Augmented reality in 2018 was “interesting, with projections being exceeded,” said NorthSouth Studios’ Bill Newell, who moderated a panel on the topic. He asked what AR experience stood out this year. IBM’s Elizabeth Kiehner, who reported on the new partnership between IBM’s Watson and Unity, was enthused over Legos’ AR app. “But I am more interested in AR as it pertains to enterprise,” she said, enumerating breakthroughs in AR for factory workers and healthcare, including surgery and cancer treatment. Read more

Faye Francy, executive director of the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Auto-ISAC), led a conversation about the impact of machine learning, deep learning and AI on the autonomous vehicle (AV) ecosystem. “They work together to bring great things — and possibly nefarious things — to the auto industry,” she said. Inivision AI chairman Seamus Hatch noted that the three terms aren’t interchangeable. “We’re many years behind the singularity,” he said. “It’s a machine trained to solve a specific problem faster and more accurately than a human.” Read more

At a CES panel on “connecting the world,” independent consultant Matt Jones posed the question all involved parties are asking as we move to an autonomous ecosystem. “We need to solve problems for real users,” he said. “It could be providers or cities looking at those questions, of how we’ll deploy and service these vehicles.” He started by looking at the issues from the level of a city — Los Angeles in this case — as represented by Los Angeles Department of Transportation general manager Seleta Reynolds. Read more

Autonomous vehicles have been a part of tech culture for so long that it’s hard to realize that only a handful of people have actually ridden in one. So it was with great surprise that our very first Lyft ride out of our Las Vegas hotel on Sunday night was in a “self-driving” vehicle. Lyft partnered with Irish auto-parts-company-turned-autonomous-vehicle-startup Aptiv (formerly known as Delphi) to offer CES attendees and Vegas commuters the option to ride in one of their 30 “self-driving” BMW 5 Series. Read more

Altman Vilandrie & Company director Jonathan Hurd presided over a panel at CES on how TV has evolved and will continue to change. Viacom’s Stefanie Schwartz noted that her company is making “hours of original content to drive viewership and engagement on all the social platforms.” “We’re experimenting with all kinds of formats and seeing what works,” she said. MAGNA North America president David Cohen said his company is doubling down on OTT. “We’re looking to think about where to put the dollars as consumers migrate,” he said. Read more