The world’s biggest gadget show ended in Las Vegas on Friday and, like a prophet in the desert, revealed the future: bigger televisions, smarter watches, thinner humans and bendy phones.
That, at least, was the vision peddled by technology companies that unveiled 20,000 products over five frenzied days of networking and promotion at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). About 150,000 industry professionals sifted through gadgets sublime and ridiculous, pointless and ingenious, seeking the next big innovation that will change the way we work, live and play.
Some ideas that provoked guffaws and headlines — the vibrating fork which chastises you to eat slower, the i-potty training system to keep your toddler on the bowl — may not endure, but others seemed certain to have a future.
Photo: AFP
Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and other television manufactures unveiled bigger screens — ranging from 50 to 110 inches — with “ultra-high-definition” four times sharper than traditional HD. Prices range from US$20,000 upwards.
2D prototypes marked the quiet death of 3D television, a much-hyped innovation at last year’s CES that flopped in stores. The technology may resurrect if the likes of StreamTV Networks convince consumers to buy 3D TVs, due out later this year, which do not require glasses.
Pebble, a kickstarter darling, won instant acclaim by unveiling a much-ballyhooed smart watch with e-paper display that connects to a smartphone and can receive e-mails, control music and track your movement. Priced US$150, there are 85,000 pre-orders.
“We had to get it right, it’s on your wrist,” Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky said. “People won’t tolerate something bad being attached to their body.”
The show signaled an accelerating drive by tech firms to sell the idea that technology is key to mental and physical well-being, with a quarter of displays devoted to gadgets for losing weight, getting fitter and improving health.
They harnessed smartphones and tablets to “wearable” fitness devices that monitor your exertions and store them in the cloud. Diabetics were offered apps to monitor their condition.
“It’s an inherently data-driven activity,” Joseph Martorano of iHealth said.
Samsung unveiled a prototype phone — super-thin plastic replaces traditional glass — which lets you fold it almost like paper. The technology, called Youm, will spread to other devices.
However, all the gadgetry did not dispel doubts that the expo is losing relevance. The event focused on hardware in a software-obsessed world and contained no major surprises. Some tech gurus declared CES a dying giant. True or not, the hordes leaving Las Vegas with their bags of freebie “swag” were happy.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy