Amid tech turmoil, celebration at global electronics show
Amid tech turmoil, celebration at global electronics show
Las Vegas (AFP) - The Consumer Electronics Show opening Tuesday
offers a chance to showcase the newest and shiniest gadgetry, looking past the
turmoil engulfing the global technology industry.
The annual Las Vegas gathering with more than 4,500 exhibitors
brings out about 175,000 attendees searching for innovations of the future.
For an industry facing unprecedented turbulence, the hope is
that what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas after it closes on Friday,
but filters into the world where consumers can adopt new technologies for
health, communication, transportation, the home and lifestyles.
The show opens against the backdrop of mounting concerns on how
data gathered from connected devices can be exploited by marketers, governments
and hackers. There has also been a wave of attacks from politicians and
activists against dominant tech platforms, as well as intense trade frictions
between the world's economic and technology powers, the United States and
China.
Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates,
said consumers are slowly coming to terms with the digital world and its
privacy tradeoffs, and still appear to be driven toward new gadgetry.
"People always want to see a shiny new object," Kay
said.
"I think people are going to adjust to this world and adopt
the technology that comes along that suits them."
CES 2020 will feature devices infused with artificial
intelligence for cars, homes, smart cities and for personal health, with many
gadgets embracing voice assistants from Amazon, Google and others.
"We will see AI and apps being used to make people's lives
easier, such as speech recognition and object recognition," said Sarah
Brown of the Consumer Technology Association, which organizes the show that
includes media previews Sunday and Monday.
"You will see that across the entire CES -- AI embedded in
all these technologies."
Trade and industry attendees will see wearables offering more
precise health monitoring, for both athletes and seniors; cars with better
computer vision to avoid accidents; televisions designed as smart home hubs;
and robots with features to help understand or express emotion.
A series of panel discussions will also explore questions around
consumer privacy, the importance of 5G wireless, technology for travel and
tourism, the promise of quantum computing and how lifestyles will change in
"smart cities."
- Emotional issues -
Some of the new CES gadgets will collect and analyze data such
as facial expressions and tone of voice -- creating the opportunity for more
personalized services, but with risks as well.
This could mean a robot might be a better personal companion for
the elderly, and a vehicle may adapt to signs of driver fatigue or impairment.
According to a report by the consulting firm Accenture,
emotional data "is reaching a tipping point of opportunity" for firms
which can decode human emotions for marketing, market research and political
polling purposes.
"Emotional data will challenge companies because reading
people's emotions is a delicate business," an Accenture report said.
"Emotions are highly personal, and users will have concerns about privacy
invasion, security breaches, emotional manipulation, and bias."
- US-China row on display -
Although CES is not about politics, it takes place while
US-China tensions simmer over trade, tariffs, industrial espionage and national
security.
But China will still represent the largest non-US delegation at
CES, with hundreds of exhibitors including Huawei, the smartphone and
infrastructure giant which has been blacklisted by Washington over national
security concerns.
"In terms of exhibit space, Chinese space is down slightly
from last year, but most of the major exhibitors are returning and some even
upping size of presence," Brown said.
Simon Bryant of Futuresource Consulting said Chinese firms see
the show as an important opportunity to demonstrate their ability to compete
globally with Silicon Valley.
"Chinese firms are looking at places like Latin America and
Europe, where they have enormous opportunities," Bryant said.
CES offers big Chinese tech firms like Baidu the chance to show
their digital assistant that compete with those of Amazon and Google, for
example.
"The Chinese tech companies are very aggressive," he
said. "Their domestic market is saturated, and they need to grow outside
China, but not necessarily in the US market."
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