Tag Archives: consumer electronics

News of The Future This Week: January 9, 2019

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“Consumers are statistics.  Customers are people.”–Stanley Marcus 

The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show is underway in Las Vegas.  Considering the 180,000 attendees, perhaps we should be calling it the Statistics Electronics Show, per Stanley Marcus

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

 CES 2019–Robots are everywhere at CES in Las Vegas.   Chinese firm Ubtech introduced two humanoid robots.  USA Today provided a CES robot overview, which it calls the robot revolution.

–In spite of Ubtech, one source reports that Trump’s trade war has cooled many Chinese tech firms on CES.

Bell’s Nexus flying taxi.

–It’s not exactly a flying car, but an Uber partner, Bell, introduced a vertical takeoff and landing flying taxi at CES.  For more on flying cars an VTOL check out Seeking Delphi™ podcast #27 from November of last year.

–It’s not electronics, but it is cool new biotechnology and possibly one of the most impressive things on display at CES 2019.  Impossible Foods, introduced it’s all veggie Impossible Burger 2.0, and critics are calling it virtually indistinguishable from beef.

–In a keynote address, Ford CEO Jim Hackett outlined ambitious plans for automotive connectivity to enable autonomous vehicles, encourage ride-sharing, and reduce congestion.  More on these subject is available in Seeking Delphi™ podcasts #26 (connectivity in autonomous vehicles) and #28 (intelligent traffic control).

–For more on these and other technologies featured at CES, check out these videos from CBS New York and CNBC.

Walking Car? Take a hike!

Automotive–Heard enough about electric, autonomous, and flying cars? Check out this: a walking car, from Hyundai. (OK, this concept was unveiled at CES, too, but it really deserves its own category.)

Quantum Computing–IBM revealed a 20 qubit quantum computer that will be it’s first commercial entry into the field. Still more from CES.  Honestly though, consumers may ultimately benefit from the fruits of quantum computers, but they are not likely to own one.  Relevent background is available from the Seeking Delphi™ SXSW 2018 minicast #3 with whurley.

Security/Facial Recognition–A new survey conducted by the Center for Data Innovation finds that most Americans are OK with the government using facial recognition technology. This is especially so when applied to airport security.

Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Three Interesting New Social Robots for 2017

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Fascinating stuff from one of my fellow U of H foresight students.

Kiteba: A Futurist Blog and Resource

Social robotics continues to develop, and new robots are appearing on the market all the time. According to reports from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), robots stole the show. Typical of the reporting, USA Today wrote, “We saw robots to make your morning coffee, pour candy, fold your clothes, turn on and off your lights, project a movie on the wall, handle your daily chores and most impressively, look just like a human, or in this case, legendary scientist Albert Einstein, with facial expressions and movement.”

Turn on and off your lights? Well, all these little household applications may seem like small, even trivial steps along the way to the robotic future of our favorite scifi movies, but they are steps, and consumer demand for social robots, i.e., robots that interact with us socially and/or play predominantly social roles in our lives, I would argue, is key to the development…

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