Next-Generation Innovation at CES Asia 2019

SHANGHAI, China -- Opening CES Asia 2019 in Shanghai with a keynote address, Gary Shapiro, President and CEO, Consumer Technology Association (CTA) said that “CES Asia is the only event on the continent that brings the entire consumer technology ecosystem together to better our future.” CES Asia is an opportunity to experience the future of technology first hand.          

Indeed, the CES Asia 2019: Trends to Watch conference session focused on the different technology trends that are shaping all the industries, the next big things, and the disruptive innovations present at CES Asia 2019.

Steve Koenig, Consumer Technology Association Vice President, Market Research explained during his presentation how new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual and Augmented Reality, vehicle technology, and 5G technology will occupy the consumer landscape as much as they will become an integral part of every industry.

According to Koenig, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not different from the other three.

The First Industrial Revolution brought steam power to society and the Second Industrial Revolution brought electricity to cities around the world, the Third Industrial Revolution saw computers rise as a major tool for work, communication, and entertainment.

It took decades for all of them to develop and manifest. It also took a lot of disruption, quite similar to the disruption the Fourth Industrial Revolution is causing today.

This disruption is something that startups seem to understand well. "Innovation is mostly coming from small startups," said Steve Koenig.

With 150 startups from around the world, innovation was a central topic at this year's CES Asia. Another strong trend is 5G. "5G technology is a key ingredient," said Koenig. "Eventually, it's going to underpan the global economy."

5G technology 

5G is paving the way for more advances in technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Driving. 5G has greater capacity and lower latency than 4G. Every sector will be impacted by 5G in some way.

5G technology gets a head start in Asia. In medicine, we have already seen remote surgery using 5G technology. It is only a matter of time for this to become widely used and it will be particularly important in remote areas.

Smart Cities around the world are preparing upgrades of their networks and infrastructures for 5G. Manufacturing is one of the first sectors impacted by 5G technology and, of course, we can't forget 4K mobile video.

National deployment of 5G in China

According to Steve Koenig, China set a 40-city national rollout of 5G for October 2019.

"5G is the first wireless generation that is going to be led by the enterprise," said Koenig. "5G is going to create new partnerships that were not possible before," he said.

With 5G there is also going to be a return to distributed computing. We are going to see more of Edge Computing.

AI enters everyday life  

Voice recognition is changing the way we do things and interact with all of our devices in both personal life and at work.

"How quickly the new becomes normal in China is inspiring," said Steve Koenig. Mobile payments are huge across China. With it, AI powers the next-generation of commerce.

Not only in China AI is entering everyday life. AI development is also critical to Japan's future. It's helping with the nation's aging population.

Vehicle technology

There are two full halls of vehicle technology at CES Asia. This is double of the vehicle technology exhibilted last year. There are three predominant trends in this space:

• V2X communications using 5G

• The future of mobility with a broader adoption of automated driving

• Electric vehicles, including those used for the first and last miles such as electric scooters and other small electric vehicles

5G and C-V2X

The vehicles will be uploading data by themselves. This is going to be happening in the next three to five years. Future mobility is going to address the first and last mile. The sensor data requirements for self-driving technology is going to multiply. There will be over two dozen sensors in a vehicle.

Sensors are also going to move from the outside to the inside of the vehicle, watching the driver for safety reasons. Sensors are going to be able to detect a heart attack and move to one side of the road, and then send a signal asking for assistance saving many lives.

5G technology is going to enable the communication between vehicles and their surroundings:  

• V2N (vehicle to network): Parking available in smart cities

• V2P (vehicle to pedestrian): Vulnerable road user pedestrian

• V2I (vehicle to infrastructure): Traffic signal priority

• V2V (vehicle to vehicle): communication between the different vehicles on the road

AR/VR

"Augmented Reality is my personal favorite," said Steve Koenig. Now AR hardware begins to take shape. "Humans will be augmented in some way," he said.

The Augmenters are those who are going to be wearing AR glasses all the time. And Totalitarians are those who are going to be using the technology for specific applications only, for example with smart mirrors. We already have smart mirrors in retail that are using AR.  

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