What to expect from one of the world’s biggest technology events, CES

CES

CES Consumer Electronic Show

More than 2 million square feet of venue space are filling up with the latest and greatest technology on the planet. It’s all for the technology conference formerly called “Consumer Electronics Show.” Now, it’s simply called “CES.” 

CES_Logo

Over the coming days, CCTV-America will bring you some of the most innovative, creative and downright awesome technologies on display in Las Vegas. You’ll get instant access to the center of innovation.

Here’s a preview of the 6 things we’re looking forward to the most:

  1. Expect a major product announcement from Ford on Tuesday morning. It will come just after 10:30am Eastern (7:30am local in Las Vegas). The rumor is Ford will announce a partnership with Google to produce a self-driving car. We will announce the news first via Twitter. 
  2. Other companies are jumping into the self-driving car space. That includes an update from Kia on its plans. But it and other manufacturers will have a hard time stealing the spotlight from Ford if the rumors are to be believed, primarily because Google has already made so much progress on its own.
  3. One of the major trends has been – and will continue to be – something called “wearables.” This is technology that users wear. It includes devices that track health patterns and vital signs. Products here include Belty (a health tracking device which debuted last year at CES to immense excitement), three new offerings from Fitkat, a device called Quell (which claims to deliver drug-free pain relief via the device), another device which does similar things called ReliefBand and VERT (a performance tracker designed for athletes).
  4. Technology is entering the bedroom in a new way. All of it seems innocent enough, like the product called Bedphones which are headphones designed to be worn while laying down in bed. But even in that niche category, there is a competitor. That comes from SleepPhones, which also includes hardware that will track the user’s sleep. And while we’re on the topic of audio, there’s a product announcement coming from Akoustic Arts that sounds fascinating. It’s a speaker system simply called “A.” It projects a beam of sound. If you’re in the beam, you hear the sound. If you’re outside it, you don’t hear anything. We are curious to know how narrow that beam will be and if it can isolate sound to just one side of a bed, for example.
  5. The world of glasses-free 3D television is inching closer. Several companies are debuting their breakthroughs. Among the most notable is from a company called Stream TV Networks. It showed off progress on its chips at last year’s CES, but it says it has something incredible to show off this year. Another one to watch is a company called KDX, which is also developing glasses-free 3D smartphones, tablets and laptops. These companies will both have to break new ground if they are to upstage one of the standouts from last year: Samsung.
  6. What kind of impact will Chinese companies have? There are several Chinese companies looking to make a splash at CES, or at the very least generate enough buzz to help capture greater international market share. These companies include TCL (televisions), ZTE (smartphones) and HiSense (televisions).