Subsequent week on the CES 2023 tech commerce present in Las Vegas, we’ll as soon as once more be capable to see and listen to concerning the newest tech developments in individual.

Final yr’s occasion additionally came about in individual, however it was a shadow of its former self because the Omicron wave of COVID-19 took its toll. The occasion solely drew about 45,000 final yr, far beneath the 175,212 that confirmed up in January 2019. This yr, they’re anticipating round 100,000 folks to indicate up, in response to Gary Shapiro, CEO of Shopper Know-how Affiliation, the commerce group that phases the occasion.

Final yr’s occasion seemed like a ghost city. At the least it appeared that method in footage, as I canceled my journey a few week earlier than the present after all people else canceled their appointments with me. The identical sort of cancellation tsunami hasn’t occurred this yr.

This yr, the present will get underway on Tuesday morning with some digital sideline occasions from Nvidia and Acer. I believe it’s protected to say we’ll see loads of new chips and PC gaming rigs introduced. The distinction this yr is that, due to the recession, we are able to most likely count on to purchase extra of those merchandise prior to we had been in a position to take action in the course of the shortages of the previous couple of years.

Just a few thousand press folks will begin converging on Las Vegas on Tuesday and Wednesday for media occasions that formally start with a chat on tech developments by Steve Koenig, vp of analysis on the CTA, adopted by the opening CES Unveiled press occasion. If it’s your first time to the present, take a look at my ideas and methods for CES. On Wednesday, massive corporations like LG, Panasonic, Samsung, TCL, and Sony can have their press conferences the place they showcase the brand new merchandise coming this yr.

By Thursday, the primary present flooring will open with almost 3,000 exhibitors throughout greater than 2.1 million sq. toes of area, Shapiro mentioned. That’s down from 4,500 exhibitors and a couple of.9 million sq. toes in January 2020. However it’s nonetheless a large present and it runs by means of Sunday.

And whereas CES continues to be a spot for the giants like Samsung and Sony, the present can have 1,000 new exhibitors and it’ll even have its conventional Eureka Park startup area within the Venetian.

The massive developments

Final week, PR Newswire reported that there was a 340% improve in mentions in CES 2023 press releases, with greater than 66 mentions in 2022 in comparison with 2021.

NFT mentions had been up 200% to 12, up from 4. Sustainability mentions had been up 63% to 49, up from 30. Robots had been talked about 49 instances, up solely 2% from 48 a yr in the past. The losers? Augmented actuality slipped 12% to 30 from 34, and wearable dropped 38% from 88 to 55.

In our interview, Shapiro mentioned we’ll see an “extremely robust” well being tech class. Shapiro expects we’ll see a whole lot of meals tech, like from an organization referred to as Suvie, which cooks meals whilst you’re away and is prepared once you get residence.

Based mostly on the pitches I’m getting, I believe we’ll see a whole lot of tech associated to AI, well being wearables, energy-saving units, the web of issues (IoT), sleep care, elder care, psychological care, good vehicles, robots and digital actuality (assume Sony and HTC on the very least).

AI

AI is sort of an invisible product, however its presence will probably be seen all over the place on the present. Generative AI startups is likely to be arriving on the scene too late to make a giant presence on the present, however everybody from massive corporations to startups will probably be speaking about how AI is fueling a brand new era of merchandise.

Embodied, maker of the social interplay robotic Moxie, makes use of interactions enabled by generative AI to assist promote social, emotional, and cognitive improvement in youngsters ages 5 to 10. It’s now transport the robotic that it has been exhibiting for a few years.

Sq. Off, a maker of good chessboards with an adaptive AI, will probably be again to indicate off what it will possibly with its partnership with Miko, a shopper robotics firm that makes AI robots for youths.

There are lots of people involved concerning the encroachment of AI into our lives. Alice Little, an award-winning authorized courtesan at the moment working out of the Rooster Ranch brothel close to Las Vegas, mentioned in an announcement that AI tech will threaten the livelihood of intercourse employees, who’ve come to rely on digital experiences equivalent to Solely Followers in the course of the pandemic.

She believes these sorts of creator platforms may very well be considerably harm by AI, notably deepfake expertise that creates pretend pictures of actual folks. We’ll see this debate play out in business after business.

Good inexperienced autos on the rise

AI can also be going to get used within the newest autos. Greater than a dozen automakers will probably be on the present, and so they’ll be exhibiting off electrical autos, assisted driving options and extra. John Deere, which has one of many keynote slots for its CEO John Might, will showcase AI-based tractors that may function across the clock.

Candela is manufacturing a brand new electrical “flying” C-8 shopper boat. It’s an electrical car that rides above the waves and is a sibling to Candela’s P-12 electrical hydrofoil ferry. Cenntro Electrical Group is will unveil 5 new electrical autos at CES, together with a hydrogen-powered semi and the manufacturing model of its iChassis. And as you may see beneath, we’ll have our share of flying vehicles once more.

Aska will probably be exhibiting off its first drive-and-fly electrical vertical take-off and touchdown (eVTOL) plane/automotive hybrid. It’s an electrical car you could drive on the street like a automotive and fly within the air like a quadrocopter. Is it actual? Let’s hope so.

The metaverse

Wherever AI will get talked about, the metaverse can’t be far behind. And the place the metaverse will get talked about, Web3 will come up as properly.

It’s nonetheless early and a bit uncommon to see precise metaverse experiences on show on the present. Supply Digital and Sansar introduced they may showcase a “metaverse expertise” on good TVs, the place you may interact in VR-like 2D or 3D experiences from the makers of Sansar, which spun out of Second Life’s Linden Lab and was offered in 2020 to Wookey Tasks.

Whereas we could not see a ton of precise metaverse tasks on the present, we are going to hear folks speaking about it, particularly within the visions introduced in keynote speeches and panels. Actually, I’m going to average a panel at CES on Friday January 6 about how gaming will lead the metaverse. It would happen at 3 pm on Friday January 6 at LVCC North / N262 and have audio system from Area15, Upland, Holoride and Tilt 5.

With all this discuss concerning the metaverse, Shapiro isn’t so fearful that demand for an in-person CES will fall off.

“We’re very optimistic that CES is so essential to folks world wide — as patrons, traders, suppliers, companions, media, consultants, market analysts — that we count on a powerful exhibiting in Las Vegas,” Shapiro mentioned. “However the digital platform will probably be an essential complement to most of the folks going to Las Vegas who’re simply too busy to get to the conferences or join with the exhibitors that they need to. That’s what the platform will probably be for, to serve these folks.”

As for blockchain, OpenCarbon is touting its first non-fungible token (NFT) market for carbon credit. The OpenCarbon platform delivers SEC-compliant, carbon offset monetary merchandise to effectively supply, assemble, handle and retire large-scale and complicated carbon asset portfolios.

The web of issues

LG is partnering with Asleep to create good residence home equipment that reply to human respiration and diagnose sleep phases to function at an optimum stage. So your air con and heating — and different residence home equipment — can reply to the way you’re sleeping at evening.

We’ll see loads of different examples of the web of issues creeping deeper into our lives. Let’s hope the theme of Ubisoft’s Watchdogs recreation — that these units will probably be utilized by hackers and governments to spy on us — received’t come true.

You’ll be able to guess that the web of issues will additional infiltrate its method into good properties, good buildings, and good whatevers. Synthetic intelligence — buoyed by successes in laptop imaginative and prescient, neural networks, and machine studying — will probably be pervasive inside these IoT units.

VR and gaming gear

Sony will take the stage at CES to share particulars about its PlayStation VR2 headset and the video games coming for the gadget, which debuts on February 22. HTC is predicted to make an announcement and a lot of different VR headset makers are exhibiting up at CES.

And VR’s platform is at all times altering. bHaptics’s new TactGlove, could be worn like common gloves. It’s appropriate with business VR/AR headsets with camera-based hand monitoring programs, together with Meta Quest 2, and prices $300 per pair. The brand new haptic gloves have 12 Linear Resonant Actuator-type motors (LRA), which the corporate says permits delicate and complex suggestions on the fingertips and wrists. 

Holoride will probably be on the present once more show how one can play digital actuality video games within the again seat of a automotive — with out shedding your lunch.

On the gaming facet, we’ll see LG’s 27-inch OLED gaming monitor and Alienware’s newest 18-inch gaming laptop computer. Nvidia will doubtless discuss concerning the GeForce RTX 40-series graphics chips, and AMD will try to outdo Nvidia with its personal GPUs. MSI will present a flagship gaming laptop computer Titan GT77 that can function a 4K/144Hz Mini LED show. You’ll be able to guess there will probably be a ton extra on show on the present.

Superior Micro Units CEO Lisa Su will kick off the present at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday with a keynote speech. So we’re more likely to hear concerning the newest Ryzen and Radeon chips.

As for TVs, some aficionados are hoping to listen to extra about QD-OLED as the way forward for cutting-edge TV tech, so it’ll be attention-grabbing to see if anybody has something so as to add on that entrance.

Well being tech

Valencell unveiling the primary calibration-free, cuffless finger-tip blood stress monitor. Firms like Omron Healthcare have been whittling away at this type of drawback for years. Dexcom has obtained clearance from the FDA for its glucose monitor Dexcom 7, which makes it a lot simpler to measure blood sugar ranges for folks with diabetes.

Withings, a pioneer of related well being will unveil its first foray into urine evaluation with a miniaturized well being lab that can change the best way folks monitor their well being from the consolation and privateness of their very own toilet. If this works, it’s possible you’ll not must pee in a cup on the physician’s workplace or a lab a lot.

Whereas we urinate on common seven instances a day, urine analyses are normally carried out solely every year when requested by your well being skilled. Now Withings is making it doable to conduct well being assessments from the consolation and privateness of your toilet regularly.

The brand new product features a pebble-shaped reader that sits inside the bathroom bowl. Its changeable evaluation cartridges are designed to evaluate particular biomarkers with out the necessity for exterior pattern seize or strips. It would initially debut with two shopper well being cartridges to assist customers monitor metabolic insights and ladies to handle month-to-month cycles with medical variations following sooner or later. 

And I’m anticipating to see extra options than ever that concentrate on aged folks and their caregivers, as tech has lastly woken as much as the demographic development of the infant boomers become older. Tech isn’t going to be only for the younger anymore.

Japan’s Asilla is exhibiting off a safety digital camera that sends you alerts to uncommon issues occurring in actual time, like if somebody falls on the bottom. We will count on to see extra of those merchandise, as Synaptics has created fall-detection sensors that use AI to detect if folks have fallen and need assistance.

Meals tech

OneThird, a Dutch meals tech firm, will present a “ripeness checker” designed to be used by grocers or grocery retailer buyers. It lets them rapidly scan an avocado and get correct details about when it’s prepared for consumption – no squeezing needed.

Apparently we’re not so good on the squeezing half, as one-third of all meals produced is wasted on account of spoilage – costing upwards of $1 trillion. OneThird’s resolution helps end-consumers get the freshest meals and permits growers, meals distributors and grocers to foretell the shelf lifetime of recent produce.

Typhur will showcase its all-in-one good Sous Vide cooking machine, with cooking courses and recipes from cooks all world wide, together with Michelin Star Cooks.  

Retro developments

For those who’re not into all this new stuff, you may see previous stuff too. RCA will probably be among the many retro manufacturers coming to the present, and it’ll showcase residence automation, e-bikes and scooters, and retro-style electronics. For a few of us, that brings again some reminiscences.

Bizarre makes use of for brand new expertise

I’ve been pitched some oddball issues that I didn’t count on see. As an illustration, Glüxkind is exhibiting off an AI-powered child stroller with a motor. It comes with an sleep resolution with rock-my-baby, white noise and 360 security bubble across the stroller. I suppose I shouldn’t name this bizarre as a result of it may very well be very helpful for its goal customers. However it’s actually one thing I didn’t count on see.

In the meantime, Osim goes to indicate off its uLove 3 Nicely-Being Chair, which makes use of AI to assist in giving you massages. The chair is designed to measure, monitor, and handle stress whereas supplying you with a full-body therapeutic massage.

After choosing up a video from your personal library or by utilizing a YouTube hyperlink, you may add scents on the timeline to arrange the proper odor, timing, and length for a scent to go together with your video.

What’s lacking from CES

Some widespread CES occasions received’t occur. Nvidia will probably be doing a web based press occasion however it received’t be on the present flooring. Apple doesn’t exhibit on the present, because it at all times does its personal occasions. I count on we received’t see as many masks both. However I recommend all people be further protected with so many individuals concentrated in Vegas.

With as many as 71,000 fewer folks, I’m actually hoping for fewer traces and crowds across the well-liked cubicles. However like many individuals, I’m curious what it will likely be like seeing folks face-to-face once more at an enormous commerce present. Hopefully it should really feel like we’re all getting again to enterprise.

Tech for the remainder of us

I’ve some hope that there will probably be some attention-grabbing applied sciences from non-tech corporations.

Halio is exhibiting off good glass. You’ll be able to put this on home windows and constructing facades to forestall photo voltaic warmth from cooking all people inside a constructing. This reduces a facility’s carbon footprint by limiting power used for air con or heating. I like the way it’s one other instance of how tech fades into the woodwork of on a regular basis issues.

My favourite CES discuss tech from non-tech corporations was just a few years in the past, when Arnold Donald — the CEO of the world’s largest cruise firm, Carnival Cruises — unveiled the Ocean Medallion wearable. That was attention-grabbing as a result of it was an instance of how expertise was infiltrating a non-tech enterprise, the place the expertise light into the woodwork and the woodwork itself obtained good. Carnival is now outfitting its 100-plus cruise ships with the expertise.

In recent times, Procter & Gamble has additionally confirmed up with cool makes use of of tech in abnormal merchandise, equivalent to placing sensors and AI into merchandise equivalent to pores and skin advisers, heated razors, and extra. Will probably be again this yr with extra merchandise that promise the identical sort of creativity as final yr’s merchandise, which included a blemish remover that labored properly on my face. I might nonetheless use extra of that, and I believe we might all use tech that makes the present merchandise that we use on daily basis even higher.