Top Tech Trends Heading Into CES

CEO Corner : Article

I’m on my way to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. CES is always a good time to see the latest technologies, some B-list celebrities doing some demos and wait in some long cab lines.

It’s also a good chance to start to think about the trends that will impact the coming year.

There are no shortage of “2018 trends to watch” list from bloggers, magazines and various sources this week. In reading them all, I notice some “trends amongst the trend lists” that are worth noting.

Just about everybody had augmented reality at or near the top of their list. We’ve been fortunate to be involved with that technology through our client, the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance for a few years now. It really is game changing stuff at the enterprise level—yes, even cooler than Pokémon Go. No doubt, AR is the future of user manuals—where was it when I was putting my daughter’s IKEA furniture together?

Blockchain is the next item on everyone’s list though everyone feels a bit like this cartoon:

 

Once you have your “aha” moment with blockchain it is clear that the hype exists for good reason. We’ve been working with a number of blockchain groups—notably the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and specialized groups such as the Blockchain in Trucking Alliance for a while now. I have no doubt that the potential of the technology far exceeds my ability to explain it to my mom (I lose her at “distributed ledger” every time).

A third is cyber security—in so many forms. I‘ve spent years at client meetings for groups such as the PCI Security Standards Council and SAFECode getting a sense of how real cyber threats are. Technologies that balance user experience with security—such as the FIDO Alliance’s quest to drive security without passwords—will no doubt be of value this year.

The fourth is IoT—such a broad topic that it increasingly encompasses everything. The trick is that taken with the last trend, IoT starts to present a raft of new opportunities for vulnerabilities. That’s why groups like TIOTA—the Trusted IoT Alliance, with whom we’ve been working for the last year—are so critical.

And finally, there’s 5G. If you don’t appreciate the importance of new generations of wireless networks, you haven’t traveled to a place recently where the little “3G” indicator lights up on your phone, and you suddenly grind to a halt. 5G will usher in endless possibilities for content and sharing, and no doubt new challenges as well. Meanwhile, we are working with groups like TIP, the Telecom Infra Project—that are bringing wireless technologies of all sorts to new parts of the world – an exciting and worthy venture.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to CES to do what I really love—checking out the new toys.

 

*If you happen to be at CES, swing by the Alliances Community Reception On Wednesday, January 10th from 5-7. Virtual is a Platinum Sponsor of this event. Open to all CES attendees.

 

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