Welcome to the CES 2017 FWD special. As the dust settles on the Mojave Desert, there’s a quiet acknowledgement of Amazon’s Alexa triumph over Microsoft and Apple. But it’s still early days in voice, there’s little platform loyalty and leadership positions are yet to be cemented. 2017 will be an incredibly exciting year for voice AI. Bloomberg reports that the potential is as huge as the technology is exponential, with voice AI reaching 40 million homes by 2021.
HEADLINES
- In the final tally of the show, Amazon Alexa reigns as the ‘Grand Winner’ and they didn’t even have a booth. Quartz summarizes the best in show
- One of the biggest brand stories was from Mattel who launched a kid-focused Echo alternative which is due to launch June 2017. Our children will use these technologies from a very early age as more competitors come into the market.
INSIGHTS
- BBC discusses how Alexa’s win at the show will benefit Amazon
- Nvidia has grown their business through partnerships with Facebook, Google and Audi to name a few. In turn they have become the core business of every other tech company of size and significance. Tech Crunch take a look at how their partnership strategy has worked
- The automotive industry continues to push the boundaries of technology forward and the show saw hologram displays and smart home integration as well as new concept cars
- BBC questions tech’s obsession with sensors with CES giving you insights to problems you never knew you had.
COOL
- Robots were everywhere and here are 4 robots you might want in your home. Our money is going to Kuri
- HTC wants to drive the VR revolution by introducing a subscription service: ‘The Netflix for VR’
- A digital sole which learns your running patterns and adapts to support you during terrain changes, or if you began to pronate due to tightness of muscles
- A mechanisation of a human being came in the form of the exo skeleton which has the promise to give mobility to the disabled
- For a full run down on the coolest gadgets in the show read our round up here.
DEEP READS
- The show has just finished so deep reads are limited. Here’s our own thoughts on what the rapid proliferation of virtual personal assistants at CES mean for product development.