Disney+ is the latest major streaming service to deploy HDR10+, which adds dynamic metadata to any video source to optimize picture quality on a frame-by-frame basis. In doing so, it joins other big streamers: Apple TV+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, and Google’s YouTube. The HDR10+ standard, which replaces SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) provides improved brightness and contrast as well as the benefits of standardization and global certification. HDR, originally debuted in 2017 by Samsung and Panasonic, now has over 160 adopters and more than 13,000 compatible products. CES featured a collection of additional HDR10+ announcements. Continue reading CES: Disney+ to Support HDR10+ High Dynamic Range Video

During CES this week, Sony demonstrated a proof-of-concept experience based on the popular HBO post-apocalyptic drama “The Last of Us.” We were dropped into a six-person pod of newly enlisted defenders and assigned to a hardened defender who needed new recruits to combat a serious surge of zombie assaults that she was convinced could be overcome with our assistance. Armed with LED-enabled shotgun-like devices and tracked flashlights to assist our leader in discovering the concealed attackers, our combat leader led us with sharp and direct commands as she guided us through the terrors of the attack. Continue reading CES: Sony Introduces Interactive Experience – ‘The Last of Us’

There’s a knotty problem present in every single available VR device, and it gives most people a headache or eyestrain when using the device long enough: the distance between your eyes and the displays remains the same no matter how far away an object appears to be. At CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week, Canadian spatial media company CubicSpace demonstrated a software mitigation to this issue, showing us images on a standard 3D display and a stock Meta Quest 3 device, with a before-and-after effect of native pipeline and via their software. Continue reading CES: CubicSpace Demos Solution to a Consistent VR Problem

Long billed as a manifestation of augmented reality (AR), the field of smart glasses has seen a wide range of products emerging on the market over the years. Notable products include the Ray-Ban Meta collection (a collaboration with Meta Platforms), Microsoft’s Hololens, and Vuzix’s entire product line. A survey at CES this year indicated the market of head-worn wearable computers is by no means a mature market. Our team found a few companies demonstrating their latest offerings. The principals of these companies believe their innovations differentiate from the current field with their own paths for solving specific use cases. Continue reading CES: Companies Present AR Use Cases for New Smart Glasses

Mastercard Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Raja Rajamannar is quite clear on his opinion of current marketing practices. “The strategies to get the right consumer insights are totally flawed,” he said. “Every single aspect of marketing has to be reinvented.” In a CES panel on “Revolutionizing Customer Engagement,” Rajamannar and Netflix Vice President of Consumer Products Josh Simon described their partnership efforts to create experiences that engage the fanbase. The discussion, led by influencer.com Chief Executive Ben Jeffries, first focused on why traditional marketing strategies are failing. Continue reading CES: Netflix and Mastercard Partner on ‘Experience’ Marketing

ISDCF Caption Device Plugfest
(January 13, ISDCF, Burbank CA)

The Top AI Trends for 2025
(January 13, Gartner, Webinar)

ICTA Los Angeles Seminar Series 2025
(January 13-15, ICTA, Universal City CA, $$)

Gartner 2025 Leadership Vision for Data & Analytics
(January 14, Gartner, Webinar)

Gartner Top Strategic Predictions for 2025 and Beyond
(January 15, Gartner, Webinar)

Making Sense of 2025 AI Trends
(January 15, Grammarly, Webinar)

Women In Post: Pop-Up Breakfast
(January 15, HPA, Encino CA)

2025 Top Media and Advertising Data Trends
(January 16, Adweek, Snowflake, Webinar)

Alexa 35: Workflow from Set to Post
(January 16, AbelCine, Burbank CA, $$)

Inter-Society Digital Cinema Forum Meeting
(January 16, ISDCF, Universal and Zoom)

The 75th ACE Eddie Awards
(January 18, American Cinema Editors, Los Angeles, $$)

2025 Robotics Industry Outlook
(January 21, The Robot Report, Webinar)

The 2025 NAMM Show
(January 21-25, NAMM, Anaheim CA, $$)

Creator Marketing Forecast: Exclusive Data and Trends
(January 22, LTK, Webinar)

Sundance Film Festival 2025
(January 23 – February 2, Sundance Institute, Park City UT, $$)

TCM Classic Film Festival New York Pop-Up
(January 25, 92NY, TCM, New York, $$)

Billed as a conversation among CMOs, this CES panel — moderated by Consumer Technology Association VP of Marketing & Communications Melissa Harrison — drilled down into how major brands and advertising technology companies are integrating artificial intelligence into their pipelines and organizations. They agreed that, although this is still at the beginning stage and requires experimentation, those who are frozen and have not yet started engaging with AI will quickly be at a learning curve disadvantage. Still, panelists emphasized that AI will not replace human creativity. Continue reading CES: How Brands and Marketers Are Integrating AI, Creativity

Brands Mastercard and MGM Resorts International, the Ad Council and advertising technology company XR Extreme Reach (XR) gathered for a CES panel discussion on how real-time AI metrics can help increase representation in ads, thus boosting greater marketing ROI and audience trust. It was moderated by The Female Quotient Chief Executive Shelley Zalis, whose company collaborated with XR to unveil, in October, the Representation Index (RX) to measure inclusivity in global advertising. XR’s SVP of Enterprise Solutions Kristin Wnuk was also there to describe her company’s work in the space. Continue reading CES: Utilizing Real-Time AI to Measure Representation in Ads

In the never-ending smorgasbord of AI hype, “agents” represent practical and worthwhile potential. AI agents are autonomous AI programs that can understand some context and take action in that context. Agents can autonomously perform a task that involves mapping a goal to its context and parameters (even if they’re not explicitly laid out), process data across multiple formats and ontologies to understand the goal and work through the task, call multiple functions across multiple apps, and take some action to achieve the goal. Unfortunately, however, while many are talking about AI agents, few are promoting actual products at CES. Continue reading CES: Show Features a Surprisingly Small Number of AI Agents

During the “Speed, Customization, Innovation: AI in Gaming” panel during CES this week, game publishers and developers shared their latest insights regarding how they use generative AI tools. A prevailing question involved the impact of AI’s ability to generate pixels and video frames efficiently — especially in light of Nvidia’s keynote the prior evening announcing its new Blackwell RTX 50 Series GPUs’ enormous ability to do so. Other opinions shared during the panel included thoughts on whether AI is overhyped for gaming and wish lists for fixing the limitations of AI tools. Continue reading CES: Thoughts on the Benefits and Limitations of AI in Gaming

When it comes to gaming, Microsoft is not just about Xbox, the popular gaming console it introduced in 2001. Microsoft VP of Global Revenue & Business Planning Jonathan Stringfield wants brands to know that they can reach a broad ecosystem of gamers not just on its console but on mobile devices and PCs. “Consumers expect to be able to watch entertainment across platforms,” he said during a CES 2025 panel discussion. “That’s what we’re doing in the gaming space. And that’s a space that is exploding — not just in overall numbers but who those gamers are.” Continue reading CES: Microsoft Courts Brands for Its Three Gaming Platforms

During CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week, Meta Vice President and Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun had a compelling conversation with Wing Venture Capital Head of Research Rajeev Chand on the latest hot button topics in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence. Some of the conclusions were that AI agents will become ubiquitous — but not for 10 to 15 years, human intelligence means different things to different AI experts, and nuclear power remains the best and safest source for powering AI. And, for those looking for more of LeCun’s tweets, he said he no longer posts on X. Continue reading CES: AI Pioneer Yann LeCun on AI Agents, Human Intelligence

At CES on Monday, Comcast unveiled Universal Ads, an advertising platform aimed at being an “easy button” for small- and medium-sized businesses to buy ad time on traditional TV’s streaming businesses, with the goal of luring them away from social media and digital outlets. In addition to Comcast’s own NBCUniversal, additional partners include DirecTV, Fox Corporation, Paramount, Roku, TelevisaUnivision and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNBC Senior Media & Tech Correspondent Julia Boorstin moderated a panel with Comcast and some major partners who explained why they signed on to the new platform. Continue reading CES: Comcast Debuts Universal Ads, Inks Media Partnerships

German research organization Fraunhofer IIS has unveiled LC3plus Lossless, an audio codec that promises to streamline wireless audio transmission by introducing dynamic lossless capabilities to its established LC3plus technology. The new codec represents a complete solution for high-resolution wireless audio, automatically switching between lossless and lossy compression based on available bandwidth. This adaptive approach maintains perfect audio quality when possible while seamlessly falling back to high-quality compression when needed, all while preserving LC3plus’s core benefits of low latency and robust transmission. Continue reading CES: Fraunhofer Demonstrates Dynamic Lossless Audio Codec

The Eureka Park section at CES 2025 in Las Vegas is an exhibition area dedicated to thousands of startups and early-stage products from across the globe. Our reporting team visited the space organized specifically for Japanese startups and discovered a few that are developing innovative technologies that could potentially be applied to 3D computer graphics modeling, XR, and gaming. Among the standouts were Tokyo-based CalTa that developed the digital twin platform Trancity — and Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo’s exhibit of its ongoing Feel Tech system. Continue reading CES: Japanese Startups Showcase 3D Modeling, XR, Gaming