Yes to CES

(January 6, 2017) Las Vegas, NV

Susan and I were off to Las Vegas for some family time with our kids. Jackie was in town for meetings with clients and vendors at the Consumer Electronics Show. It was a great couple of days together with Jackie and Harry.

Friday I captured a pass to the Big Show and along with the other 185,000 world travelers scrutinized the latest, greatest, and looked at the future. 185,000 is a big number and the show is Goliath. Strangely by comparison it did not seem larger than the now over 40,000 “Shareholders” who crowd into the comparatively tiny Century Link Center in Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. Worth considering is the attraction of acres of new technology and glitz in LV is competing with Warrant Buffet’s Woodstock of Capitalism where Warren and Charlie Munger are  teaching and preaching for just about four hours!

My impression of CES was strikingly different than when I attended in 2014. Three years ago I was WOWED by all the technology, the glitz, and the Internationalism. This year I was touched by the economics of it all.

In those respects this year was not that different. I wasn’t moved by bigger video monitors at faster speeds with telescopic like resolutions, smarter homes, more personal tech, or more cyber security.

The focus of the technology this year was on how all of this fits together in our rapidly changing and connected lives. It is what the sages are calling the “Internet of Things”. Throw in robotics and we have embarked into the Brave New World.

Three years ago the hot “thing” was accessibility to devices by Apps, this year devices require connection by VAPA (Voice Activated Personal Assistants).

The “buzz” was about Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and how it affects business, education, and entertainment.

My one-day at the Show only allowed me to walk through the portion of CES at the 1 million plus square foot Las Vegas Convention Center. I did not make it too the Sands Convention Center or other allied venues.  A majority of the exhibits (by space) were smart cars and smart homes.

My take away is Consumers want convenience and ease of use, not complicated applications. Developers understand this.

Simply put, the technology did not blow me away but the impact the tech has on our economy and its future did! Two-thirds of our economy consists of expenditures related to automobiles and housing. Traveling through the CES exhibits demonstrated this.

The economic shocker exhibit was seeing automobiles being built with 3D printing. Beyond robots this is a game changer for our most important industry. It changes manpower and capital requirements. Not only are cars going to be driverless but they are going to be made solely by computer driven printers with the exception for now of forged pistons. (Check out the Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVqDeCmKDSQ&t

3D Printing of cars changes foreign trade and perhaps will lower costs significantly. This will impact not just American jobs but labor demands in Canada, Mexico, and China as well.

On a personal note – I met the daughter of my friend, Jim Woster. Sara Woster headed the public relations efforts at CES for Mobileye. The fifteen minutes with Sara were quite enlightening. Sara who lives in Brooklyn with a retreat in northern Minnesota was very professional, well informed and engaging. Jim rightfully is very proud of her.  It is wonderful to see South Dakota kids making it in the big world out there.

Mobileye is an Israeli tech company founded in 1999 that developed the software which “supports safety and convenience related ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) functions from a single camera sensor.” Mobileye is a vendor to twenty-five international automobile manufacturers and in 2016 had sales of an estimated $350 million.

For a far better review of CES 2017 here is a Professional Analysis.

Las Vegas provided other get away diversions as well:

     Good luck at the games - Harry and I together made three points followed by six points at the Craps table! 

     On Saturday night we caught a show at the SLS Hotel and Casino (formerly the Sahara). We saw the best stand up comic in America today, Dana Carvey. Carvey was reunited and perfroming with Jon Lovitz. Carvey’s impersonations were fantastic and I haven’t laughed so hard ever! (even at my own jokes – my family understands this.)

     Outstanding Louie Salad with wild lump crab meat at King’s Fish House (a California restaurant chain) in the District in Henderson 
   
    The World’s Greatest Club Sandwich! (turkey carved and sliced from the bone) at Grand Luxe Café at the Palazzo

     Watching the Packers dismantle the Giants on Sunday at the Golden Nugget.

It was hard to leave Nevada’s fifty degree temps for Zero back in Dakota, but it was a good time.