As we go into another CES, I can’t help but think of all the incredible and amazing devices, cars, gadgets, TVs —anything else that requires power — that are going to be announced. The latest, the brightest, the fastest, the best ever. Yet, I’m so pessimistic about it. Everything is amazing and I’m not happy.
It feels like we’re actually on the cusp of a brand new generation of technology, the ground floor of it. There are all of these things around us, but they all seem clunky and don’t work together properly. Wearables? Please. Home automation? Still not something where it all works with each other. Cars? Still gasoline and still not self-driving. TVs? Still not the paper thin OLEDs we were promised almost years ago. Not to mention the ridiculous plant-waterers, face-detection greeting alarms and drones delivering pizza.
This CES feels especially more like everyone throwing as much at the wall to see what can stick than ever before, and one reason for that is the barrier of entry seems smaller. Anyone can crowdfund an idea now, any normal person can just work on a prototype with any number of companies in China to help design, engineer, and manufacture anything.
There’s so, so much around us, more noise than ever before, and it’s on one hand truly incredible, and on the other? I just want it to work together. There’s no common thread in technology anymore with everyone wanting to own the entire experience, ecosystem, platform, hardware, and software. And we need something like that. Hopefully there a few CES surprises that can sway me back into a believer.
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