we’re not so good on the squeezing half, as one-third of all meals produced is wasted on account of spoilage – costing upwards of $1 trillion. OneThird’s answer helps end-consumers get the freshest meals and permits growers, meals distributors and grocers to foretell the shelf lifetime of contemporary produce.

Typhur will showcase its all-in-one good Sous Vide cooking machine, with cooking courses and recipes from cooks all all over the world, together with Michelin Star Cooks.  

Retro tendencies

For those who’re not into all this new stuff, you possibly can see previous stuff too. RCA shall be among the many retro manufacturers coming to the present, and it’ll showcase residence automation, e-bikes and scooters, and retro-style electronics. For a few of us, that brings again some recollections.

Bizarre makes use of for brand spanking new know-how

I’ve been pitched some oddball issues that I didn’t anticipate see. As an illustration, Glüxkind is exhibiting off an AI-powered child stroller with a motor. It comes with an sleep answer with rock-my-baby, white noise and 360 security bubble across the stroller. I suppose I shouldn’t name this bizarre as a result of it might be very helpful for its goal customers. But it surely’s actually one thing I didn’t anticipate see.

In the meantime, Osim goes to indicate off its uLove 3 Nicely-Being Chair, which makes use of AI to assist in giving you massages. The chair is designed to measure, monitor, and handle stress whereas supplying you with a full-body therapeutic massage.

After choosing up a video from your individual library or through the use of a YouTube hyperlink, you possibly can add scents on the timeline to arrange the proper odor, timing, and length for a scent to go together with your video.

What’s lacking from CES

Some frequent CES occasions gained’t occur. Nvidia shall be doing a web based press occasion however it gained’t be on the present ground. Apple doesn’t exhibit on the present, because it all the time does its personal occasions. I anticipate we gained’t see as many masks both. However I recommend all people be additional secure with so many individuals concentrated in Vegas.

With as many as 71,000 fewer folks, I’m actually hoping for fewer strains and crowds across the standard cubicles. However like many individuals, I’m curious what it will likely be like seeing folks face-to-face once more at an enormous commerce present. Hopefully it can really feel like we’re all getting again to enterprise.

Tech for the remainder of us

I’ve some hope that there shall be some fascinating applied sciences from non-tech corporations.

Halio is exhibiting off good glass. You possibly can put this on home windows and constructing facades to stop photo voltaic warmth from cooking all people inside a constructing. This reduces a facility’s carbon footprint by limiting power used for air con or heating. I like the way it’s one other instance of how tech fades into the woodwork of on a regular basis issues.

My favourite CES speak about tech from non-tech corporations was a number of years in the past, when Arnold Donald — the CEO of the world’s largest cruise firm, Carnival Cruises — unveiled the Ocean Medallion wearable. That was fascinating as a result of it was an instance of how know-how was infiltrating a non-tech enterprise, the place the know-how pale into the woodwork and the woodwork itself obtained good. Carnival is now outfitting its 100-plus cruise ships with the know-how.

Lately, Procter & Gamble has additionally confirmed up with cool makes use of of tech in bizarre merchandise, comparable to placing sensors and AI into merchandise comparable to pores and skin advisers, heated razors, and extra. It is going to be again this yr with extra merchandise that promise the identical type of creativity as final yr’s merchandise, which included a blemish remover that labored properly on my face. I may nonetheless use extra of that, and I believe we may all use tech that makes the present merchandise that we use day-after-day even higher.