The Consumer Electronics Show is an annual exhibition that has traditionally been held in Las Vegas since 1967. Manufacturers of consumer electronics come from all over the world to this exhibition to “show themselves” and “look at others.” Initially, until 1990, CES showed mainly VCRs, optical discs, video cameras and sound cards, but over time the arsenal of technical innovations has grown significantly. Now the world's most cutting-edge trade show for tech enthusiasts is showcasing everything from smartphones to TVs.

The beginning of every year for many connoisseurs high technology- these are, first of all, those new products that are shown to the public during this largest technology show. LG's once again managed to show something unusual - a huge TV with high resolution, rolled up. Almost simultaneously with this, a message was received about another new product from the company, showing the level of a budget smartphone in 2018.

Every year the number of orders for a wide variety of goods through online stores increases significantly. At some point we will reach a situation where the current infrastructure and people are unable to cope with this task. Already, many technology companies, including large online retailers (for example, the same

We always wanted to one day go to Las Vegas for the CES consumer electronics show, this is an iconic show, it was first held in 1970. It was here that a CD, sound card, tablet, netbook and other devices familiar today were presented. This year, 50,000 people came to CES, 3,500 companies took part in the exhibition, and 3,200 journalists covered it.

Our company - largest producer autonomous service robots in Russia, Northern and Eastern Europe. Our robots work as administrators, promoters, and hostesses in Europe, the USA and China. At CES we wanted to find new customers.

Stand

First of all, to become a CES participant, you need to apply on the official website. Everything is standard: you indicate the details of the contact person, the name of the company and its specialization, a description of the product and indicate the section in which you want to exhibit.

Furniture rental is the biggest expense item. A cabinet costs $600 per day, a plastic chair costs $50 per day

When registering, we indicated the Robotics pavilion. All the robots that were being taken to CES gathered there, but by the time we applied, there were no more places there. The organizers promised to contact us if anyone's reservation was cancelled, they were very friendly, but were in no hurry to help. Several times we asked to offer us alternatives, but received polite replies. Then we started calling other numbers listed on the CES website. We called the managers for working with the participating companies, but they did not answer us. Then they started calling on general numbers and asking what sections there were and where there were places left. So we found out that free space remained in the section of audio systems for cars and the SmartCity pavilion - technical solutions for the urban landscape, smart home systems, electric transport, security systems and video surveillance systems were supposed to be presented there.

We asked to reserve a place for us in SmartCity and provide an invoice. Our robots work as promoters, hostesses, museum guides in various crowded places, such as cinemas, museums, shopping centers, business centers, so they are part of the infrastructure of smart cities. This is how we received an official invitation to CES.

In the section we were offered to book 10 square meters for $4400 or 60 square meters. for $44,000. We chose a smaller area, but if the delegation is large, it is, of course, more profitable to take up a lot of space.

Infrastructure

After paying for the stand, we had to negotiate with all the suppliers. At CES there are no show managers or interface to book all the necessary services. You need to equip the stand yourself. From the organizers we received a list of links to equipment suppliers, their contacts and price list. Let me warn you right away: the prices are high. Internet access for three days costs $550, and this is just the cost of the cable. If you need a router, that's plus $4,000. Electricity during the exhibition is $300, each additional outlet is another $100.

Furniture rental is the biggest expense item. A cabinet costs $600 per day, a plastic chair costs $50 per day. I repeat, rent. Per day. It was cheaper to buy furniture, but we were afraid of wasting time, so we paid $735 to rent a cabinet and three chairs for three days of the exhibition. Although we still bought a TV for broadcasting promotional materials at a nearby Wallmart for $150. Renting the same TV would cost us $550.

Having counted the number of applications for robots, we realized that the amount of potential contracts is about $10 million

When our data appeared on the site in the participants section, we began to receive letters with offers of promotion services several times a day. American marketing agencies wrote, promising media coverage and a bunch of TV cameras. The CES administration offered partnership packages that provided coverage and traffic.

The price of such services starts from $10,000. We could not verify the quality and results in any way, so we decided to do it on our own.

IN personal account exhibitor has a Medialist section. This is a database of all accredited media and journalists, more than 3,200 correspondents from around the world, including contacts from FoxNews, TechCrunch, The Guardian and many others. Each one had a name, e-mail, links in social networks and even mobile phone. Using this database, we sent out invitations to our stand with a description of the product and company. When we saw a person with a “Press” badge or camera operators, we simply called them to the stand and showed them the robot. Promobot was featured in the WSJ and a number of other media outlets.

It's worth noting that we were lucky with the location. There were only three registration locations at CES. One of them is in our SmartCity pavilion, the other is next to our pavilion, near the stands of Google, Hyperloop and other large companies. A huge stream of visitors constantly passed through our pavilion. This also played into our hands.

Printing

We prepared all the promotional materials in Russia and carried them in our luggage. Luggage lost. We were left without everything, and we had to re-order the booklets, but this time in the USA. In one of the million letters with offers from partners, we found contacts of the printing house. We are very lucky that its founders were emigrants from Russia. They got into the situation and by the evening of the same day we had all the materials. It turned out to be more expensive than printing in Russia, but cheaper than in other printing houses in Las Vegas.

The Consumer Electronics Show, one of the largest consumer electronics exhibitions in the world, has come to an end in Las Vegas. As always, it shocked us with its ambiguity: despite the fact that CES is primarily addressed to consumers, it is difficult to imagine anyone in their right mind who would buy anything announced at the exhibition. On the other hand, CES traditionally features a lot of startups that show absolutely crazy things and technologies. has prepared its own list of the strangest products from the first major event of 2017.

Wild, wild CES

In Las Vegas, the creators of completely unexpected gadgets with support for the designated functions tried to stir the minds of CES visitors. For example, the company Simplehuman did not reinvent the wheel and boasted a trash can, which differs from its counterparts in supporting voice commands. Simply called Sensor Can with Voice Control, the basket responds to both voice control and user movements. You can purchase it as early as March 2017 at the undemocratic price for a trash can of $180.

Representatives of Withings, which is part of the big Nokia and specializes in wearable electronics, are not far behind their colleagues in terms of creativity. This time, French professionals from the Finnish holding delighted the guests of the exhibition with a smart comb made in collaboration with L'Oreal.

It differs from a regular comb by the presence of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules, a gyroscope, microphone, accelerometer, pressure sensor and other services. At retail, Hair Coach smart combs for $200 apiece are promised to be shipped in mid-2017.

Finally, rounding out the list of the strangest new CES products is the Willow smart breast pump, which syncs with a smartphone app and helps you pump milk (and track your milk quantity) in real time. The innovative breast pump fits directly into your bra and works wirelessly. By the way, the container into which the milk is strained is attached to it, and Willow can work without recharging for up to two days.

The developers assure that many of the developments presented at the exhibition have no analogues in nature yet. But it’s worth thinking: are originals needed?

Drive by yourself

Consumer Electronics Show 2017 presented a whole galaxy of interesting news items for fans of self-driving cars. NVIDIA introduced the Xavier supercomputer, which can be equipped in almost any car.

The system is based on a 512-core Volta GPU processor, and its operation showed using the example of the Lincoln self-driving car. The developers named the main advantage of Xavier as artificial intelligence, capable of learning and subsequent autonomous decision-making.

NVIDIA will create its drone in collaboration with Audi. Already in 2017, the Audi A8, equipped with the Traffic Jam Pilot autopilot, will appear on the market, and by 2020 a full-fledged drone will be put into mass production: it will look like presented Q7 concept car at CES.

Not all presentations of self-driving cars went like clockwork: Faraday Future, which positions itself as Tesla’s main competitor, distinguished itself. They plan to launch their FF 91 self-driving car into mass production in 2018, and a presentation of some of its functions was supposed to take place at CES.

Everything went wrong almost immediately: after pressing the button, the FF 91 should have parked automatically, but this did not happen. After some time, the car finally performed the long-awaited maneuver, and the hitch was explained by poor signal transmission.

Many concept cars of the future were shown at the exhibition: Toyota, Nissan and Chrysler performed especially powerfully. The concepts they presented are distinguished not only by artificial intelligence, but also by futuristic design. All these concepts are still far from mass production, which does not prevent them from looking beautiful in pictures.

The most realistic and interesting innovation from the world of cars is the head-up display from Navdy. The device is mounted on the dashboard behind the steering wheel and displays a holographic projection of various indicators and can act as a navigator. By the way, this is not a new product: it has been sold in the USA since the end of 2016.

After the end of CES, he spoke on his Twitter in his characteristic manner: he promised Install the new version of Autopilot on Tesla today. And you don’t have to wait for this autopilot - just buy a Tesla.

Gaming Laptop Frenzy

Acer opened the parade of wild laptops with its Predator 21 X, which was presented back at IFA 2016 in Berlin. It’s worth remembering here that we are talking about a 21-inch laptop with a curved display. Apparently, the company sensibly assesses the potential of this machine and does not refuse to release it, so at CES they announced the price of the Predator 21 X and the release date: in February it can be bought for nine thousand dollars.

The laptop has a resolution of 2560 x 1080 pixels, seventh generation Intel Core i7 processors and two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 in SLI mode. In the top configuration, it will receive up to 64 gigabytes of RAM, up to four solid-state drives with a capacity of 512 gigabytes in a RAID 0 configuration and a hard drive with a capacity of 1 terabyte. Don't forget about the full-size mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches and the ability to replace the number pad with gaming keys.

All this has gigantic dimensions (568x314.5x83.25 millimeters) and weighs eight kilograms.

Following Acer, Razer presented its new product. The Project Valerie concept laptop has three displays with a diagonal of 17.3 inches and a total resolution of 12K (11520 x 2160 pixels). Manufacturer did not disclose detailed characteristics, it is only known that Project Valerie has one NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 installed. The release date of the device and its price are also unknown.

Samsung also jumped on the gaming laptop train in 2017 with its first gaming laptop, the Samsung Notebook Odyssey. In general, it is no different from any other representative of this segment; the only interesting thing is the fact of the announcement. The Notebook Odyssey will come in 15.6" and 17.3" versions with the same specs as any other gaming laptop in 2017 (and exactly the same appearance). The price and release date are still unknown.

Surface and iMac clones

Quite a lot of strange and unusual devices were presented in the all-in-one segment. For example, HP announced the Envy Curved AIO 34, in which the stand hides a Bang & Olufsen soundbar. It has a 34-inch curved display, a quad-core i7-7700T processor, an AMD Radeon RX 460 graphics card, and 16GB of RAM. The computer will go on sale at the end of February starting at $1,730.

In addition, HP has released the second generation of the Sprout Pro G2 all-in-one PC with a 3D scanner. It has its own projector, touch area and Intel RealSense cameras, which, in fact, scan objects. It differs from the Envy Curved AIO 34 in terms of characteristics by having a worse display with Full HD resolution and a diagonal of 23.8 inches and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics. Its sales will begin in March 2017, the price is still unknown.

Dell also distinguished itself at CES 2017 by releasing its own clone of the Surface Studio - albeit in the form of a graphics tablet, not an all-in-one. The manufacturer calls Canvas the world's first horizontal smart work surface, but in fact it is a large IPS touch display with a diagonal of 27 inches and a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels.

In addition, Dell has equipped Canvas with a similar Surface Dial called Totem, which allows you to change the size and color of brushes as you draw, flip through pages of documents, and more. Canvas has a starting price of $1,800 and will go on sale in March.

According to the classics

It was not at all interesting to watch announcements in the field of ultrabooks. Each manufacturer considered it their duty to make a transformer a la Surface or a “changeover” in the spirit of Lenovo Yoga. This is how the HP Specter x360, Dell Latitude 5285, Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 and many other faceless devices with terrible naming were born.

Smartphone manufacturers did not ignore the exhibition either. But since all the famous brands are preparing for MWC, Asus, ZTE and other companies performed at CES. For this reason, budget and simple phones were announced. The sticky ZTE Hawkeye, created jointly with members of the Z-community, stands out among them. It has an eye tracker that allows you to control your smartphone by moving your pupils and can stick to surfaces. As a bonus, you can add Xiaomi Mi Mix in a white case, but nothing else has changed in it.

TVs at CES are a different story altogether. Since they are very popular in the West, companies are constantly showing something new. Thus, LG announced the flagship OLED TVs Signature W7 with a thickness of 2.57 millimeters. The price and start date of sales are unknown, but there is a feeling that they will be very expensive.

Samsung continues to develop its Metal Quantum Dots technology and has released a new generation of QLED TVs. They demonstrate brightness in the range of 1.5-2 thousand nits, while last year's models had only 1000 nits. TVs from Sony A1E series became the first models of the company to use an OLED matrix. In general, the major players have placed less emphasis on curved screens and technologies like HDR and are simply making solid 4K OLED TVs.

Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption HTC is ahead of competitors Sony and Oculus and is going to offer second-generation virtual reality glasses to the masses in April

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held annually in Las Vegas since 1967, typically provides a glimpse into the future of consumer technology.

No self-respecting large electronics company misses it. This is where the latest innovations are presented and the most important deals are concluded.

However, in recent years, the most sensational gadgets in Las Vegas have been brought not by huge corporations, but by startups.

This year, thanks to crowdfunding, there will likely be even more such discoveries.

Now the creators of new products must convince retailers hunting for the next sales hit that the technological wonders they promised in advertising videos are amazing in reality.

Dozens of young companies will be able to participate in the exhibition, which officially opens on January 5, thanks to financial support governments of their countries.

France, Israel, Ukraine and Holland brought their national stands, proudly showcasing the achievements of local talent.

However, Beijing turned out to be the most prolific in this regard: more than 1,300 exhibits will come from China.

"Every year at CES I meet people working on technologies that change our lives. You can see literally every area of ​​high technology here," Robert Scoble, one of the world's most famous tech bloggers and forecasters, told the BBC. Silicon Valley.

There is, of course, nonsense here that doesn't deserve attention, so main task- be able to distinguish a development that probably promises a future hit from possibly failed projects.

We have selected for you some of the exhibits that may become the most popular this week.

In this area, three virtual assistants are competing for the palm: Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana and Google Assistant.

Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption The blue circle, built into a desk lamp called simply C and made by GE, turns into a speaker when you call Amazon's Alexa

OnVocal will show off wireless headphones that can connect to Alexa, and GE has already promoted its new desk lamp that doubles as a speaker powered by Amazon's voice assistant.

Sonos is also looking to add this feature to its wireless speakers, although it doesn't seem ready to show off the results of that effort just yet.

However, it’s too early to discount Alexa’s competitors.

Microsoft is known to be working with Harman Kardon on a speaker with great acoustics, and Microsoft has also experimented with adding Cortana components to other types of products, including toasters.

And Google is using at least one of the devices in Las Vegas - the Aviva speaker - as a platform for its cloud-based artificial intelligence.

Illustration copyright Aviva Image caption Aviva says its smart speaker will come with Google Assistant

As one expert suggests, there may be more people willing to join this race of voice-controlled gadgets.

The French startup Bixi is promoting gesture control technology - it will offer a new product that will allow you to control smartphones and tablets without touching them, just with a wave of your hand.

The Austrian company offers a new product: on top of the touchscreen on this tablet there is another screen, with a flexible surface, on which small bubbles appear, lining up in updated text written in Braille.

Illustration copyright Blitab Image caption Blitab plans to present at the exhibition a tablet on the Android operating system that can be used by blind people

Year of the Robots?

We are still far from the era of robots that are barely distinguishable from people. For now they remain fictional characters in television series.

However, at exhibitions like CES we have the chance to see prototypes of such devices, which are becoming increasingly smart.

The London-based company Emotech will demonstrate new products of just this kind.

Illustration copyright Emotech Image caption Ollie the robot learns over time how to behave with different users

Emotech will present Ollie, a desktop bot that has its own smart assistant that recognizes different family members and adapts to the character of each of them.

Scientists from University and King's Colleges London and the University of Edinburgh participated in the creation of Ollie, and an investor from China joined in financing the project, investing $10 million in the development.

In Las Vegas, modular robots will also be presented, consisting of different parts with different functions. This concept, which allows consumers to change the features and functions of a device, is supported by several companies.

Illustration copyright Evovacs Image caption Unibot can change its functions depending on what modules are installed on its base.

An example of a modular robot is Modi, created according to the Lego principle. The set includes several small cubes that allow you to create devices with different functions - a motor, a lamp or an infrared sensor.

Another example is Unibot, which is a robotic vacuum cleaner that can be turned into a mobile camera video surveillance, as well as an air conditioner that purifies and humidifies the air.

Older people will certainly welcome Cutii, a robot that resembles an iPad on wheels. It is expected that this device will become an inseparable companion for older people.

In general, there will be a lot of robots at the exhibition, and a variety of them - tirelessly picking up balls on tennis courts, removing cat litter from a litter tray without any emotion, as well as their smarter counterparts, capable of measuring their strength with you at the chessboard.

Illustration copyright ITRI ​​Taiwan/Auto-pets/Yumii/Tennibot Image caption There will be many specialized robots at the exhibition in Las Vegas

Don't forget to also check out Laundroid. The Japanese company managed to secure $60 million in investment from a number of firms, including Panasonic, to mass produce a giant robot that neatly folds clothes.

The device was first shown off at last year's CES and apparently made an impression, although some called the idea ridiculous.

And if mass production of Laundroid begins in 2017, as planned, it will be very interesting to see how satisfying the robot will be to its owners.

Illustration copyright Seven Dreamers Image caption Potential Buyers Laundroid robots must have a fairly large living space to accommodate their new purchase

Health and wearables

This year, one of the most popular trends in the health sector is new technologies to help pregnant women and those wishing to conceive a child.

Take Ava, for example, a sensor-equipped bracelet that claims to alert women when it's time to best time for conception.

Or a tracker for future dads called Trakfertility. It will help, firstly, to calculate the sperm concentration, and then - using the associated application - it will tell the owner how to increase their number.

Illustration copyright Ava Science Image caption The creators of Ava claim that this device will help women better understand their bodies and, accordingly, get pregnant faster.

And if, after a couple of drinks, you are suddenly tempted to get closer to a less-than-suitable partner, the Milo Sensors smart bracelet could, as its authors say, become the first wearable device in the world that measures blood alcohol levels.

Jokes aside, the medical sensor industry is growing by leaps and bounds and will soon be able to handle billions of dollars, analysts say.

The ultimate goal is to create something reminiscent of the tricorder from the television series Star Trek. If you remember, it was a miracle device that made it possible to diagnose any illness.

A startup from Israel will demonstrate a gadget in Las Vegas that promises to almost bring this idea to life.

Illustration copyright TytoCare Image caption Diagnostic machine maker TytoCare says it wants to empower customers to take control of their health own hands

The TytoHome sensor allows you to measure your heart rhythm, check the condition of your throat, lungs and other internal organs without leaving your home - and automatically send all this data to the doctor.

Without a doubt, the new items will also delight fitness fans. To say that the demand for gadgets of this kind has reached its peak and is declining would be a mistake. Apple's Fitbit fitness tracker app topped Christmas sales, proving that people are still actively buying the product.

However, gadgets with built-in airbags can add intrigue.

Illustration copyright Inemotion/ActiveProtective Image caption At least two companies exhibiting at CES are trying to combine airbags with their smart wearables.

ActiveProtective promises to demonstrate a prototype of a smart belt for seniors that will deploy an airbag in the event of a fall, preventing a hip fracture.

A new product from Inemotion, which produces clothing for skiers, works on a similar principle. The airbags built into it will help to avoid fractures and injuries on the ski slope.

The French company Wair has developed a scarf under which a mask with an air filter is hidden.

However, it remains open question whether such gadgets will be able to go beyond their niches and bring enough profit to their creators.

As for smart watches, there will certainly be more of them, as well as applications developed for them. It is quite possible that in Las Vegas we will see Android Wear 2.0, that is, the second generation of the version operating system Google Android, designed for smartwatches and other wearable devices.

However, if you are already holding your breath, then in vain, as this sector has not become a hit, as many predicted.

But now we have to hold our breath - they promise to demonstrate the world's first vibrating skinny jeans, which will help their owners, who have plotted the route on the map, determine which way to turn without looking at the screen.

Illustration copyright Spinali Design Image caption Jeans from Spinali Design are connected to a smartphone and begin to vibrate on the side of the body where a person needs to turn

TVs

If 10 years ago you had asked experts what kind of screens we would look at in our living rooms, they would most likely have mentioned TVs whose main functional element was organic light-emitting diodes (OLED).

However, their predictions would not be entirely correct.

Hopes that the production of OLED TVs would become cheaper did not materialize. And their colors turned out to be not as bright as those of color LED TVs.

In addition, some viewers complained that the dark colors on the OLED TV displays also let us down, making some details of the picture difficult to make out.

Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption Panasonic was once famous for its plasma TVs, but has now switched to OLED TVs

However, OLED TVs continue to remain popular thanks to their stunning brightness and picture depth, as well as increasingly thin screens.

Panasonic has hinted that it will show off an improved OLED display in Las Vegas, where blacks in the darkest scenes will have multiple shades. They say that Sony has similar news.

There is also hope that prices for such TVs may come down.

Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption QLED, UHD, HDR, HLG - buyers have a hard time understanding modern TVs

It is expected that Samsung will pompously demonstrate QLED, a technology for creating LCD displays that uses LEDs not based on LCD liquid crystals, but based on quantum dots, as backlight. The brightness of such an image, as Samsung promises, will exceed all expectations.

But we'll soon have to get used to another abbreviation - HDR, which stands for high dynamic range.

We are talking about the principle by which, for example, the human eye works, and which represents a kind of optical system, sensitive to a wide color gamut. The picture on such a screen will be especially bright and detailed - especially when depicting scenes where there is both bright light and shadows.

Image caption Dolby says its version of HDR provides best quality images, however, most TV manufacturers prefer to support the HDR10 standard (10-bit color depth)

Smart homes and other Internet gifts

Now you can without special costs means and energy to add sensors to a wide variety of products, giving them the ability to wirelessly transmit data. This literally led to an explosion of ideas - sometimes, however, not the most reasonable ones.

Illustration copyright Genican Image caption The Genican device can scan the barcode on discarded used food packages to automatically create a shopping list for your next grocery trip. But how often will we use such a gadget?

And is it really necessary for the air fragrance to be controlled by a smartphone?

It is much more important when smart machines do daily life more convenient without special effort. Many companies have decided that the first thing they need to do is improve refrigerators so that they can sterilize themselves when necessary, as the LG model does.

Illustration copyright Smarter Applications Image caption British startup Smarter Applications developed Fridgecam. This device monitors the contents of the refrigerator, and when individual products expire, it asks the owner to purchase a fresh product. In addition, Fridgecam can suggest food recipes based on what's in your refrigerator.

CES is held at the beginning of the year in the United States, and it is during this time that companies usually prepare announcements of the goods and services that they will promote in the American market.

The exhibition is very large-scale - this year more than 170 thousand people from 150 countries and over 3.9 thousand companies took part in it.

Despite a certain American priority, CES is an important event for the entire high-tech industry.

Focus on technology

This year's CES was a lot of fun - in addition to new interesting devices, the exhibition greeted guests in an unusual way heavy rains in the desert, due to which the electrical substation of the LVCC exhibition center temporarily failed, depriving the event of light.

Separately, I would like to note that the focus of CES in recent years has been shifting from purely consumer electronics towards the IT and telecom industry.

Very typical for understanding what happened at CES 2018 was the presentation of Samsung, one of the main headliners of all technology exhibitions in recent years. Usually Koreans just show off their new devices, but this time it was different.

Most presentations by Samsung speakers were dedicated to the Internet of things, 5G networks, artificial intelligence, the smart voice assistant Bixby and the ecosystem of smart devices that the company plans to create. By 2018, Samsung wants to unite all its IoT solutions based on a single cloud platform, SmartThings, and by 2020, connect all of its new devices to SmartThing.

But don’t think that only Samsung is moving in this direction. At other events held as part of CES, this was also clearly noticeable - at presentations by NVIDIA, and others, the focus of speeches was also directed not at specific products, but at technological solutions. For example, IoT, robotic cars, voice assistants, computer vision, artificial intelligence.

8K: something to see

Of course, there were also simply interesting devices at CES. For example, LG showed a flexible OLED TV that slides out of a small stand, which is mesmerizing in itself. This solution is very convenient for viewing different formats. We watch a 16:9 TV broadcast - pull out the screen completely. We are watching a movie with an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 - we do not extend the screen all the way.

LG Display / @mspoonauer

Samsung introduced The Wall modular TV based on new technology MicroLED. Its main feature, in addition to 4K resolution and MicroLED matrix, is that the user can order a TV in any proportion and size. The screen is assembled like a construction set from small blocks. It is theoretically possible to upgrade the screen to 146 inches.

The Wall / Dmitry Bevza

All three major television vendors - LG, Samsung and Sony - showed new 8K TVs. There is no content with such a resolution in nature yet, but this advance is normal, otherwise studios will simply have no incentive to shoot films, TV series and make games in this format.

Among other exhibits at CES 2018, the smart Yamaha electric motorcycle equipped with a gyroscope was also memorable. Not only can it not fall, it can park itself or drive up to its owner.

Yamaha / Dmitry Bevza

The universal unmanned vehicle Toyota e-Pallet was also presented. It doesn’t look like a car at all—it looks like a container on wheels—and is designed to move independently on roads and deliver cargo and passengers. Also, e-Pallet can be converted into a mobile office, outlet and other objects.

Segway showed off its “smart” suitcase on two large wheels, equipped with a gyroscope and capable of moving independently following the owner, which can be useful for those who spend half their life traveling or on business trips.

It should also be noted huge amount external batteries for smartphones shown at CES by Chinese companies, including in the form of such exotic formats as belts for trousers, bags and backpacks.

Here we can only sarcastically remember that both users and IT journalists wrote a lot about the fact that saving on smartphone battery capacity for the sake of “thin design” is bad idea. But demand creates supply. This state of affairs has created an entire industry of manufacturers of external chargers.

Accumulator belts / Dmitry Bevza

Looks great, but I don't know why

We can discuss for a long time various technical innovations shown at CES, but it should be noted that a significant part of the solutions, and both large companies, and small startups, was associated with the Internet of things - voice assistants, smart home appliances and home electronics, smart transport, smart homes, smart cities, as well as 5G networks for connecting billions of devices with each other and artificial intelligence to manage all this splendor.

Listening to presentations, visiting keynotes and company stands, you get the feeling that you have already found yourself in a bright future, but, alas, this is a very misleading impression.

Despite the optimism of the speakers, it seems that IoT and the 5G networks and artificial intelligence that come with it are just a tool for increasing sales and raising the margins of classic product categories (TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, air conditioners) or a way to obtain new contracts for infrastructure upgrades enterprises and cities.

If we talk about consumer market, then the scenarios that the manufacturers offer household appliances They look, to put it mildly, far-fetched. “Hi, I have ham, three eggs and tomatoes, they can show you recipes for dishes from them and turn on the stove,” the refrigerator tells me, although most of us already know how to cook scrambled eggs on the stove.

And so it is in everything. It seems that engineers think faster than marketers, and they simply do not have time to understand the new capabilities of technology and come up with really useful user cases. There are now almost no scenarios where IoT devices cover truly important needs.

The future is too distant

With the introduction of industrial IoT, problems of a different kind arise. On the customer’s side, there are professionals who understand very well where and how IoT solutions will increase productivity, create additional profits and help save money.

In the meantime, the implementation of complex solutions based on the Internet of things on an enterprise or city scale is quite expensive. This applies to both the cost of equipment and the cost of highly qualified specialists for installation, adjustment and maintenance of such systems.

As a representative of the municipality of a small American city told a Gazeta.Ru correspondent: “This is all great, but we simply do not have the money to implement the intelligent solutions presented here for managing city lighting.

And given the fact that electricity in the United States is not very expensive, I think we won’t even look in this direction for another five years.”

Another thing that really irritated journalists at CES was that developers presented their technologies as almost ready for implementation, which is obviously not true. Most of the most interesting solutions, be it smart cars or smart homes, will be ready for deployment in five or seven years. It is clear that long-term projects need to maintain interest, including from investors and management, but the element of speculation on the topic of a “wonderful future” at CES 2018 was clearly visible.