Is CES 2021 viable in the age of Covid?
Forbes takes a look at the chances of the world’s largest consumer electronics event, CES, produced by the Consumer Electronic Association, taking place as planned. Despite the event being seven months away, assembling 160,000 people in a crowded venue is likely to be seen risky by many of the event’s sponsors and participants. Forbes
dis-rup-shun: It is hard to imagine a year without the bittersweet meeting of the entire tech industry for three brutal days of shuffling across miles of concrete and standing in dozens of cab lines. To be clear, there are few events anywhere that can yield as many meetings, discoveries and news headlines as CES, not to mention pumping billions into the Las Vegas economy. A virtual CES just wouldn’t do much for anyone.
MIT uses appliance data to measure health
MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab is developing a system that uses a single motion sensor in the main room of a home, combined with a sensor that measures electricity used by appliances, to determine one’s household patterns, and anomalies. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: Remote monitoring of seniors has become a higher priority with many residential facilities closed to visitors. AI becomes smarter with more data, making better assessments between actual emergency and simple deviation in routine. Commercially available remote senior monitoring systems are currently in market from innovators such as People Power, Alarm.com, GreatCall, and should become commonplace offerings of retailers, telcos and insurance companies in the next few years.
How gamers made Romania and Singapore fastest Internet countries
Today Romania and Singapore enjoy some of the fastest constant broadband internet speeds in the world. Their broadband infrastructure was created to whet the appetites of gamers who were willing to pay for steady, fast services and, in the early days of the Internet, frequently connected physical cables from apartment to apartment to great LANs for gaming. As cable providers entered the market, gamers would share the fastest cable service across their LAN. That grass roots competition led to high speed and low latency services nationwide. Wired
dis-rup-shun: This is a great story of supply and demand, and human innovation. The article also discusses how Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform, despite having good content, is limited by inconsistent Internet services throughout the world, making the gaming experience inconsistent and less appealing. Apple’s Arcade, on the other hand, focuses on casual games in which latency is less of a factor.
August smart lock gets smarter
A new, smaller, better smart lock is available from August. The new model, called Wi-Fi Smart Lock, uses built in Wi-Fi, no longer requiring a separate hub device. For $249, you can unlock or lock your home from anywhere in the world that you can access the Internet — perfect for AirBnB, assuming that will come back. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: August, like Nest was to thermostats, is the lead innovator of the smart lock business, but the real mass market upgrades of locks to smart locks will be driven by the giants in the industry such as Schlage, Kwikset and Yale by Assa Abloy – the company that has recently purchased August Home. As Assa and its big competitors roll the August technology into brands that locksmiths and builders know well, then we will see a proliferation of smart locking homes. I’m guessing this transition will happen in three to five years.