In a conversation with CTA Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs Rachel Nemeth during CES 2024 in Las Vegas, a group of experts on consumer affairs and federal regulatory policy delved into the impact of existing and recent legislation on various sectors. Interestingly, they all agreed on one thing: the need for a national privacy law to replace the patchwork of differing state laws. T-Mobile Director of Federal Regulatory Affairs Melanie Tiano noted that currently 13 states have comprehensive privacy laws and that, two weeks into the new legislative session, she’s tracking more than 30 privacy-related bills. Continue reading CES: Experts Discuss the Path Toward a National Privacy Law

Milano-based Voiseed demonstrated its web-based Revoiceit platform at CES, pitched as the best way to manage synthetic voice actors, particularly ensuring that synthetic voices present realistic emotions. The company describes it as a cloud-based solution that uses “generative AI to infuse virtual voices with human emotions and prosody, creating highly expressive, lifelike audio experiences.” While Revoiceit’s most obvious feature is its Studio (imagine Adobe Audition devoted to second-by-second management of voices), it may well be the product’s forthcoming API that provides real value to developers of entertaining technology products. Continue reading CES: Voiseed Upgrades Its Platform for Expressive AI Voices

CTA Vice President of International Trade Ed Brzytwa discussed the sensitive topic of foreign investment transactions with U.S. Department of the Treasury Assistant Secretary for Investment Security Paul Rosen, who runs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). Rosen stated that CFIUS was established almost 50 years ago and has been reauthorized by Congress many times. “The mission is to review foreign investments that come into U.S. businesses for national security risks,” he said. “We’re looking to assess who’s getting access to sensitive U.S. assets or getting control of a U.S. company.” Continue reading CES: A Look at the U.S. Security Risks of Foreign Investment

Nuconomi CTO Greg Carron, tech and business journalist Molly Wood, and CBS Sports Radio host JR Jackson spoke with Consumer Technology Association Senior VP of Government Affairs Michael Petricone about how they’ve integrated artificial intelligence into their artistic expression. “The synergy of technology and creativity is creating a profound transformation,” explained Petricone. Reporter and climate change investor Wood noted that synergy led to the launch of Molly Wood Media where she uses AI to streamline her process. “I used AI to make myself a cyborg and do everything I want to do as a human being,” she said. “Turns out I don’t need a producer.” Continue reading CES: Creators Talk About Integrating AI into Their Media Work

CTA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs David Grossman spoke on a range of security topics with Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Tech Anne Neuberger, principal adviser to President Biden on cyber affairs. During CES 2024, the two discussed the debut of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark and its just-announced international reach, as well as spectrum policy and the reauthorization of the spectrum auction. Neuberger expressed her appreciation for partnerships in the private sector — and especially the Consumer Technology Association — in helping the government bring the Cyber Trust Mark program into being. Continue reading CES: Conversation with Cybersecurity Expert Anne Neuberger

Santa Monica-based AI startup Rabbit Inc. is offering a virtual assistant in the form of a pocket device that the company says can improve upon mobile phones by learning to use your apps and running them for you. Heavily publicized at CES 2024 in Las Vegas this week, the initial run of the company’s r-1 units had as of Tuesday sold out at $199 each. The retro-looking device with a 2.88-inch touchscreen is continuing to take preorders; shipments are scheduled to begin in late March. The company says its proprietary Rabbit OS is the first operating system built on a Large Action Model (LAM) foundation. LAMs are LLMs trained on datasets of actions and consequences. Continue reading CES: Rabbit Launches AI-Powered Pocket Controller for Apps

Telecommunications attorney and FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, in conversation with CTA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs David Grossman on the CES stage, talked about her decision to cast a vote to restart net neutrality rules. “I agree with a lot of what [FCC Commissioner Brendan] Carr said about it,” she explained, referring to his remarks deeming net neutrality not as relevant as it was in the early 2000s. “But broadband connectivity is central to everyone’s lives and it’s important to have guardrails to make sure that all consumers benefit from a competitive product.” Continue reading CES: FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on Spectrum Strategy

In a CES conversation with Consumer Technology Association Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs Rachel Nemeth, FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter discussed the Commission’s work on AI-enabled impersonation fraud, privacy, and right of repair. Taking the stage just after FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, Slaughter said she wanted to co-sign his plea for “full visibility of the work we do.” “We have responsibility to all Americans to make sure they are represented in the substance of the work we do,” she said. “The same is true for industries that want to reach all Americans.” Continue reading CES: FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter on AI Regulation

Musician will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas — who is also a noted technologist, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist — discussed his work with Mercedes-AMG, why he attends the CES conference each year in Las Vegas, and his vision of the future. In 2022 he was asked by Mercedes to reimagine a vehicle. He loves pattern-matching, he said, and seeing how things align. After developing ideas with his team and auctioning off the working prototype WILL.I.AMG to raise funds for his inner-city education philanthropy, he went back to Mercedes with a simple but powerful pitch with a focus on audio. Continue reading CES: Will.i.am Discusses the Intersection of Music and Tech

Introduced by Consumer Technology Association VP of Regulatory Affairs David Grossman, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf took the CES stage with interviewer Lisa Dwyer, a partner at international law firm King & Spalding. Califf noted the monumental differences in technology that have taken place between his first stint at the Food & Drug Administration in 2015 and today. “The changes are so dramatic, it’s hard to characterize them,” he said. “We’re moving into a different world.” He’s excited about “the hundreds of products with AI” that can bring so much good to the market but also noted the potential harms. Continue reading CES: FDA Commissioner Robert Califf on Bias in Healthcare

Dr. Fei-Fei Li, Stanford professor and co-director of Stanford HAI (Human-Centered AI), and Andrew Ng, venture capitalist and managing general partner at Palo Alto-based AI Fund discussed the current state and expected near-term developments in artificial intelligence. As a general purpose technology, AI development will both deepen, as private sector LLMs are developed for industry-specific needs, and broaden, as open source public sector LLMs emerge to address broad societal problems. Expect exciting advances in image models — what Li calls “pixel space.” When implementing AI, think about teams rather than individuals, and think about tasks rather than jobs. Continue reading CES: Session Details the Impact and Future of AI Technology

Audiences are migrating from broadcasting to streaming, and Google just announced its decision to phase out third-party cookies. What’s a marketer to do? At CES, Disney, Pfizer and GroupM marketers discussed how they plan to evolve in a changing landscape. The Walt Disney Company’s Lisa Valentino emphasized the need for interoperability of data across platforms, with the consumer at the center. GroupM debuted its Ad Innovation Accelerator to “strategize and create scalable ad formats that are designed to be ubiquitous across ad-supported streaming environments.” Partners include BrightLine, Disney, KERV, NBCUniversal, Roku, Telly and YouTube. Continue reading CES: Marketers Shift Tactics in Streaming, Post-Cookie World

During a CES 2024 panel on “Amazon Streaming: Clay Tablets to Streaming TV — The Evolution of Storytelling,” moderator Carly Zipp, who is Amazon global director of brand marketing, asked panelists for their favorite stories, recounting that her son replaced her bedtime stories with ChatGPT. Lauren Anderson, Amazon Studios head of AVOD originals and unscripted programming, picked the story of Tracy Chapman’s song “Fast Car.” “It shows how stories can resonate through generations, genres, geographies, and ethnicities,” she said. For GroupM global CEO Christian Juhl, the stories of Hans Christian Andersen were formative in his childhood. Continue reading CES: Marketers Look at Evolution of Storytelling with AI Twist

Seattle-based tech firm Ixana is at CES 2024 demonstrating its Wi-R communication chip, which “reduces energy consumption by 100x compared to radiative wireless technologies like BLE, Wi-Fi, cellular, Zigbee and Z-Wave, enabling a paradigm shift in wearable technology,” according to the company, which nabbed a CES Innovation Award. The 4Mbps YR22 Wi-R chip offers “continuous charging-free body-worn health monitoring, video streaming for extended reality, and intuitive human-computer interaction,” Ixana says, explaining it works via algorithms that run via distributed computing on battery-powered devices. Continue reading CES: Ixana Transforms Human Body into Networked Receiver

Impact and opportunity surfaced as the dominant theme of a full day of Digital Hollywood sessions devoted to artificial intelligence at CES 2024. We are in a period of disruption similar to the early 90s when the Internet went mainstream, said Forbes columnist Charlie Fink, moderating a panel of industry leaders from CAA, Paramount, HTC, Nvidia and Google. Yet despite the transformation already underway, panelists agreed that this is neither the first nor last technology to shift the status quo, more the latest example of inevitable change and adjustment. The current conversations around AI at CES are a refreshing departure after a few years of evolutionary, not revolutionary tech confabs. Continue reading CES: Digital Hollywood Session Explores AI at Inflection Point