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Fein-Lines: CES 2023—The Focus Is Becoming Clear

If you want to be where the people are—and the action is—you’ll want to be at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. The most recent report I read from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) is that CES 2023 will likely be the largest, in-person, audited business event to take place in the United States since early 2020.

In fact, it is on track to exceed the 2022 event by 40%.

“People are excited to head back to Las Vegas for CES 2023, and it will rock,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA in a statement. “We are optimistic we can hit our attendance goal of 100,000, which would make it the largest independently audited post-pandemic tech event.”

Since the first CES show in 1967 it has been the top place for new tech product announcements, everything from the first home VCRs shown in 1970, some of the first personal computers from Atari in 1979, the Commodore 64 in 1982, the introduction of the compact disc in 1988, the Nintendo gaming system in 1985, and the DVD in 1996, as well as many other devices.

If you can’t tell, I have been attending CES since the mid-1980s and for me a strong indication of focus are two things: The size of the floor space dedicated to the industry segment and the companies represented through the keynote speakers.

Using these two indicators, let’s look at the recently announced list of keynotes. First is John May, chairman and CEO of John Deere. That’s right, John Deere has become the global leading advanced technology farming company using that technology to meet the challenge of “Feeding a growing global population.”

Another keynote will be given by Dr. Lisa Su, chairman and CEO of AMD. Under her leadership over the last few years, AMD has become the leading CPU developer and has taken over that position from Intel. The latest Intel chips have come back, however, and the intense competition continues. I expect Dr. Su to make history with a major announcement at CES as she answers who has won this “war.”

In my opinion, we are the real winners—the users and builders of high-end computers. The power of the processors introduced in the last few years is utterly amazing. I cannot wait to see what she will announce.

This year, the automotive sector at CES 2023 will be bigger than ever, with nearly 300 exhibitors in a sold-out and packed West Hall. Covering almost 25% more floor space than 2022, exhibits will feature the latest in self-driving tech, electric vehicles, and personal mobility devices. Expect to see many advanced features not yet ready for widespread use as well and far out possibilities. Therefore, it is no surprise that a keynote speaker from this industry will be featured. Oliver Zipse, chairman of BMW AG, will showcase how the future of mobility can merge the real and virtual worlds. I cannot wait to see this. He will present BMW’s vision of the ‘ultimate digital driving” at CES this year.

“The Autonomous Challenge at CES in January 2022 brought a new level of excitement to CES with the world’s first head-to-head autonomous racecar competition pushing autonomous driving technology to its limits,” said Jean Foster, senior vice president marketing and communications, CTA. “We are thrilled to welcome the Indy Autonomous Challenge back to CES 2023 and can’t wait to see how the research being done on autonomous vehicles through this competition will advance the industry.”

While we can expect to see the latest and greatest new AI-driven ultra-TVs, computers, robotics, and so much more, there is no doubt that advanced automotive, be it cars or tractors, will be a significant focus of this year’s show.

Another area of great intense interest is Eureka Park. This is one of the areas that I find truly fascinating.

Eureka Park is where new and innovative ideas are shown and funded. It is the startup arena that gets a lot of attention. It provides a unique opportunity to announce a new technology or to launch a new product or idea. Entrepreneurs and companies are just starting come to Eureka Park to try to connect with mentors, investors, and corporate leaders who help startups succeed. Eureka Park did not take place in 2021 and was limited last year but it will fully be there this year. In fact, the CTA Foundation just announced the Accessibility context winners. They include companies such as Smart Badge, which converts speech to text including translations that are displayed on a badge.

Another amazing new product are Xander caption glasses which actually hear the voice of someone you are talking to, even in a crowded noisy environment and print what they are saying on a screen that appears in the glasses.

We are still almost two months away from CES 2023 and there will be so many new products on display, so I’ll have more to talk about next time.

Dan Feinberg is an I-Connect007 technical editor and founder of Fein-Line Associates.