Whether we believe it or not, technology leaves no doubt about its importance in our future connected worlds. At CES, Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, at the electronics show, it is visible and very marked. From the house, to the car, to the cities, everything goes from the simplest to the biggest. To the consumer also to know how to make a choice …
Do you remember Google Glass? We had seen a lot and proudly worn during our first CES, we even thought we would have to put it, but it does not exist since … So is the technology that creates needs that we sometimes forget too fast as a Kleenex. This memory of technological failure would certainly not smile Google who nevertheless will have been omnipresent at the show this year. From the reception of Google-based animators Google – white cap, combination of white work chic, smile and powerful voice made in the USA – promote the giant of the web that settles everywhere. When Amazon remains discreet with her voice assistant Alexa, Google wants to clearly show.
Because here is the economic war between the giants of the electronics industry. But who are they? Leading brands can change at the rate of updates and known giants are often built on clay feet made in China. And it starts to look terribly. On a stand, the first morning of the show, the opening presentation took place in Chinese, with a bed of guests born far from Silicon Valley … Then, Baidu and Alibaba have done their shows: these are two names Chinese online businesses that will gain ground in the coming years.
Heavy trends in an inescapable ecosystem
While there are still promises of tech, are we wondering? The delirious dream of Google glass, connected hair brushes seemed to us to turn into a nightmare or a joke. In view of the start of CES 2019, we are nevertheless led to answer in the affirmative, despite all our intention to smile at this progress that sometimes stutters or advances forcefully. It is a debauchery of ideas that one discovers in the alleys of the immense Convention Center, with solid bases in the technological details. Although the novelties are not crazy, as many seem to have already been considered – it is no longer season to reinvent the wheel or hoverboard this futuristic skateboard – these are heavy trends.
Most impressive ? Technologies adapted to “smart cities”, as we call these smart cities, but also to the automotive industry. In other words all the technical process that goes from sensors to cameras that perform facial recognition, analyze the routes and exploit all of these data provided by means of an artificial intelligence, to allow to drive safely or to cross the street with our smile or annoyance analyzed by the minute. Impressive as well as stressful, certainly. However, rather than fearing what appears after all as a major asset for road safety and better life in the city, it would be good to foster confidence in data control, but this was not the debate of this salon.
An impressive CES so that becomes more beautiful. A few years ago, products from new technologies could be really ugly, we dare to say. But since the designers have been there and the user experience, everything has changed. It is attractive and is not just about the technological aspect: the objects also seem easier to adopt.
Technology can use, exhaust
Awesome, beautiful, but cleavable. Because a gap is growing: tech or not tech? As if this choice existed and at what intensity? On the show, it shows and even glaring with the generation of arcade games but also that of vinyls, which seem to hang on to their madeleine “low-tech”. Two symptomatic examples that illustrate a deeper dilemma. Is it really generational or is it just the refusal to plunge into a world that is coming in as a tsunami of data and control increasingly intrusive? Technology can use, exhaust. So players sometimes prefer to return to an imaginary jukebox in relax mode, without data, without sensor, without screen even … It is possible again!
At CES what is shown is the user experience
For the car, it’s amazing and it’s really visible on the stand of French Faurecia. A booth truly overwhelmed by its success that prohibits photos and shows impressive technical knowledge for electric vehicles of the future. This is an expert who speaks to us: ” On other shows, we see the objects, so if you want to see cars come to Detroit because there at CES what is shown is the user experience . What’s more fundamental for driving a car! ” The CES allows us to see this automotive industry from a more technological angle and it’s great ,” he enthuses, ” because it’s so much more than fabric and metal as before. “
Indeed on the right we observe the skeleton of an electric motor, further details of fastening seatbelts, then screens that analyze your morphology to get you better in the cockpit. At the Invidia booth, it is only possible to take private appointments, there is nothing to see it is just software that is in almost every car. We are in the impressive, the beautiful and a cleavage market that can be resolved with subscription formulas that do not necessarily require the purchase of the vehicle but can make the automotive world live more collectively, again an ecosystem to imagine…
It is in the field of augmented reality, even mixed as explained by Antoine Bezborodko at the head of HoloForge that the future is also played:
But also that of pollution with this French solution to escape the fine particles explained by Flavien Hello creator of anti-pollution masks R-Pure:
Reduce the anxiety and suffering of the autistic child
In the Eureka space, on a stand of Frenchtech, we experienced a real moment of poetry. The Japanese who passed by, stopped all flabbergasted, but also moved. It is rare enough on such a show to emphasize it. The creator, Rémy Ramadour, explained to us, amused: ” The wooden box is my father who realized it “. But what is it, it looks like sand? ” It is a pile of interactive sand, we try to solve the anxiety of people who have cognitive disorders, with multi-sensory stimulation. We start from the kinetic sand which has a relaxing property, then we add layers of colors: this places the person in a soothing space, reduces the ruminant thoughts and works to improve its cognitive availability. We work with elderly people with dementia, children with autistic disorders. The goal is to reduce anxiety as soon as it comes to disrupt the quality of the catch itself. This improves the work of the therapists . We are working with a research team in Bordeaux to study how human-machine interfaces can contribute to improving the quality of self-medication with non-drug approaches “.
The idea comes from MIT, the famous University of Massachusetts, which used it in museums (some contemporary artists use it to create their works of art with). With Ullo, we dive our hands and the world seems to change with the lights and the reliefs that vary, as if we were composing its own interior Zen garden. The explanations given by Rémy Ramadour are strong and gentle at the same time, because the painful subject – the suffering of the autistic child or the person suffering from dementia – is universal.
” Silicon Valley is utilitarian when Europe is Kantian “
Awesome beautiful and soothing. Technology and machines to improve one’s relationship with oneself. There is almost a philosophical way to follow the unfolding of new technologies. A philosophical path that disrupts more than one European and this is the reason why some go to the United States, Arnaud Auger Sengupta of BNP Paribas explains: ” Silicon Valley is utilitarian when Europe is Kantian. For Silicon Valley, only utility, user satisfaction is important. It does not matter if it also serves private interests. In Europe, before seeing the useful, one wonders who benefits from having this utility gain for the user. If it’s not purely selfless, it can not be completely good “. We did not think of doing philosophy in Las Vegas, as what happens in Las Vegas does not always have to stay in Las Vegas!