Emotional Experience Car shown at CES by BMW

Clearly a concept car, but could it take off?

BMW’s iVision Dee Brings Sci-fi to the Driveway This concept car’s e-paper skin turns a paint job into an exterior screen      By Lawrence Ulrich   in IEEE Spectrum

The body of BMW’s latest concept car, the iVision Dee, is like a big e-paper screen, allowing each pixel to assume one of 32 exterior colors. BMW

Before I met BMW’s iVision Dee at a press preview event in Germany—prior to a public reveal at CES in Las Vegas last week—I’d never seen a car blush, let alone had one make me blush. But then the electric BMW began changing colors and facial expressions, talking at me in intimate detail, splashing a digital avatar of my face on its side window, and filling its windshield with head-up display (HUD) projections worthy of Minority Report.

The “Dee” in this radical concept sedan stands for “Digital Emotional Experience.” That includes its eponymous, sultry-voiced virtual assistant. The body’s 240 laser-cut, Kindle-style “e-ink” panels let the BMW transform instantly to one of 32 exterior colors. Excited by low current—15 volts and less than 100 milliamperes—the panels’ microencapsulated particles create a moveable e-paper display. Feeling hot pink today? Go for it. And don’t worry about dinging the electric driving range: The chameleonic material uses nominal energy, and only while it’s shifting color to another shade.  ... '

Smelling, Touching Take Center Stage in Metaverse

More than vision?  

Smelling, Touching Take Center Stage in Metaverse

Associated Press  Haleluya Hadero; Rio Yamat, January 8, 2023

Metaverse technologies unveiled at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2023) included sensory products that can replicate sensations and even odors in virtual reality (VR). VR developer OVR Technology demonstrated a headset containing a cartridge with eight smells that can be combined into different scents, for release later this year. The company is marketing the product as a kind of digital spa combined with Instagram, with the goal of helping consumers relax. Aurora Townsend at VR game developer FireFlare said her team aims to enhance the company's upcoming Planet Theta VR dating application with touch and other sensations. Metaverse expert Matthew Ball doubts such products will see wider use in coming years, outside of fields with large budgets and specific needs like bomb disposal units using haptics, and medical workers.  ... ' 

NVIDIA Goes Virtual Assistants

To me an unexpected direction.   Apparently a prototype early access effort for partners.   

Develop Intelligent Virtual Assistants with NVIDIA Omniverse ACE Early Access

By Stephanie Rubenstein and Alex Qi    NVIDIA

NVIDIA just announced at CES 2023 that early access is now available for NVIDIA Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE). Developers and teams building avatars and virtual assistants can register to join the program, which includes access to the Omniverse ACE suite of cloud-native AI microservices for faster, easier development of interactive avatars.

Early partners include Ready Player Me, whose avatar was showcased in the CES demo. With this early access program, NVIDIA is looking for developers and partners to provide feedback on the microservices, collaborate on product improvement, and help push the limits of what’s possible with lifelike, interactive, digital humans. Applicants are reviewed and approved on a rolling basis as the program continues to expand.   .... ' 

What is the Omniverse ACE early access program?

Methods for developing avatars often require expertise, specialized equipment, and manually intensive workflows.

To ease avatar creation, Omniverse ACE enables the seamless integration of NVIDIA AI technologies—including pre-built models, tool sets, and domain-specific reference applications. The available avatar applications are built on most engines and deployed on public or private clouds.

Agri Tech at CES

 Was asked to report on this and implications.  Seems a broad and deep look at data use.  Good idea. 

Tech at CES Shows How Farmers Can Save Time, Money, Environment

France24 (France), January 8, 2023

Farmers can better protect the environment while reducing costs and saving time through data-collecting technologies unveiled at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2023). French startup Brad has created a sensor that supplies real-time temperature, moisture, and light data in fields to help growers make more accurate and timely decisions on irrigation, pesticide use, and soil treatment. Meanwhile, South Korean startup AimbeLab offers a system for monitoring the volume and condition of grain and feed stored in silos. U.S. company Simple Labs' sensor can read the temperature, humidity, pH value, and phenolic content of wine in a barrel or vat to facilitate more precise control over aging. French company Meropy's rolling wheel device is equipped with cameras to inspect crops for weeds, pests, or disease.

Full Article

CES Reporting?

 Based on my previous message, I have been asked to do some selective reporting on the CES  (Consumer Electronics Show) , based on my long experience with emergent tech in the enterprise at a half dozen venues.  (My longest stints were with Procter & Gamble and the DOD)   This can include alerts about, descriptions, and technical reviews. If this is of interest,  send me a note.   What particular future do you want to hear about, and what is your particular application in mind?    Note I am not at CES this year, but I do know some people there I could influence to check things out.  Interested? let me know via a comment or message.     This could also evolve into a project as needed.  -  Franz  

Body Monitoring

Digital Selves deriving from monitoring

Body-Monitoring Tech Trend Comes with Concerns

France24, January 6, 2022

Body-monitoring technology promoted at this year's Consumer Electronics Show raises concerns about such wearables eroding the boundary between well-being and obsession. Amaury Kosman at French startup Circular said the company's Circular Ring provides wearers with a daily "energy score" based on activity intensity compiled from heart rate, body temperature, and other sensor-collected data. The ring also tracks sleeping habits, awakes users via vibrations, and syncs with a mobile application to make lifestyle recommendations. German political scientist Nils-Eyk Zimmermann warned such tools could generate a "digital self" that is out of step with reality, adding that society must ascertain whether they are beneficial or "give rise to new dependencies."

Google and Alexa Voices Skip CES

But they were there nevertheless. Some interesting thoughts on that. 

Google Assistant and Alexa Were Invisible and Everywhere at CES 2021   By Eric Hal Schwartz   in Voicebot.ai

Amazon and Google opted to skip joining the list of exhibitors at this year’s all-digital CES, but their respective voice assistants arguably erased what would normally be a glaring gap in the event’s list. Alexa and Google Assistant each appeared over and over as close to 2,000 companies showcased their new products.  ... '

Procter's Virtual CES Home of the Future

Recall that I originally established this blog to continue communications with P&G's 'Home of the future'. visitors in the middle 00's.  Linked directly to a store of the future. I often headed tours and discussions there, as part of a  team that managed that effort.  Often bringing in new technologies.  There are many posts about it in this blog.  It went away for a time, but now is roaring back with slightly different direction.  Smarter and Greener.  Will  aim to visit and report on it.

You can visit the current effort online at CES online, below is an intro through which you can get to the CES site.

Step Inside P&G’s Greener and Smarter Home of the Future

The CPG giant is hosting a virtual exhibit at CES 2021.    By Paul Herbert,  AdWeek

Even if people spend only half as such time at home in the coming years as they had throughout the majority of 2020, Procter & Gamble would still be in a better position than it was prior to the pandemic.

In October, the maker of household staples from laundry detergent to toilet paper reported $19.3 billion in quarterly net sales—a 9% increase compared to the same time last year, with each of its business segments seeing gains. Before Covid-19, growth had been in the mid-single digits.

“The biggest trend that we have seen is that there’s an elevated and heightened interest in cleaning, health and hygiene because people are spending more time at home,” said Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer. 

No one doubts that the vaccine will get people out and about again. At the same time, multiple data sets suggest trends such as high unemployment, investments in household renovation and people’s preference to work remotely (at least some of the time) will continue to keep many of us home for a good while.   ... " 

C by GE Turns to Cync

 Wish that this had happened so strongly when I was connected, nice to see them back connected to IOT Home.  But will this direction survive?

C by GE gets rebranded under new ownership, expands beyond lighting  By Brian Heater@bheater in TechCrunch

There’s a decent chance you missed the news back in May — there was, after all, a lot going on at the time. General Electric sold off its more than 100-year-old GE  Lighting division to smart home company Savant. Today, the division’s new owner is announcing a key rebranding effort, six months after the initial deal.

Clearly there’s still value in the GE name, even divorced of its original parent company. In its new home, the C by GE line is getting a rebrand, however. Seems totally reasonable — C by GE was never the most straightforward name. Going forward, the line will be rebranded as “Cync” — which, if not better is, at the very least different.

Along with the change in ownership, the name connotes a broadening of scope — that much was probably an inevitability under Savant. GE Lighting  is becoming a larger smart-home brand in its new home. CES, which kicks off next week, will find the company introducing a new thermostat and a range of outdoor products, including a new smart plug. The brand will also introduce a connected camera and fan speed switch.   ... "

Samsung's Imaginary Keyboard

A long time student of ways to efficiently communicate with machines.    This not being sold yet,

Samsung’s Latest AI Project Is an Imaginary Keyboard for Your Phone  By Ryan Whitwam in ExtremeTech

The typing experience on smartphones has gotten vastly better over the years, but typing with your thumbs will never be as fast as using a real keyboard. Samsung thinks it’s onto something with its latest Android feature, which it calls SelfieType. At CES, the company is demoing this AI-powered system that lets you type on an imaginary keyboard.

SelfieType comes from Samsung’s C-Lab program, a sort of internal incubator that develops quirky technologies that may eventually find their way into real products. Samsung’s decision to announce SelfieType suggests that it’s relatively confident in its capabilities. I say “relatively” because Samsung does have a history of rolling out products and features before they’re ready. The Galaxy Fold is just the latest example.

When you fire up SelfieType (assuming you ever get the opportunity), the phone activates the front-facing camera and begins watching your hands. SelfieType doesn’t rely on depth sensors or IR dot projectors to follow your fingers — it uses AI to map where each finger moves, allowing you to “mime” typing on a keyboard that doesn’t exist. As you tap the tabletop, the phone translates those presses to the on-screen keyboard. And like magic, you get the text on your screen.  ... "

Neon Digital Avatars

Interesting in seeing Samsung involved in this, meaning unclear.

Neon CEO explains the tech behind his overhyped ‘artificial humans’  in TheVerge  Neon Genesis Evangelicalism

The most buzzed-about company at CES 2020 doesn’t make a gadget you can see or touch. It doesn’t even have a product yet. But for reasons I’m still not entirely sure I grasp, the lead-up to this week’s show in Las Vegas was dominated by discussion of a project called Neon, which has emerged from a previously unknown Samsung subsidiary known as STAR Labs.

What Neon has been promising is so ambitious that it’s easy to swing your expectations around full circle and assume the mundane. The project’s Twitter bio simply reads “Artificial Human,” which could mean anything from an AI chatbot to a full-on android. Promotional videos posted in the run-up to CES, however, suggested that Neon would very much be closer to the former.  .... "

Carmakers Move From Cars to Building Cities at CES

Hardly a complete move, but handling transportation efficiently will be a major part of any smart city.

Carmakers Move From Cars to Building Cities at CES
Financial Times
Patrick McGee; Song Jung-a; Peter Campbell

Automakers announced future technologies at CES 2020, with Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda stating his company would construct a 175-acre hydrogen-powered smart city near Japan’s Mount Fuji as a “living laboratory” to see how up to 2,000 residents will live with next-generation technology. Toyoda said the project aims to keep Toyota abreast of society-transforming megatrends like urbanization, 5G wireless connectivity, and the role of artificial intelligence in evolving consumer devices. Meanwhile, Hyundai announced a partnership with ride-hailing company Uber under which it will build electrically-powered driverless air taxis. The companies said test flights are planned for this year, and commercial operations to begin within three years. The goal is to help Hyundai compete with rivals in emerging technologies.... ' 

What Amazon Alexa Announced ot CES

A number of interesting things announced about Alexa at the just completed CES.  Hard to understand what is serious investment and what is not.   Like to see more 'intelligent' moves and business applications..  Some stats and new regions covered like India.   Further links to related material. 

An Alexa-Powered Life – What Amazon Announced at CES 2020 inVoicebot.ai
By ERIC HAL SCHWARTZ on January 10, 2020 at 1:00 pm

CES is a non-stop flood of announcements and news and Amazon made sure to add to the deluge. Amazon opened three exhibits showcasing how Alexa is spreading into more devices and hosted a real-time mixology show for media starring Guy Fieri and Shaquille O’Neal among other highlights. Check out the most interesting Alexa news from CES this week.

ALEXA IN AUTOMOBILES
Vehicles were a major theme for voice assistants in general at CES and Alexa headlined several of the major announcements. To begin with, Amazon announced a partnership with Lamborghini and Rivian to integrate Alexa into some of their upcoming models. The Lamborghini Huracan Evo and Rivian R1S and R1T will include Alexa from the factory, as will the 100,000 electric Amazon delivery vans Rivian is building. Amazon offers the Echo Auto device for cars that don’t have Alexa integrated and at CES it revealed that it will start selling the devices internationally. Sales will begin in India on January 15, with other countries to follow later this year. In the U.S., Alexa is gaining a new feature for drivers to use. The voice assistant will start handling paying for gas at 11,500 Exxon and Mobil gas stations.

ALEXA AT HOME
One feature often discussed for voice assistants in cars is how they can control smart home devices. Cars with Alexa are able to do things like turn lights and security systems on or off remotely. Amazon has added a bunch of new devices to the list including music-playing beds and dog treat dispensers. Amazon’s subsidiary Ring debuted six new products and a new control center for seeing and managing new lights and security devices. The customized security system notably allows users to opt-out of sharing data with local police as a privacy measure.

Amazon also revealed some numbers that suggest continued growth in smart home device use. “Alexa smart home engagement has nearly doubled year over year, and customers are now using Alexa for smart home controls hundreds of millions of times each week,” according to a CES-related blog post by Amazon.  ... " 

Defining the Smart Home: More than a Speaker

Very true, but it sets the stage.  There is so much more work to be done to establish the level  assistance that needs to created.   Skills are many, but most are trivial.    Below article points to recent surveys. 

ProBeat: A smart speaker does not a smart home make in Venturebeat, from CES By  Emil Protalinski

To coincide with CES 2020 this week, Strategy Analytics released a survey claiming that smart homes had passed “the tipping point” and that “Most Homes Are Now Smart Homes.” Putting aside that U.S. homes don’t represent the world’s homes, the survey assumed that you had a smart home if you “own at least one smart home device.” First, owning doesn’t mean actively using. Second, a smart home is not defined by owning “smart speakers, interactive security systems, and smart thermostats.” Third, that begs the question: How should we define a smart home?

The smart home definition is important for a few reasons. Technology has been flooding into our homes, and CES 2020 showed this trend is not abating. Internet of things (IoT) devices are not going away, and neither is the dream of a smart home. That doesn’t mean all home devices marketed as “smart” are inherently useful, however, let alone make our homes “smart.” Additionally, there are plenty of valid privacy and security concerns in a potential smart home....." 

Social Robotics from Samsung

Got some praises at CES.  Another attempt at social as well as helpful.  'A Ball-like moving device than can explore space'.  A silly gadget?   Have now seen maybe a dozen attempts at this.   This one also suggests that it can be a proactive security device.   This articles cuts at Alexa for 'killing the promise' of social robots, but if anything, Alexa and its competition have started the movement to social.   Its not as easy as it seems.  And expect that attempts like Balle, if they emerge, will be thrashed for doing real security, like communicating with real police.

(Later  I saw that Procter/Gillette  had acquired the firm 'Billie' which makes body care and razor products, this is NOT the same company that makes 'Ballie' covered here, but the naming might create some confusion. )

Samsung Ballie is a Social Robot That Might Actually Be Useful and Scalable  By Bret Kinsella in Voicebot.ai

It’s easy to look at Ballie, a cute little pastel-colored social robot demonstrated by Samsung last night at a CES keynote, and wonder if it is just another gadget with no better future than other social robots that have come and gone. However, this may just be different.

Smart speakers and smart displays have filled the role that was expected by many to be played by stationary robots such as Jibo. Radical simplification enabled smart speakers to provide most of the features anticipated for a social robot solution and then went beyond that template at as little as one-twentieth of the price. If you want to know what killed the promise of social robots, look no further than Amazon Alexa which created the smart speaker category.

A Robot that Follows You around and Patrols Your Home When you are Away.

Ballie will follow you around as demonstrated during the keynote by HS Kim, Samsung Consumer Electronics president, and CEO. “I love this guy. He even knows to give me a little space,” Kim said as Ballie followed him around the stage, speeding up and slowing down to keep an appropriate distance. Kim went on to say, “Samsung’s vision is more than a cute robot.” Instead, the company wants to introduce, “robots that you know, support you and take care of you, so you can take care of what really matters.” This turned out to be a broader theme for Samsung about making products that help people in their daily lives.   .... "

Bosch Face Reco Keeps Drivers Attention and Entertained

Clever general idea.  A demonstration for now.  How broadly might it be deployed?  Something as simple as detecting when you a start looking 'down', and providing a beep of the kind now used for lane encroachment would be a good start.

Bosch’s facial recognition tech keeps you safe, entertained behind the wheel   By Ronan Glon in DigitalTrends

This story is part of our continuing coverage of CES 2020, including tech and gadgets from the showroom floor.

German supplier Bosch is working on bringing facial recognition technology to the world of cars. Similar to what’s available on many smartphones, the feature is a way to keep the passengers safe, entertained, and comfortable.

Digital Trends checked out the tech at CES 2020, where Bosch packed it into a #vanlife-spec Volkswagen Touran for demonstration purposes. In this application, it consisted of a driver-facing camera positioned between the steering wheel and the instrument cluster, and a passenger-monitoring camera located where the map lights are. Thomas Lenzen, one of the product managers responsible for the technology, explained that it’s possible to move the cameras around, and add or remove them as needed. Users may want a third camera to watch their kids in the back.  ... " 

P&G Rolls out CES Products

First time I have seen Procter do this at a major tech show.   But are not really serious about selling charmin roll delivering robots in the smart home.. They still have Tide chatbots for addressing stains as skills in Alexa.  Also in Google Assistant.  These are spin offs from early chatbots created for delivery via CDs.

Procter Rolls ideas at CES:  Procter & Gamble is based in Cincinnati.

By Barrett J. Brunsman  – Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Procter & Gamble Co. on Sunday rolled out a slew of new or improved products in advance of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including a few fanciful ones such as a robot that can deliver toilet paper to a bathroom that has run out of Charmin.

The Cincinnati-based maker of consumer goods (NYSE: PG) stated at a Jan. 5 news conference that the first-of-its-kind robot, dubbed the Charmin RollBot, can be controlled with a smartphone using Bluetooth technology.

The Charmin RollBot won’t be available for retail sale, but it could help generate buzz about other P&G products that will be displayed.

The Consumer Electronics Show, also known as CES, provides a global stage to show off innovation. More than 4,500 companies are expected to participate, demonstrating thousands of new tech products.

“We strive to make life easier and more enjoyable with the superior products and services our brands offer,” said David Taylor, CEO of Procter & Gamble, in a statement issued by P&G. “CES gives us the chance to show how we are constructively disrupting our business to deliver experiences that reinvent what people expect of everyday products.”The platform, known as Digital Vault, will give investors real-time access to records of securities bought on private markets, HSBC told Reuters, and seeks to capitalize on booming interest in such investments by yield-hungry investors. .... "

IBM Traces Coffee Sourcing with Blockchain

Again, an area we worked in regarding coffee supply chain.   An increasingly common use of distributed ledger, and a means of sharing trust about sharing key parts of the supply chain.  Look for more coming out of this week's meetings.

IBM taps blockchain to make coffee sourcing traceable

sourcing coffee. It will enable a new app, dubbed “Thank My Farmer” to allow coffee drinkers to trace their coffee beans back to the original farmer.

The app will let the coffee consumer learn more about their coffee and even support the farmer who grew the beans. The whole idea is to bring traceability, efficiency, fairness, and communication across the coffee supply chain which supports the $200 billion industry. IBM will show the project at CES 2020, the big tech trade show this week in Las Vegas.... '

P&G Sponsors CES Innovation Pitch Contest

Interesting opportunity to see how a major CPG company reacts to a technology pitch.  Considerable detail for participation at the link below.

P&G seeks next big breakthrough via pitch contest
Procter & Gamble Co. intends to again stage a pitch contest at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to spotlight innovative technologies or early stage products.

Procter & Gamble Co. intends to again stage a pitch contest at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to spotlight innovative technologies or early-stage products.

P&G is usually secretive regarding product development, but the contest reveals the company is interested in all sorts of solutions related to health.

The Cincinnati-based maker of consumer goods such as Align probiotics (NYSE: PG) said the winner will get $10,000, qualify as a finalist in a Techstars accelerator and attend the EY Strategic Growth Forum.

While there’s no guarantee that the winner will get to partner with Procter & Gamble on developing a product, the goal of the second annual P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge is to mine for new ideas.

Created in 2015, P&G Ventures is an early-stage startup studio that creates new brands and businesses by partnering with entrepreneurs, visionaries and startups.

“The Innovation Challenge enables P&G Ventures to discover and work with visionaries who share a mutual dedication to finding solutions that improve the way people live their lives," said Leigh Radford, general manager of P&G Ventures “I truly believe P&G’s next big breakthrough innovation and brand will result from the collaboration of the best of an external partner and the best of P&G.”

Entrepreneurs, inventors and startups are encouraged to submit a product pitch between Oct. 28 and Nov. 24 at ventureschallenge.com. The top three finalists will pitch their products live on the P&G stage on Jan. 8 at the Consumer Electronics Show.  .... 

https://www.ventureschallenge.com/

Voice Control for all Your Gadgets

Hands free is good though perhaps not necessary.   Gesture, which we also  looked at, has emerged much less.

One Day your Voice will Control all your Gadgets, and they will Gontrol you  in Technology Review

Everything you own in the future will be controlled by your voice. That’s what this year’s CES, the world’s largest annual gadget bonanza, has made abundantly clear.

Google and Amazon have been in fierce competition to put their assistants into your TV, your car, and even your bathroom. It all came to a head this week in Las Vegas, where the full line-up of voice-enabled products underscored the scope of each company’s ambitions.

Maybe it seems like a wasteful side effect of capitalism that you can now ask Alexa to lift your toilet cover (or maybe not—you do you), but there’s more to the ubiquity of voice interfaces than a never-ending series of hardware companies jumping on the bandwagon.

It’s tied to an idea that leading AI expert Kai-Fu Lee calls OMO, online-merge-of-offline. OMO, as he describes it, refers to combining our digital and physical worlds in such a way that every object in our surrounding environment will become an interaction point for the internet—as well as a sensor that collects data about our lives. This will power what he dubs the “third wave” of AI: our algorithms, finally given a comprehensive view of all our behaviors, will be able to hyper-personalize our experiences, whether in the grocery store or the classroom. .... "