Take aways from the big show
Meetings are complete, smoldering socks have been retired to the laundry, and the flashing lights of Vegas are another memory. What should we learn from this year’s carnival?
CNET provides some basic takeaways, though most have been well covered. To review, here they are…
- Plant based foods can help reduce the resources required to raise cattle and feed the planet. Impossible Pork got good marks from those that tried. Did you know that pork is the most commonly consumer meat worldwide?
- Toyota’s Woven City will be a sustainable city built at the site of a former manufacturing plant near Mt. Fuji. Ordinary people can live at Woven City, but no drivers can be found there, as the city will feature driverless cars, smart homes and renewable energy. Time will tell if this living experiment will alter the course of city building.
- Sensors for life. Our bodies are quickly gaining as many gauges and dials as our cars, with devices such as Withings ScanWatch, and many other wearables, providing up to the second information about the health and performance of our bodies. If these devices will make for healthier lives is yet to be determined, but often awareness leads to action.
- Foldable computers. It is too soon to know if foldable computers or foldable phones will change the form factors of the devices we use daily, however we can be assured that foldable digital signage will lead to bus seats, kiosks, countertops and hallways filled with streaming video displays that are wrapped around objects all around us, more than doubling the amount of streaming advertising content we see all the time.
- Tech looking less tech. UltraSense, Sentons and Mui Lab are companies that are making technology controls and interfaces appear in ordinary places. Desktops, switches and surfaces are becoming smarter, providing a natural looking way to activate and control computers without having to use screen, mouse of switch. Holographics and sensors are overlaying keyboards on top of ordinary surfaces, making our experiences feel more natural.
And then there is Quibi, the new mobile only streaming service from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, that has already raised over $1 billion to bring 8 minute or less videos to your mobile phone. The company “came out” at CES and is now waging its own private streaming battle in a unique format. All content is filmed in both portrait and landscape mode, providing two separate story perspectives that you can switch between on the fly. The company has lined up big talent to persuade users to pay between $5 (with ads) and $8 per month to watch these mobisodes. The Verge