It’s been an interesting few days in here in Vegas at CES 2016 hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones. Seems like it’s THE place for everyone to bring the next world changing idea to light and wow the world. As all things are though… It wasn’t ALL good.
Cool.
1. VR VR VR VR! What a year it was for VR and very cool to see all the different companies jump into the space. Although there were a LOT of HMD companies creating similar products, it’s good to see the push towards mass adoption. We need all the brands and products and the first push seems like it will be strong!
Special Congrats to NextVR for an amazing event at the Sport Innovation Forum and for its partnership with Qualcomm! Exciting times ahead!
2. The boom of super electric and autonomous cars was pretty impressive, with the Faraday Future being the most awe inspiring of the lot! What a car that is going to be whenever it somehow becomes a real thing! I’m not sure when the day will be when all the cars on the street will be self driving (since I personally LOVE driving so I’m not sure I would use on) but the tech flowing into the auto industry both in fuel consumption to sensory upgrades is truly amazing to see. It’s about time that we start changing one of the biggest parts of modern society.
Not.
The disappointing part was seeing the sheer number of startups that were creating “incremental” improvements on existing products/technologies. There were 2 areas that made me almost lose my mind.
1. Health bands and trackers. Considering the mindshare that the few leaders in the industry already have, it was quite shocking to see the dozens of startups and big brands that decided to ALL launch essentially the same product. I don’t care what anyone says……. Just because the form factor, UX and design changed slightly… It does NOT mean it’s a new product.
2. Speakers and headphones. Really?! Since Beats created this new hip consumer segment… I must have seen 100+ brands try to break into the space without providing ANY sort of innovation. Again. Colours, form factor, birthplace and marginal sound improvements (if any) does NOT make it all compelling and will not give any particular brand an edge in the global battle of commoditisation.
That’s really it for now and perhaps there will be more to talk about once we’re all done digesting the crazy week.
Good times ahead!
the techathlete. 