CES 2024 attracted more than 135,000 attendees to Las Vegas where 4,300 companies filled 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space. Technology that empowers creators, a new generation of displays, and the promise and peril of artificial intelligence dominated the show. After several years of incremental advances, market development built on maturing technology, and over-hyped trends, this year felt different with an energy that suggests the beginning of a new era. Among the major themes were embedded AI, vehicle tech, digital health, screens and XR, and numerous policy and regulation topics. ETC@USC attended the conference for live reporting on products and services. Our post-show report features extensive coverage and perspectives related to key creative, business, and technology areas. Continue reading ETC’s CES 2024 Report: Creators, Displays, and AI Innovation

Qualcomm raised the curtain on a variety of artificial intelligence, 5G, and Wi-Fi technologies at Mobile World Congress Barcelona, which runs through Thursday. The San Diego-based chip designer unveiled an AI Hub it says will help developers create voice-, text- and image-based applications using pre-optimized AI models. Qualcomm’s flagship AI chips — the mobile Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and the PC-centric Snapdragon X Elite — were announced last year. With the first splash of products now heading to market the company is promising to push the boundaries of 5G and 6G. Continue reading MWC: Qualcomm Unveils AI Hub and Promotes 5G, 6G Tech

Microsoft is introducing a dedicated AI Copilot hotkey on Windows 11 laptops and PCs. The move, announced at CES 2024, heralds “the year of the AI PC,” according to Microsoft Executive VP and Consumer CMO Yusuf Mehdi, who said the keyboard enhancement will “not only simplify people’s computing experience but also amplify it.” The addition of the Copilot key is the first big change to the Windows PC keyboard since the four-paned Windows key was introduced in 1994. When pressed, the new key will open Copilot for seamless engagement with artificial intelligence. Continue reading CES: Microsoft Rolling Out a Copilot Hotkey for Windows PCs

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

The technology sector had a tough 2023. During a CES session in Las Vegas yesterday, Circana Vice President Paul Gagnon and Circana Industry Analyst Ben Arnold revealed the details of what they’ve been tracking over the last year, noting both areas of decline and “pockets of growth.” They encouraged tech vendors to look for innovative ways to sell products, targeting consumers via age group and income bracket as well as looking at geographic zones such as Mexico that are experiencing growth. The good news, they stressed, was the return of growth in the latter half of 2023. Continue reading CES: Circana Foresees an Increase in Tech Spending in 2024

Ahead of next month’s CES, Lenovo has unveiled new ThinkPad and IdeaPad laptops powered by Intel’s latest Core Ultra chipsets. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, ThinkPad X1 2-in-1, and IdeaPad Pro 5i are Intel Evo model laptops, each leveraging the Core Ultra’s three compute engines — a CPU, a GPU and, for good measure, a neural processing unit. Lenovo says that while the three generally work together for optimal efficiency, some tasks wind up offloaded to the GPU or NPU to achieve greater performance and power management. Since both form factors use the Windows 11 OS, the new models support Microsoft’s AI Copilot features. Continue reading Lenovo Unveils Laptops for AI-Enabled Business Computing

Bill Gates has published his thinking about the future of computing, and fascinatingly, it’s the same as his prediction from decades ago: agents. No mere bots — and certainly not anthropomorphized paperclips — agents (to Gates) will abstract almost all HCI to a natural language conversation with systems that have our permission to take meaningful actions. Gates makes a highly specific prediction: within five years, the very idea of an app itself will seem as outdated as a rotary phone dial does next to an iPhone. A conversational UI will sit on top of a language model that has access to as much of our private data as we wish to give it. Continue reading Bill Gates Imagines Agents as the Human-Computer Interface

Sweden-based digital music service Spotify has redesigned its television user interface to make it look and feel more like the platform’s desktop and mobile experiences, a move its users have been waiting for. The frequently played content now appears at the top of the interface, while playlists and favorites are also easily accessed. A playback queue that opens from the side of the screen lets you see what’s playing and program what’s coming up, and you can easily switch accounts by toggling profile options. A dark mode option has been added for the television interface as well. Continue reading Spotify Redesigns TV Interface to Better Match Its Mobile App

Apple posted fiscal Q4 earnings of $89.5 billion, down one percent year-over-year. CEO Tim Cook put the quarter’s best facts forward: “a September quarter revenue record for iPhone and an all-time revenue record in Services,” and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.46, up 13 percent. While net income of just below $23 billion exceeded Wall Street expectations, Q4 capped a fiscal year in which Apple revenue fell 2.8 percent, impacted by a decline in iPhone sales in China. Following the report, shares fell 3 percent in extended trading based on the prospect that the company may not rebound to growth in the important holiday sales season. Continue reading Despite China Market, iPhone Sales Still Reach $43.8 Billion

Passkeys — a secure way to login to accounts without passwords — are back in the news as a bevy of companies lend their support to the cryptographic technology. Windows 11, GitHub and Nintendo are among the latest to go passwordless. The standard, which began gaining momentum last year, has also been embraced by companies including Apple, Google, the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. Each passkey involves two keys — one public and registered with an online service or app, and one private and stored on individual devices, like smartphones or computers. Continue reading Windows 11, GitHub, Nintendo Are Latest to Support Passkeys

It’s an ideal time to outfit hybrid home workers, and Lenovo is going all-in on the concept, rolling out new tools for digital business users. Foremost among the digital offerings is the ThinkVision 27 3D, a 27-inch glasses-free 2D/3D compatible monitor with real-time eye-tracking. Designed for developers and professional content creators like graphic artists or product designers who can benefit from immersive 3D visualization, ThinkVision has a max resolution of 1920×2160 for 3D and displays flat at 3840×2160, thanks to a lenticular lens in the monitor that can toggle between the two. Continue reading Lenovo Offers Glasses-Free 3D at 4K via ThinkVision Monitor

Walmart is putting generative AI in the hands of roughly 50,000 non-store U.S. employees who will have access to My Assistant, an LLM trained on information. From speeding the drafting process to serving as a creative partner and summarizing documents, “My Assistant has the potential to change how our associates work and solve problems,” Walmart said, emphasizing the launch goes beyond productivity gains. “We believe the key to unlocking transformation lies in the creativity and innovation of our associates. Ideally, this technology will free them from monotonous, repetitive tasks, allowing more time and focus for improving the customer/member experience.”  Continue reading Walmart Is ‘Empowering’ 50,000 U.S. Associates with GenAI

Netflix continues to expand its game ecosystem. The company released a TV game controller for iOS devices earlier this month and has just begun beta testing its game streaming on TVs in Canada and the UK, with plans to begin tests for computer play in the coming weeks. Participating in the tests are partner devices including Amazon Fire TV Streaming Media Players, Chromecast with Google TV, LG TVs, Nvidia Shield TV, Roku devices and TVs, Samsung Smart TVs, and Walmart Onn, with plans for more manufacturers to be added on an ongoing basis. Continue reading Netflix Beta Tests Its Game Streaming on TVs and Computers

Google DeepMind has discovered a way to create AI algorithms that run faster than those coded by humans, which could lead to more cost-effective software development and computing that is more efficient and sustainable, according to the Alphabet company. The breakthrough, detailed in the journal Nature, is called AlphaDev. It uses a form of machine learning called reinforcement that allows computers to build on their successes, honing strategies independent of human programmers. In this case, faster algorithms were developed for computer-science functions like sorting and hashing. Continue reading Google DeepMind’s AlphaDev Can Create Faster Algorithms

Day one of Apple’s WWDC 2023 conference from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino was about much more than the anticipated Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The company introduced a powerhouse Mac Pro with Ultra M2, starting at $6,999, and upgraded Mac Studio desktops with M2 Max or M2 Ultra chips. The macOS Sonoma desktop operating system was among the reveals, along with the new 15-inch MacBook Air. Apple took the wraps off iOS 17 and announced that FaceTime and videoconferencing are coming to Apple TV in 4K with tvOS 17. The company’s watchOS 10 rounded out the new product and software highlights. Continue reading WWDC: Apple Surprises with Product and Software Reveals