CES 2023: electric cars, metaverse, NFT; the technologies that make the show
The new West Hall at CES, dedicated to the automobile, mirrors the redesign of the rest of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Image: CTA.
The Consumer Electronics Show (January 5-8) is just around the corner. And again, this is a hybrid event, taking place simultaneously in Las Vegas and in a virtual meeting room embedded in your internet browser.
Back to Las Vegas
According to the Consumer Technology Association, which has sponsored the decades-old show, the expansion of the physical Las Vegas site for the 2023 show is a testament to the enthusiasm for personal interaction, despite the continued distancing of this industry. events.
According to the association, the CES goal is to exceed 100,000 participants. They come from 173 countries, territories and regions, and more than 4,700 journalists are accredited.
“I think people are excited about CES, they’re excited about reconnecting, they’re excited about coming together for real,” said John T. Kelley, vice-president of CES, in an interview with ZDNet in New York.
“We’re keeping the remote side, but the personal side is more important this year,” added Kinsey Fabrizio, senior vice president of CES sales, at the same meeting. For example, the total exhibition area is 70% larger than the previous one this time.
Exhibitors who missed the last show are back for 2023, with more than 3,100 exhibitors, Kinsey Fabrizio details, specifying that around 1,000 of them are exhibiting for the first time. “They get meeting rooms, in addition to their exhibition space, which indicates that they want to do business.”
“We also saw a record number of entries for our innovation awards program. »
Key topics and technologies to follow
Electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles
Among the main themes of CES 2023 are cars and mobility technologies, says Kinsey Fabrizio.
Image: Volvo.
These categories were moved to the brand new West Hall (located across Paradise Road from the current Las Vegas Convention Center).
CES also uses the central and north halls, while the south hall was demolished as part of a renovation.
The Central Hall is connected to the West Hall by an underground tunnel built by Elon Musk’s The Boring Company, which carries passengers in Teslas. The tunnel stations extend from West Hall to the Resorts World hotel across from the Wynn on South Las Vegas Boulevard next to Circus Circus.
“You’ll see a lot of self-driving technology” in West Hall, as well as electric vehicles, Kinsey Fabrizio said, including Light Year, which is developing a solar-powered electric vehicle. John Deere and Caterpillar will also be there, and the latter will likely show off an autonomous tractor.
In addition to cars, marine technologies will be seen, especially electric yachts, points out Kinsey Fabrizio, with brands like Volvo and all kinds of marine technology.
Connected health
Another major theme is connected health technologies, located in the North Hall as in the past. Areas of digital health include sleep technology, digital therapeutics, mental health and new diagnostic technologies.
Due to new regulations in the United States, visitors to the show will be able to see and test many hearing aids. It is now possible in the United States to buy them without a prescription.
The digital health category also presents innovations in terms of “emergency services of the future” for the hospital world.
According to Kinsey Fabrizio, the emergency department of the future will feature devices and services that include “telehealth as well as a great deal of remote patient monitoring” to reduce emergency room overcrowding in emergency rooms. hospitals and “so that people can be classified differently” .
Artificial intelligence, robotics and the metaverse
Technologies for professionals, including artificial intelligence, robotics and the Internet of Things, will share the North Hall in digital health.
The Venetian Hotel is once again home to many exhibitors, in the former Sands Convention Center. Including – for the second consecutive year – the exhibition on technologies for the food sector, smart homes, as well as a very wide category of accessories for digital products.
Eureka Park, the tech start-up hub, is also present at the Sands. This year, more than a thousand start-ups from more than 20 countries will present their products at Eureka Park. Note that Ukraine Tech will also have a pavilion.
The metaverse was central to the last CES, says John T. Kelley, and this year it will be “everywhere throughout CES.” “You’ll see companies out there that are primarily focused on hardware, like Magic Leap,” the augmented reality company that is now focusing on enterprise use of the technology.
Microsoft will also have a presence in the Web3 space and a dedicated studio in the lobby will allow “Web3 specialists to take the stage and discuss digital assets, blockchain technology and metaverses”, argues John T. Kelley .
“I think Web3 will be a topic of significant discussion throughout the program” of CES, he predicts, “primarily focused on metaverses and NFTs”.
According to him, Web3 is appearing in more and more modern applications. For example, the start-up Olfactory Virtual Reality, or OVR, “adds smell to headsets, so now you can smell the metaverse,” says John T. Kelley. According to him, a concrete application of this technology is training in emergency interventions, for example to smell the fire.
A recent partnership was concluded between BMW and the chip giant Nvidia, to present the factory of the future, recalls John T. Kelley. Partnerships like these are “building blocks of what the future will look like” in the crossover of the metaverse and Web3, he added. year, beyond simple gamification. »
“I think you’ll see companies at the show showcasing their physical products and also launching a metaverse extension,” added Kinsey Fabrizio.
NFT
A “small” area of the Aria Hotel is set aside for NFTs, John T. Kelley said, to give businesses “an opportunity to gain exposure.”
NFTs, known for disasters like the Bored Ape Club, are finding new uses in industry, says John T. Kelley. For example, in the field of events, it becomes an access key for participants in an event such as an after-party.
“As a holder of this NFT, you can access the event, it’s starting to get popular,” he said. Both NFTs can be a “single passport” that allows brands to have a kind of connection with their consumers that is different from email. And, of course, NFT can be bought and sold on a market.
Photo: CNET.
Major headliners of CES 2023
Headliners at this year’s show include AMD CEO Lisa Su, BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse, John May, CEO of John Deere and Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Airlines.
In keeping with the remote aspect of the show, keynotes will, as in the past, be broadcast live and exhibitors will have virtual stands.
“There were two things we used in the Covid situation that people really liked,” said John T. Kelley. “The first is the ability to watch content after the event, so we will have more than 100 sessions for you to watch after the event. »
“And then it is also the possibility to make better connections with some of the exhibitors, for example by finding a salesperson before the show and sending them a message to arrange a meeting”. But also the possibility to have a video meeting on the CES digital platform.
Search functions – such as finding exhibitors by category (for example, “metaverse”) – have been improved, says John T. Kelley.
“We refined our tools because we know that our audience has changed quite a bit, because we have a much more distant audience than that, pre-Covid, was completely live. »
Life sciences giant Abbott is among the big digital health exhibitors returning to CES. Image: CTA.
The magic of a trade show
However, distance learning can never fully replicate the physical experience of a trade show. Consider the usefulness of face-to-face meetings. Companies present at the show have an average of 29 meetings.
And “things go awry in the Zoom world,” says John T. Kelley. Including fortuitous encounters that cannot happen there.
“There are encounters,” adds Kinsey Fabrizio, “where you stand in line for a coffee, you meet someone, and you form a business relationship.”
“It’s the magic of a trade show, the serendipitous moments,” added John T. Kelley.
All the remote features are “a nice addition,” says Kinsey Fabrizio, “but I think seeing a product, and being able to touch it and experience it, is nothing like it.”
Source: ZDNet.com
