CeBIT 2017 Points the Way to VR and Smart Device Growth

With 200,000 participants flocking to Hanover this year, the week-long CeBIT show can be an intimidating prospect. Over 3,000 exhibitors set up shop at the world’s biggest technology expo. And while this is not a show for big name product launches, it still provides a very useful snapshot of what’s hot in the tech industry from one year to the next.

This year, as we predicted, there was plenty of buzz around smart devices, the Internet of Things and Virtual Reality (VR)/ Augmented Reality (AR). These, after all, will be the technologies that in years to come delight consumers and power the next generation of European businesses.

VR/AR catches the eye
CeBIT 2017 had a bigger focus on VR/AR than ever before, highlighting the growing maturity of this burgeoning technology. If you were in any doubt of the scale of interest in this space, half of Hall 17 – one of the show’s aircraft hangar-sized expo spaces – was devoted entirely to firms exhibiting VR-related tech. As we predicted at the end of 2016, gaming will continue to drive forward interest in VR on the consumer side. But, as evidenced by its exposure at the business-centric CeBIT show, more and more companies are exploring corporate applications.

Examples included the “Virtofy” VR presentation system, which offers companies an opportunity to demo products and showcase projects to prospective clients/customers. Another interesting use case developed by engineers at the Zwickau University of Applied Sciences incorporates integrated data goggles into the helmets worn by steel workers – designed to flash up safety warnings and the like.

In Hall 2 Intel, in cooperation with Microsoft, presented the dataflow the companies expect in the near future. Based on the BMW i8, Intel presented with the Microsoft AR Hololens how cameras and sensors scan the environment of a future car in order to drive autonomously. Intel predicts that approximately 4000 GB of data will be tracked, processed and uploaded from cars in the future, which creates brand new business scenarios in this market.

IoT everywhere
As we mentioned in December, the Smart Home market is really heating up, with Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung and Microsoft set to battle it out for hearts and minds in 2017 and beyond. True to form, the Internet of Things formed a major part of CeBIT 2017, with over 270 exhibitors from 29 countries participating. The IoT also had its own spin-off summit at the conference – a first for the organisers and again illustrative of the growing interest in smart products.

The IoT, of course, extends far beyond the smart home. In fact, attendees were treated to demos of everything from smart shirts and dog collars from Telefonica Deutschland, to Toshiba’s industrial applications for the energy sector.

Drones are taking off
The smart device revolution also increasingly extends up into the sky. As evidenced by the buzz at CeBIT, drones are fast carving out an IoT niche of their own. A large outdoor area sponsored by Intel drew many of the crowds, with much attention drawn to the bright orange H520 hexacopter from Chinese firm Yuneec. When combined with an on-board camera and Intel RealSense tech, it’s able to detect movements and distances like the human eye – enabling it to avoid obstacles in flight.

The Drone Park even drew the interest of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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Intel makes landgrab for wearables and gaming but cedes space to Qualcomm in the smart home

Intel has the power to make us dream – there were truly gasps in the packed audience when Brian Krzanich CEO of Intel presented their new offerings based round gaming, health & wellness and creativity. We saw the Yuneec Typhoon H drone dodge cactuses and bushes in the Mexican desert, we jived inside to the sounds of Ar Rahman playing virtual instruments and updating his hit song Jai Ho (from Slumdog Millionaire) with the latest Intel technology, we watched 3 times IronMan champion Craig Alexander use his interactive sports and performance tracking device – he spoke to it and it responded intelligently – as an aside, why oh why can’t they sort out the voice interaction in Cortana? At the end we literally soared with a maestro performance of Beethoven’s 5^th symphony lit up by a mass of drones flying in formation, breaking the Guinness book of records for the most drones controlled by one person. Watch out for it when it comes out on You Tube.

And then there is smart home which was not mentioned at all in the keynote. That was left to Qualcomm who announced at their media only press conference (yes I am griping however nicely they pushed back the industry analysts) the introduction of a Smart Home Reference Platform. It is according to their press release, “based upon the versatile Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 212 processor, that is designed to provide computing, voice recognition, audio, display, camera, connectivity, and control capabilities for home control hubs and smart speakers, extending to home appliances and multimedia devices as use cases evolve.”

The choice being made by Intel appears to be driven by the value that they can get from their silicon in devices which will be expensive and highly valued by end users – drones, advanced health devices, sporting equipment, segways, robots. There is not the same intrinsic value in the more modest household sensors which form the backbone of the smart home. Smart home only ticks two of the three big trends in computing cited by Brian Krzanich:

• Everything is becoming smart and connected – yes
• Sensification of computing – bringing depth and new perspective to the computing experience – no this is not a key priority for smart home
• Computing as the “extension of you”. A big yes.

What was missing was Intel dreaming about how to make the house an extension of you. The top use case which has come out from both Smart Home surveys conducted by CONTEXT in August 2015 and December 2015 is that when I arrive home, the house is ready for me. The second is advanced security in the home and the third is a coordinated going to bed function. Imagine an Intel keynote where Mr Krzanich had showed technology where I walk into the home and talk to it, and it responds. That is the future and I suspect that others such as Qualcomm are developing the technology which will underpin that.

The results of CONTEXT’s 2^nd Smart Home Survey will be previewed at the Retail CEO Breakfast at CES on 7^th January. 2,500 consumers have been surveyed in France, Germany, UK and for the first time, Spain and Italy. The CONTEXT forecast for 3D printer activity in 2016 will also be presented.

CONTEXT is delighted to welcome Hans Carpels, President of Euronics, the 3^rd largest ICT Retailer in the world, and Stéphane Bohbot, CEO of the innovative Lick stores based in Paris, as keynote speakers talking at the breakfast on new frontiers for ICT Retail in 2016.

by AS

Melco Forum 2015: Innovation – lifeblood of technology companies

“You aren’t disruptive innovative until you create a need” said Jorge Lang the head of Innovation at Intel Spain as part of his masterclass at this year’s Melco Forum in Valencia last week. “The innovation manager challenges the status quo, and sometimes loses friends in the process.” “Disruption is what it is all about”.

This is challenging stuff from a company that is a leader in technology innovation. “But there is no room for complacency, as we find ways of doing more than increasing computing power, such as improving social connection with human values, and making the internet of things happen.” Jorge calls this the red queen hypothesis from Alice through the Looking Glass. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Improving products sustains companies and is evolutionary but disruptive innovation is what really counts. Jorge Lang highlighted three factors which impact the success of innovative products – technology, user experience and the business model. In his opinion, the challenge for smart home is not technology – it is to find a business model where people are prepared to pay for the new products.

Innovation is about creating an environment where people take risks. This year Intel is innovating helping people move from 18 passwords per person to a product which bypasses password. We are trying to give you more freedom such as no cable to power the TV.

Jorge gave us a glimpse into the future – we are moving away from the age of the typewriter to the age of the personal assistant. We will relate and talk to our home computers and to our smart homes like Hal in the iconic film “2001 A Space Odyssey.” Already there is digital signage with video which learns from your body language. The future is individualised customer marketing because of the availability of data.
by AS

Intel recruits Staples marketing manager – Jeremy Davies, CONTEXT CEO asks, so what will that mean?

I never really got on board with the “Intel Inside” campaign. I couldn’t understand why anyone would (a) worry and (b) least of all even want to know what was inside their PC, apart form die-hard techies with the same knowledge requirements as train-spotters or gaming nerds. Do I need to know that I have a Siemens electric motor inside my Bosch washing machine? Or that my Mini diesel engine is also used in a Peugot? (Are you sure?- ed) Did I ever care what powered my Nokia 6210? No. Provided it did the job, and did it well without breaking down, that was all that mattered.

Like many others, however, I went along with it, spell-bound by the amount of effort, money and energy that went into that famous da-da-da-dah jingle after every PC ad on the telly, and watched as Intel spent millions and millions of dollars on convincing us that to have a really useful PC, it had to have Intel bits and bobs inside it. However, I never figured out how to benefit financially from the promotion, unlike thousands and thousands of resellers, retailers and manufacturers all of who were quite willing to take Intel’s money if all it meant was a logo in a shop front or a sticker on your PC.

But, as the song says, times they are a-changing, and no matter how much Intel tries today to convince punters that having Intel guts is a good thing, it really just doesn’t resonate any more. In 2013, Intel was number nine on consulting firm Interbrand’s global ranking, down from number seven in 2011. And what more proof than recognition by Intel themselves that the Intel Inside story has run its course, with marketing VPs departing and marketing staff leaving in droves, and now a new marketing head. But you have to ask: what can a guy from Staples do? What is the thinking behind hiring a consumer IT marketing person to spearhead new thinking at a company that makes innards for computers, especially with the consumer PC market in the dumps and everyone buying Apple and Samsung tablets? Honestly, I don’t see why Intel has to do any marketing other than the occasional prestige ad in The Economist or Financial Times like GE does with its aero engines. Intel makes good bits for IT devices – full stop. It’s that simple.