It is one of my favourite weeks of the year – CES is currently on in Las Vegas. The Consumer Electronics Show is the yearly gathering where consumer get to see what the next 12 months holds in terms of technology.
There are 3 trends currently getting a lot of coverage in the press that has been unveiled at CES: Automotive Apps, Wearable technology and curved screens. Automotive Apps – is literally where companies partner with Google to enable their software inside vehicles. Think of it as your car running an operating system. The obvious benefits of this are that docking of mobile phones inside cars will be far easier and more functionality will be usable by drivers inside their vehicles.
Curved screens seem to be another topic getting a lot of coverage and it relates to mobile phones and high end LED TV’s. The one big question that needs to be asked is what benefits does a curved screen provide the end user? Is this a fad or a trend?
Wearable technology seems to be gaining momentum. This primarily started in the fitness space with the fitbit and then rolled onto smart watches. Smart watches will be the vertical to watch as Apple has been long rumored to be working on a smart watch. Currently the Pebble and Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watches can be seen as early first movers in the wearable technology space. What value does a smart watch provide you? This is the question on the lips of most gadget connoisseurs and at the moment it is literally another place to see missed calls and other smart phone related information. Wearable technology that contains medical functionality like blood sugar levels, heart rate levels will I think be the winners in the smart gadget space.
What will be the story of 2014? Automotive Apps, Wearable technology or curved screens?