Wireless communications

Speaking of wireless networks, how’s 5G coming along? Slowly, to put it succinctly, though you might not suspect this from the abundance of hype in evidence at the show from Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm, and others (just wait for Mobile World Congress!). In the U.S., Verizon has done a limited rollout of what it’s calling “5G Home” in four cities, but the qualifiers are critical:
Non-standards-compliant, and
Fixed-location (i.e. intended for broadband Internet service to a residence or business), not mobile

Likely due at least in part to the non-standards-compliant aspect (I’m guessing its hardware partners are now focusing their ongoing development energy on standards-based products), the company has subsequently admitted that it won’t be expanding its “5G Home” footprint any time soon. D-Link showed off a (presumably standards-compliant) 5G router at the show, albeit with nebulous availability and nonexistent pricing.

And then there’s AT&T, who also doesn’t have much mobile network coverage to tout at the moment

The “8K” (resolution) tagline was apparently everywhere at CES this year

Given that bit of historical background, you can imagine my even greater skepticism at the more recent “4K” trend, which to this day remains woefully deficient from a compelling-content-availability standpoint. But undeterred, the display technology suppliers and their television and computer monitor partners are further plunging down the path of ever-higher pixel counts and densities. In large part, this ongoing evolution is occurring out of necessity: as a given-size (and -pixel-dense) display becomes a low profit margin commodity, manufacturers need to continually “up-rev” one or both key consumer-attention-grabbing parameters (along with less quantifiable attributes like image quality) in order to remain profitable … assuming they can continue to stimulate sufficient-sized consumer demand in the process.

The wall-sized displays shown in recent years at CES are, in my opinion, quite ridiculous, at least for the masses

LG is determinedly plunging onward toward the goal of cost-effective large-screen OLEDs, while at the same time striving to minimize color shifts and other historical OLED shortcoming

The company’s “rollable” display shown this year neatly showcased the technology’s inherent flexibility while also addressing the question of how to hide a gargantuan display when it’s not in use.

Artificial intelligence

I admittedly have no shortage of angst with the current (and unfortunately burgeoning) popularity of usage of the term artificial intelligence (AI). My reason why is neatly summarized in Wikipedia’s definition for “intelligence”:

Intelligence has been defined in many ways, including: the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.

I daresay I have yet to come across a supposedly AI-capable piece of equipment that can adaptively extrapolate and thereby exhibit effective problem-solving capabilities in usage scenarios straying even modestly beyond its prior training boundaries.

That all being said, the ability for a sufficiently trained deep learning (my preferred term for the current technology form, although you’ll find plenty of Medium-published tomes pontificating to the contrary) system to pattern-match images, sound samples, computer viruses, network hacking attempts, and the like is both impressive and effective.

Automotive Industry Changes at CES
https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-Blog/Automotive-Industry-Changes-at-CES/ba-p/3886504

Perhaps Full Autonomy Is Not the Ultimate Goal

One of the biggest changes between CES 2018 and CES 2019 was company positions on autonomy. There’s a small-but-prevalent belief that active safety features can decrease accidents and injuries enough to not warrant additional investment in full autonomy. In fact, a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report cited impressive traffic improvements linked to vehicles equipped with active safety systems:

40% reduction in rear-end collisions
14% reduction in lane-change crashes
11% reduction in single-vehicle, side-swipe, and head-on crashes

As these L1/L2 ADAS become more commonplace, we could see this trend continue. Toyota showcased progress toward their Chauffer and Guardian modes—Chauffer, a fully autonomous mode in which the driver can sit back and relax, and Guardian, designed to amplify human control. Their demonstration used an interesting fighter-jet analogy wherein a low-level control system translated the pilot’s stick movements to instruct the plane.

Checking out the new Samsung TVs at CES 2019! What do you think of that 98in Samsung QLED 8K?!

https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/qled-8k-tvs/85–class-q900r-qled-smart-8k-uhd-tv–2018–qn85q900rafxza/

We take a look at some of the standout innovations from CES 2019 that will have a positive impact on our daily lives, and the larger world.

At CES, the Google AIY team shared how it’s advancing AI at the edge with the new Edge TPU chip, integrated with an NXP i.MX8 processor.

Solid-state batteries represent the holy grail for automakers as they promise a driving range for electric cars comparable to internal combustion models, along with charging times that could match the speed of filling a gas tank.

first public appearance of Fisker’s EMotion electric sedan due in 2019.

The high range of solid-state batteries is made possible due to the extra energy density compared to the current lithium-ion batteries. Specifically, Fisker’s design is claimed to have 2.5 times the energy density of current battery technology. But solid-state batteries also enable quicker charging

Solid-state batteries are already used in some small devices but building them on the scale that automotive production requires isn’t possible yet. The batteries also suffer from low rate capability and poor performance in cold temperatures. However, Fisker’s Vice President of Battery Systems, Fabio Albano, said the company is working to address these issues.