A new year, a new CES. Artificial intelligence and its integration into everything will be a common thread of #CES2019. AI and its impact was the topic of an excellent FCC webinar, late last year. Too much good insight for a paragraph, but one of the speakers suggested, “We are in the “black and white Internet and in the future, maybe 10 years from now, we will be in the color Internet, thanks to AI.” Speaking of webinars, Steve Pastorkovich reports on an American Cable Association webinar that featured a speaker and topic that could forever change the retransmission consent conversation.
Copyright Act Exemption Might Finally Disrupt Retransmission Consent Regime by Steve Pastorkovich
For years, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) of all sizes have seen retransmission consent fees render the subscription video market into a break-even prospect or money-losing business. As fees push up rates, consumers increasingly shave or cut the cord, relying more on over-the-top (OTT) video options…..In the past year, a non-profit called Locast has emerged, offering a new (and, it claims, legal) way for consumers to obtain broadcast signals via broadband.
The One-Minute Smart Home
Retrofitting a home to become smart without the use of tools and with minimal effort and time is the goal of Switchmate. Switchmate CEO Dean Finnigan demonstrates several of their SimplySmartHome products, including smart light switches, doorbell sensors, and wireless (i.e. no power wires) high-definition surveillance cameras at Showstoppers at CES2018. Finnigan was also the founder of Pandigital, a brand that became synonymous with digital picture frames back in their heyday.
Software Defining Cars #CES2018
As cars shift to electric-power and autonomy becomes a priority, software for the various subsystems becomes the common element. The approach that Denso demonstrated at CES 2018 is consistent with the idea that various software subsystems need to be separate so that an upgrade of one subsystem doesn’t impact another subsystem, allowing always-on, secure and reliable performance.
Hidden Sensors, Smart Driving
To paraphrase Author C. Clarke, when the smart sensors that will make autonomous driving possible slip into the background, mobility will become magic. The concepts that North American Lighting (NAL), a Koito Group Company, displayed at CES2018, suggest that by the early to mid-2020s, driving will be magic.
A Concrete Plan for Wireless Charging
The concept of wireless charging sounds great until literally, the rubber hits the road. It is one thing to make the technology work in a lab but creating a wireless charging system that easily integrates into an existing street and withstands the stress and pounding of heavy vehicle traffic is an entirely different challenge. Magment mixes low-cost, recycled ferrite material into concrete (or asphalt, as indicated on their website), providing mechanical reinforcement while magnetizing cured concrete.
The Pocket Digestive Analyzer
Understanding the impact of diet on health is challenging as it is difficult to easily and regularly quantify the interaction of foods within the digestive system. FoodMarble hopes to change that with its innovative device that detects and analyzes the composition of one’s breath to help individuals and their doctors understand and diagnose issues people have digesting food.
ViodiTV YouTube Videos
These are some videos that didn’t make it to Viodi.com or Viodi.TV, but can be found at youtube.com/viodi
- Reducing Injuries through IoF – Internet of Feet – great idea for any company that wants to prevent/identify/mitigate employee injury.
- The 360 Degree Camera Neckband – A spin-off from Samsung with an easy way to create 360-degree, 4k videos; could have some interesting security applications.
- Computer Eyes to Identify Cars and More – Relatively low-cost cameras with built-in AI for identifying people in real-time.
- A Bicycle with Eyes Helps Law Enforcement – could make a parking enforcement’s job easier in an Orwellian way.
- Embedding the Backstory on an Ordinary Object – embedding metadata on dumb objects to provide valuable information for the user.
- The Self-Learning Home – A smart home that learns from the patterns of its owner, but that keeps the data safe to the GDPR standard.
- A Driverless Suitcase with a Voice – For all the people flying to Silicon Valley for the College Football Playoff National Championship, their suitcases could follow them.
- Peer to Peer Parking & Car Rental – and, instead of parking their cars at the airport, those football fans could rent their cars to other travelers.
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Some Tweets and Short Thoughts
- An autonomous tractor with no cab for a human – hope to see this John Deer innovation at CES
- SCTE Chapter co-founder and Cable TV engineer Pete Petrovich (I had the pleasure of working with him for a brief time in the early 1990s) made national news for losing the Brentwood, CA Water District election tiebreaker on a literal roll of the dice.
- Haven’t watched the entire video yet, but it has to be good, as former Nsight executive, Rob Riordan, gives his take on and potential impact of AI.
The Korner – The Emotional Computer – The Shape of Things to Come
When computers begin to perceive or feel things the way a human would they could be described as sentient. In a way, it may not matter what the computer feels if the human feels like they are connecting with something that is sentient; much like the storyline of the 2013 movie, Her. Patrick Levy Rosenthal, Founder & CEO of Emoshape, Inc. demonstrates their “emotional engine”, which he explains senses 64 million possible emotional states every 1/10 of a second. Emoshape’s direction is to create virtual assistants that change the human-machine relationship.
