CES 2017- DTNS WEEKLY TECH UPDATE 01/05/2017
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This week I give my general impressions of what CES means and why it continues to dominate the tech news every year. But first! A recap of some of the week's top news.
NEWS
Intel announced the full range of its 7th-generation Kaby Lake processors with slightly higher clockspeeds than the previous Skylake chips. Integrated GPUs can handle 10-bit HEVC/H.265 video and decode 8-bit VP9 streams meaning 4K playback on a wider variety of machines. They support HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 for 4K output at 60Hz. New motherboards are Intel Optane memory ready supporting the faster forthcoming Intel Xpoint storage drives. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/01/intel-pushes-out-the-rest-of-its-kaby-lake-processors-for-2017s-pcs/
Mark Zuckerberg announced his personal challenge for 2017 will be to visit and meet with people in all 50 states in the US. He wants to talk to people about “how they’re living, working and thinking about the future.” TechCrunch notes, Zuckerberg filed documents asking the board of Facebook to allow him to work in government without releasing control of Facebook. https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/03/zuckerberg-challenge/
A new law went into effect Sunday in France establishing a worker’s right to disconnect. Companies with more than 50 employees must establish hours when staff should not send or answer email. The measure was part of a larger controversial package of labor law changes. http://fortune.com/2017/01/01/french-right-to-disconnect-law/
Sources tell Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper that Samsung will announce the results of its investigation into the Note 7 fires later this month. Samsung said in October it was examining all aspects of the phone meaning there may be more than one cause. At its CES keynote, Samsung indicated it will have something to say about the Note 7 by the end of the month. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-smartphones-idUSKBN14M008
Apple Senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller told the Verge the app store made $3 billion in revenue in December, its biggest month ever. Pokémon Go was the most downloaded app of the year, and the fifth highest-grossing app in the App Store. Apple did not share details on how much came from subscriptions. The Chinese market grew 90% year over year. Coincidentally, Thursday Apple and the New York Times announced the New York Times app had been removed from the Chinese app store December 23rd on request of the government. Apple’s own books and movie stores have been blocked in China since April. http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/5/14173328/apple-december-2016-app-store-record-phil-schiller-- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-new-york-times-china-idUSKBN14O29L
Ford announced plans to build a range of electric and hybrid vehicles over the next 5 years. That includes a 4300-mile range electric SUV, a hybrid F-150 truck and Mustang in 2020 and a fully autonomous electric car to debut in 2021. In fact Ford says it plans “high-volume” production for the autonomous car. Ford will build the cars in Flat Rock Michigan. Hybrid vehicles designed for police use will be built in Chicago. https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/03/ford-to-build-new-all-electric-suv-and-autonomous-hybrid-at-michigan-plant/
Faraday Future unveiled its FF91 prototype at CES. It features a futuristic hatch back design and most notably, a 130 kilowatt hour battery good for 378 miles of range. The FF91 has a 0-60 time of 2.39 seconds. The prototype features a pop-up LIDAR sensor in the hood for limited self-driving, cameras in the B-Pillars to recognize approaching passengers and open the doors, and a variety of luxury amenities for passengers. Press were able to take a test ride, although the automatic parking feature failed in the demo. Consumers can put a $5000 deposit to reserve a place in line for production units, but the prototype demoed will not be the finalized vehicle. https://www.wired.com/2017/01/farraday-futures-tesla-beater-debut-doesnt-go-quite-planned-aw/
Tesla started making lithium-ion batteries in conjunction with Panasonic and factory in Nevada Wednesday. The batteries will first be used in Tesla’s powerwall products and soon in the new Model 3 Sedan. At peak production, the gigafactory is expected to employ 6,500 workers and create between 20,000 and 30,000 additional jobs. Tesla announced Tuesday it shipped 76,230 vehicles in 2016, just short of its goal of 80,000. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-gigafactory-idUSKBN14O1OK?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews
Dell announced the XPS 27, an all-in-one PC with a 27-inch 4K touchscreen, ten speakers, Windows Hello facial recognition for login and an adjustable base that can tilt horizontal. It starts at starts at $1,599 and is available to order now. There’s also the Dell Canvas 27 a horizontal 27-inch touchscreen with QHD Adobe RGB support that can work with any computer. It comes with a digital pen and dial, similar to the Microsoft Dial. It also has two USB-C ports, one for charging only a USB 3 port miniHDMI and miniDisplay port. The Canvas starts under $2,000 available in Martch. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/01/dell-caters-to-artists-with-new-all-in-one-xps-27-and-canvas-slab-display/
Dish announced the Air TV set-top box running Android TV that can integrate over the air channels into it’s Sling TV channel guide. It can also run all Android TV apps and comes with Netflix and YouTube pre-installed. The bluetooth remote has voice control and infrared for controlling sound systems. The Air TV is available today for $130 or $100 without the antenna adapter. You can buy the adapter later for $40. https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/03/dishs-airtv-combines-4k-streaming-with-an-over-the-air-antenna/
Telecom equipment maker Huawei announced it expected revenue growth to slow slightly for 2016, growing at 32% on the year, down from 35% in 2015. Overall, the company expected to see revenue of $74.8 billion on the year. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-revenues-idUSKBN14J03Z?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews
Kingston’s DataTraveler Ultimate GT, the “world's highest capacity USB 3.0 flash drive” has 2TB in a zinc-alloy case available in February, no price yet. http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/1/3/14158838/kingston-datatraveler-ultimate-gt-worlds-largest-flash-drive-2tb
CLOSER LOOK - CES
So after a week-long festival of 4K TVs, VR/AR/MR headsets, smart voice -activated-devices a few robots and whole lot of things of the Internet, another CES is beginning. Yes CES is long. It starts with press releases then the big CES Unveiled show with innovation award winners, then the Digital Experience media event all while two days of press conferences and keynotes take place.
And then the show opens. And all the people who actually need a trade show to place orders for things and strike deals with suppliers take over.
Every year I somewhere, usually on a podcast, bang the old drum of reminding people that CES isn't just a media event. It's also a place where business gets done so there's no use being disappointed in CES. It's not meant just to impress the viewers and listeners at home.
And every year I answer the "did you see anything impressive?" question with my usual caveat of CES being a place for evolutionary trends not revolutionary trends, then mentioning a few products that caught my eye. This year it's probably the Razer Project Valerie that puts three screens in one laptop.
But I can't help thinking that CES isn't very effective. We often forget what was announced and quite often don't see announced products come to market. More and more companies are taking the Apple route and holding their own events for product announcements.
And yet. The press events are getting more numerous at CES. Why is that? I wanted to find that out.
Doing the show that I do it's actually easier to cover CES by not going. So many people cover it that you can get multiple perspectives on almost all the important announcements along with video of the products.
But this year I carefully created a schedule where I could only risk one show falling afoul of the CES curses of bandwidth and decided to go in order to attend CES Unveiled and Digital Experience, the first two of the big three media events. Show Stoppers being the third.
I noticed three types of coverage of CES happening around me.
1. The factory model. A site or outlet that has decided it needs to get as many stories/videos of products as possible in the hopes of creating demand to find out what happened and bulk up pageviews
2. The commentary model. Attend a carefully selected menu of events and select interviews with the implication that your delivering the most important elements of CES
3. The seekers. These are usually beat reporters who focus on one market, say TVs, or Internet of Things, out there looking for the hot new trends and items in their space.
4. Inertials. There are honestly a few folks who just come to CES every year because they have come every year. They are often the first in line for the food.
Numbers one and four seem to be the less effective and the number one folks certainly are driving the expansion as their insatiable appetite attracts company press releases. The number two people on the commentary beat certainly don't need a bigger longer CES so I see them as somewhat inert.
But the number three item in my list, the seekers, are the ones this whole thing is built for. They are less likely to be overwhelmed since they're not trying to cover it all, and not looking for any particular answer.
And in the end the convenience of having all these eyeballs in one place every year is going to keep attracting companies, especially small ones just starting out. I saw many companies touting their Kickstarter and Indiegogo roots at CES.
It turns out the Apples and Microsofts who can hold their own announcements and get reporters to fly from around the world just to attend them are rare. So CES has grown a second conference essentially, almost separate from the trade show itself. Giving companies who alreaDy justified travel; and expense to exhibit at the show a convenient place to hold a keynote or big announcement.
