Reviewing the various round-ups on what was big at CES, most agree that the Internet of Things was pretty high up the agenda of the companies attending, and was the underlying theme for the event. Not that this is a reliable predictor – don’t forget that 2012 was the year that supposed saw 3D TV come of age.
The Absentees
It is perhaps worth starting with a reminder of the notable absentees, Apple, Google and Microsoft, the three industry’s largest platform and ecosystem players. Nevertheless Nest, the smart thermostat vendor acquired by Google, announced new 15 new partnerships for its “Works with Nest” programme. This included linking locking, unlocking doors to the homes heating & cooling system; a company called Automatic to track when you are close to home and LG appliances determine whether you are at home or not. None of these are revolutionary applications, but signs of progress beyond the standalone Thermostat. In the meantime, not much was heard about progress with companies who have signed up to Apple’s Homekit
Samsung – makes everything, wants everything to be connected.
Samsung sees Internet of Things everywhere – and made it the main and sole focus of its keynote, making a strong case for openness to allow people, devices and sensors to talk to each other, not just in the house, but out and about. There will not be a Samsung ecosystem, perhaps an acknowledgement that unlike Apple and Google, Samsung has never been effective at building well-supported platforms (Tizen, anyone?). Nevertheless, Samsung a company that makes phones, tablets, TVs and a whole range of consumer electronics, home appliances, plus a huge swathe of electronics and sensors see a strong opportunity to be a dominant player in the post-smartphone world. As if to prove the point on openness, SmartThings’ the IoT Hub manufacturer bought by Samsung said that they will support Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth Smart, and moving forward, Thread and the Open Interconnect Consortium as well as All-Joyn, effectively hedging their bets as to what will prove to be the winning outcome.
Chipsets – Intel makes a splash
While there was relatively little news from Qualcomm, the undisputed king of smartphone processors, other than an ambition to tackle on the connected car, and an update on its connected health initiative, announcing partnerships with Novartis and Walgreens on its cloud based clinical data sharing system. Intel however, launched announced a module, the Quark, that is more appropriate for low-cost light-weight wearables than the Edison platform we reviewed in December. This is the Intel Quark, which will be accompanied by a development board called the Curie, and is designed to be used in smartwatches, bracelets, eyewear, pendants and all manner of wearable devices. This is yet another indication that IoT is what Intel are betting the farm on.
Auto manufacturers Circling the wagons
There seems to be quite a tussle on who is to own the infotainment platforms in cars, with Ford indicating that they will continue to push their own Sync AppLink as their primary platform, while Volkswagen committing to launch both Google Android Auto and Apple Car Play, indicating that car vendors will be compelled to support both ecosystems in addition to their proprietary interfaces giving choice to users as to which systems to use.
And finally – Avoiding the trees
In one of the more compelling demonstration of how high-end artificial intelligence is becoming more accessible to a wide range of consumer goods and services, last week saw the demo of a drone produced by a company called AscTec which incorporated Intel’s new 3D camera technology called RealSense in order to build an object-avoidance capability. The technology required to implement such capabilities require a level of AI sophistication well beyond the means of most vendors, but is being made available virtually off-the-shelf by the likes of Intel and Qualcomm, which can only presage a drone revolution.