It’s that time of the year again. Time to turn our attention once again to another big event in January: Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Yes, the annual tech and gadgets show returns to Las Vegas next week on Wednesday. And here are the things to look out for:
8K Television
CES 2019 will be another showcase for 8K TVs despite the little 8K content available for consumption right now. LG is rumored to be preparing a consumer version of its rollable TV. Expect to see more big screens from manufacturers. As for the technology, it should remain largely similar. LG will stick with its signature OLED televisions, while Samsung will continue trying to get everything it can out of QLED LCDs. The latter displayed its MicroLED-powered The Wall last year.
Foldable Phones
Displays are getting much more flexible. Samsung showed off its foldable-phone concept months back. This time, a Chinese company called Royole plans to show off its own at the CES. Rumours have it that LG might even have a folding-phone announcement for the show.
Rise of the Virtual Assistants
Amazon has multiple booths spread out across several convention halls this year. Well, Google made quite an impact last year with its enormous exhibition space as well as creating its own line of Echo Show rivals, Amazon will definitely wants to up its game. Expect to see an Alexa integration in other electronics like televisions, appliances and more. Amazon will even have its very own car-related exhibit to show off Alexa Auto, a personal assistant addition to compatible cars.
Google wouldn’t want to be left out either. It is occupying even a larger area this CES. It may be pushing the Google Assistant once again (remember the slide last year?). There’s probably going to be a significant number of Assistant-powered devices on hand (last year we saw stuff from JBL and Lenovo). It may have new features come January 8.
Smart Homes
Again, things will be more integrated. We’ll likely see increased integration of Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa in home appliances. With Amazon and Google already going head to head in the smart speaker and smart display categories, the competition is getting more heated.
Intelligent Cars
At the CES for automobiles, the spotlight will usually be on autonomous driving or the latest developments in EV. For this year’s CES, US Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao is slated to be a keynote speaker at CES, and she will be speaking on “the future of drones and self-driving technology.”
Car companies like Ford and Bosch/Daimler are expected to show off their research in the mobility space, such as new driver AI systems and the latest LIDAR sensors. Aside from self-driving cars, we’ll also see autonomous tech on other kinds of vehicles like tractors. Audi will be showing off an all-new in-car entertainment system that includes a movie theater experience.
It’s 5G Time
2019 is going to be the first year people will actually be able to use next-generation 5G data networks, so expect to hear a lot about 5G at the CES. Verizon and AT&T will be at the show, and their respective CEOs are slated to appear in keynote sessions on 5G. This new network will be coming, hard and fast.
