Check out more podcasts in the TechXchange: Inside Electronics Podcast and Electronic Design's coverage of CES 2024.
Over the years, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been the place to go every January to see the latest in products, solutions, and services from the electronics industry. This year, over 4,300 exhibitors, including a record 1,400+ startups from around the globe in the event’s Eureka Park, showcased the latest and greatest trends that will shape the world of tomorrow and address our most pressing challenges. Electronic Design’s CES 2024 digital issue has a large collection of articles and videos from this impressive event.
CES 2024 Highlights
Highlights at the event encompassed and addressed just about every application space and market trend, from software to hardware to human systems and social issues. Artificial intelligence was a big focus, as exhibitors highlighted the enormous potential of AI to improve our world. This tied into the Human Security for All global campaign, focusing on the critical role technology plays to improve every aspect of the human experience.
Force for Good released a report at the CES Research Summit on tech’s influence on human securities, and along with CTA’s CES 2024 Tech Trends to Watch, showed how universal connectivity and leveraging AI across human securities will improve our world.
When it comes to the global auto, mobility, and transportation marketplace, CES is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing events with over 600 mobility exhibitors. They showcased the ecosystem of mobility, addressing the future of autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, micro-mobility, software-defined vehicles, and even flying cars, as well as the future of assistive mobility and safety systems.
CES 2024 also showed commitment to sustainable solutions through technologies, products, and services to reduce emissions and waste. In the area of digital health, tools and technologies for improving health equity and saving lives were highlighted. Among the innovations on tap were digital therapeutics, mental wellness, sleep tech, women’s health tech, and telemedicine.
Furthermore, the event featured sessions on diversity in the tech industry, a wave of new technologies that will improve lives and advances in accessible gaming.
Exhibits underscored advances in the health space, ensuring technology bridges the gaps in care through improved eye testing cameras or using AI-driven speech technology to simulate a natural voice for those with disordered speech.
Gaming itself has evolved from the console and PC entertainment-focused days into a social platform, with controllers and other gaming accessories offering inclusive design standards to enable more consumers to become gamers. Breakthroughs in captioning technology and hearables will help ensure the entertainment sector improves accessibility to all that desire it.
In addition, an Innovation Policy Summit brought together over 160 international, federal, state, and local innovators and policymakers to discuss the future of pressing tech policy issues such as privacy, health innovation, trade policy, competition, AI, and self-driving vehicles.
Notable News from CES 2024
Editors from Electronic Design, Microwaves & RF, and other group titles attended the event, providing comprehensive coverage of some of the more notable news items they found there. Editors Kay Nadler from VehicleServicePros.com, Paul Rothman of SecurityInfowatch.com, Microwaves & RF’s David Maliniak, and Bill Wong from Electronic Design participated in a roundtable conversation about what they saw and their overall impressions.
Robots have become a staple at CES. Electronic Design’s Cabe Atwell’s article “Robot Revolution Takes Over CES 2024” covers some of the technical advances, new platforms, and the transformative shift in how we interact with machines. From sleek and intelligent personal assistants to robust yard maintenance machines, the latest robots have transcended mere functionality to embody a convergence of cutting-edge technologies.
In “ePaper Not Just for e-Readers Anymore,” Bill Wong points out that the ePaper technology employed in e-readers is very power efficient and one of the few display technologies that can retain a static display after power is removed, making for even more efficient power use. E Ink showcased ePaper implementations from a variety of third parties, including a guitar and smartphones that change color, allowing a user to customize and change the exterior of a device in real-time.
Bill also addressed the power revolution currently being fomented by wide-bandgap semiconductors like gallium nitride (GaN) in his piece “GaN Delivers More Compact Power Supplies.” In it, he talks about how Navitas Semiconductor’s GaN solutions isolate the GaN transistor for more robust power electronics. Improper use of GaN transistors can result in breakdowns, which Navitas addresses with a system-in-package (SiP) approach that adds controlling electronics for the GaN transistor. It provides protection from electrostatic discharge (ESD) while increasing power density.
Alix Paultre’s “A Collection of Eye-Opening Advances from CES 2024” is a gallery of interesting items at the event, ranging from ChatGPT in passenger vehicles to generative AI in software development. Volkswagen showcased the first vehicles with AI-based ChatGPT integrated into its IDA voice assistant, enabling customers to have seamless access to the AI database in all equipped models. The solution can act as a co-driver, providing researched content that’s read out to the driver and passengers while underway.
Kayla Nadler of Vehicle Service Pros also addressed vehicles in “CES 2024: EV intel report,” where she talks about how Steve Greenfield from Automotive Ventures shared updates on the EV market at the event. Greenfield touched on a variety of topics, such as the fact that the battery makes up as much as 40% of the total cost of an EV, depending on make and model. He also talked about how the industry is moving toward semi-solid and solid-state batteries, and how over 130 new EV models are expected to launch over the next two to three years in the U.S.
Paul Rothman, editor-in-chief of Security Business magazine, has a podcast that talks about a new access control standard being developed by CSA, called Aliro. Diving into CSA’s new access control standard at CES 2024, he covers the technology and what it will mean for connectivity technology in the future. Aliro is a mobile credential standard that looks to create an environment where access control providers and mobile device manufacturers work together, eliminating barriers to innovation.
Check out more podcasts in the TechXchange: Inside Electronics Podcast and more coverage of CES 2024.
