New year, new tech, new Consumer Electronics Show

Every day is a party in Las Vegas, that sweet oasis of the Nevadan desert in the United States. But the first weekend of January sees a party that seems to carry on well after the New Year has dawned; and it’s a party every tech geek worth their salt wants to head to. Of course, we are talking about the Consumer Electronics Show, known by its popular abbreviation, CES.

Beginning January 9, this year’s edition will go on till the 12th. But then again, companies hardly wait for the show to kick-off to tease their products. It’s become a tradition of sorts to unveil or give the world a sneak peek of what’s in store and there’s been some of that already. But before we go ahead and tell you about that or what it is you can expect this year, here are some of the show-stoppers from the 2017 edition.

Last year was big on TVs. Sony unveiled its A1 OLED TV, which apart from boasting 4K, HDR, and smart capabilities, brought you sound without speakers. That’s right. Sony achieved this by using what is called Acoustic Surface technology, by which the screen itself produces sound. Apart from this, Samsung launched its new range of QLED TVs and its Korean rival LG also was not to be left far behind, introducing its W OLED TVs, which with their wafer-thin width, gave viewers a picture that looked like it was part of a wall.

Virtual Reality and its cousin Augmented Reality have been talking points in the tech space throughout the year gone by and CES 2017 saw a host of these on display. HTC Vive launched new accessories and they were a bunch of other interesting concepts on display too. Of course, this continued in the rest of the year with AR and VR taking up large, exclusive floor spaces at other shows and events across the world.

Smartphones weren’t left behind either. Asus unveiled its Zenfone AR, a Google Tango-integrated phone that was also VR-ready at the show. Huawei sub-brand Honor unveiled its Honor 6x.

2018 promises to carry on last year’s TV obsession. And once again, LG is at the forefront with its 8K (yes, you read that right) OLED TV. The company teased its 88-inch, 8K offering last Sunday and according to reports it boasts a whopping resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 pixels, which is substantially more than the 4K resolution that we just about began getting used to. Of course, we expect it to be frightfully expensive and given how there is a dearth of 4K content in India, we don’t really know when the 8K content that this TV can do full justice to will come along. But then, you have a glimpse of what the future of viewing looks like. And it’s quite eye-catching. Also expect Samsung to unveil some new TVs from its QLED range, this year.

The concept of smart homes, led by smart speakers (because at the moment, they’re the most affordable of the lot and that has helped their penetration), are also expected to mark their presence at CES in a big way. Third-party gadget-makers are adopting virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and we expect to see many more assistant-enabled speakers, giving consumers some much-needed variety. Here again, LG has raised its hand to be counted by unveiling a Google Assistant-enabled speaker recently.

Of course, smart homes don’t just stop at smart speakers and we expect to see a whole line-up of household appliances such as refrigerators sporting virtual assistants and smart capabilities. Samsung already has a refrigerator with which you can order groceries, so watch out for a lot more of that.

Now, we would do well to remember that the marquee event for smartphones and the likes is the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, which is right after CES in February. So, while we don’t expect companies to launch their flagships at CES, the segment will still be something to watch out for.

Also remember that Qualcomm has just unveiled its 845 chipset, the next big processor that we expect to see on top-end phones, so don’t be too surprised if you see a few big ones sporting the latest Snapdragon. Sony, Huawei, may well have a few surprises up their sleeve and Samsung might have its A8 smartphone lined up.

A lot of us would say yes to the above statement. 5G was a big talking point at 2017’s Mobile World Congress in Shanghai and this technology is expected to revolutionise the way we interact with our gadgets and how devices interact with each other. Hyper-fast internet speeds thanks to 5G can ensure that devices stay connected to each other and can transmit information in the blink of an eye. Of course, in a country such as ours, a lot will depend on infrastructure. But then again, with big names like Jio and Airtel going neck-to-neck in competition, it won’t be too long before we see it here.

CES sets the general tone for what’s to come in technology in the rest of the year and our eyes are going to be tuned-in to the show to see what’s in store.

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