CES 2018: What You Can Expect from the Biggest Tech Show This Year?
The new year starts, and we pull our socks for the revealing of latest and most futuristic tech gadgets from World’s biggest tech brands. Yes, you are right. We are referring to CES, the annual technology event participated by tech brands from all over the world with their latest offerings. The warm-up to the 2018 chapter of CES is already on. Like every year, we are here to predict and speculate about the latest tech gadgets that are going to unfold in this event.
CES 2018 is about to begin from January 9 in Las Vegas. Here we would try to speculate about the groundbreaking technologies and gadgets that we can see appearing in this event.
TVs stealing the show
As all indications arise, televisions are likely to be one of the most showcased devices in 2018 chapter of CES. LG is likely to surprise us with an extra thin television that comes equipped with a new organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen technology. Other major TV brands like Samsung, Sony and several others also can come with their own cutting edge TVs. From smart feature rich TVs to most gorgeous screens, we can see a lot of things happening with TVs in the event.
Smart home
In CES 2018 expectedly smart home gadgets will have an upper hand with a range of innovative products. LG (after a brief initial show at 2014) once again can push its Home Chat platform to facilitate conversation with home appliances. The new smart home system will allow communicating with home appliances via text messages.
We can also expect smart speaker and smart home automation platforms like Google Home and Amazon Alexa to come up with their latest offerings. We can expect several other appliance companies to jump on the bandwagon with their latest smart home solutions.
With Sony and JBL both releasing their own smart home platforms, at CES 2018 we can expect the battle over innovation in smart speakers get heated up further. As both Google and Amazon already opened their smart home platforms for other device and speaker manufacturers, we can also expect a lot of other speakers coming up integrating these two smart home platforms.
Can we expect a foldable Galaxy X?
Samsung at the CES 2018 can finally give us the biggest surprise with its long-awaited folding smartphone. Yes, Samsung can really come up with its much awaited Galaxy X which is likely to be a foldable phone allowing the users to fold the device by just bending it from the middle of the screen. With this expected launch Samsung will actually deliver the optimum screen size without really making the device harder to hold.
Augmented, virtual and mixed reality
While Augmented and Virtual reality continued to steal the show in CES for many consecutive years, this year we can see the focus shifting towards a mix of both of these technologies which are widely known as Mixed Reality (MR). Many third-party manufacturers can come up with their smart MR products working on the existing platforms.
Qualcomm has already made its intention clear with its new Snapdragon 835 dev kit, and the company partnered several top names for building standalone VR headsets just like the Oculus Go, which was introduced in October last year.
Among other brands, Google can deliver a better Daydream with far enhanced experience and features. Lenovo had also built a new headset that can be launched at CES this year. Some camera brands like Sony, Zeiss and Kodak can also come with their latest AR offerings.
Motor vehicles
Smart automobile technologies always remained a show stealer at CES events. This year also it is not likely to be different. Smart automobile features and electric vehicles are two distinct categories where most of the concentrations will crystallise. Just like all other years, Tesla is likely to pitch their latest and upcoming vehicles with cutting-edge smart technologies. Faraday Future after sparking controversy can once again show their latest electric cars. Another major electric car that can draw a lot of attention is the EMotion, a much-hyped car from Fiskar. Yamaha will come up wit its ambitious Motobot, the futuristic motorbike riding robot in CES 2018.
Wearables
Wearables continue to dominate the smart technology market, like all previous years, CES 2018 can also see a lot of new wearables. As most smart wearable and fitness tracker companies already launched their interesting stuff or are tapping their toes to launch in the company events, we can rather expect several new players launching their wearable products. Can we expect Google to revive its already silent wearable operating platform this year? If it happens, it would be one if the biggest surprises of the event.
Mobile
CES long ago ceased to be an event for showcasing the latest smartphones in the market. While MWC follows the events within a few weeks, many mobile brands keep their surprises for the later event. Though with the notable big exception of Apple, all other mobile device brands make a focused presence at CES every year.
While the event has never been particularly well known for launching latest flagships, we can expect some nice developments like the Qualcomm officially launching its new Snapdragon 845 chipset. Among the big names, Sony always preferred CES to showcase their latest offerings in smartphones. Can we expect a new Xperia phone to launch with latest Snapdragon 845 chipset?
There can be one really big announcement in the show, and it is none other than the official unveiling of 5G everywhere. Already several major players are pushing it like a buzzword, and we are expecting it to don the spotlight in CES 2018.
Conclusion
When you want to talk about new technologies and revelations that are going to be showcased in CES 2018 on the basis of credible sources rather than rumours, there is actually not so much to talk about this event. But following the trends and recent focus of tech companies, we could list the expectations as mentioned above.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.