Best of CES 2018: Blog Part 2
In my previous post, “Best of CES 2018: Blog Part 1” I covered some metamaterials, accessible chemical analysis and a robotic tool. As I mentioned, there is some real innovation on display in Eureka Park. Check out the next three products on my Best Of list, demonstrating the diversity of ideas looking to CES as the place to be seen.
City Scan — Bogotá
You know when you get that “holy shit, why didn’t I think of that,” or “the big (or frightful) five could get into a bidding war over this” feeling? That’s how big the concept behind City Scan could be. City Scan is a consumer facing app, with its companion City Print acting as a business facing app for inputting and updating information. I have not yet come across equivalent Augmented Reality (AR) platforms being developed at the city-scale. City Scan has some of the right pieces in place to grow this opportunity organically, and make a big play for one of the more useful AR opportunities between industrial and entertainment applications.
In the article linked above about the big five, the value of the network effect is demonstrated with Facebook Messenger as an example. Rapid adoption of Cityscan’s customer and business facing apps can drive exponential value to their user base as the network effect converges with muliple growing data sets such as location, destination, business hours and bus locations are built.
Yes, Google is already integrating much of this information into context, and Maps is a one of a kind app I use all the time. What is not obvious is that Maps is more biased towards a car-centric data ecosystem and experience. Statistics from 2015 reveal that Colombia has 1/5th of the number of cars per thousand people as the United States. (148:759.) The more pedestrian-centric nature of the country favors rapid Cityscan adoption, which could also better position them to expand to other major cities of the world.
Bogotá and Las Vegas are current demonstration cities, and I promised to help connect the company with the University of British Columbia’s “Living City Project” and civic tourism departments to make Vancouver a possible third launch location.
The depth sensing AR vision systems that Apple launched on the iPhone X are likely to become ubiquitous across most smartphone lines. Once the technology is deployed, it will be accompanied by better edge computing capability. This makes City Scan slightly ahead of its time, and well positioned to be in the right place at the right time, with the right solution.
Schluss — Amsterdam
This third party data storage locker solves a two sided problem for users that want more control of their data, and corporations that now see user data storage as a costly liability. The recent high profile data breaches are only part of why this approach to data storage might be emerging at the perfect moment. When combined with standard multi-factor authentication, or a biometric equivalent as seen below in Selfie and Sign, this locker could provide a user experience layer that blockchain wallets and other DApps (decentralized apps) are missing. The coolest part of the project may be that it is being built as a co-op, as opposed to a more conventional startup structure.
Epic Technologies — Vancouver
AI Nano Cloud processors. It’s exactly how it sounds. I came across a couple of the members of the Epic Semiconductors team at a Canadian industry event on the night before CES started. Their offering is vague, and lacked any dramatic demo. If it can deliver 1/10th of what they promise, I will be a happy customer. It is rare that I feel so confused and simultaneously excited by something. I have not found an end to the potential applications of this technology.
One such use is as a monitoring agent that not only replaces RFID, but allows for another, more valuable data layer to be built on top. Rather than only tracking an inventory catalogue via RFID scans, you can remotely interrogate the entire contents of a shipment in real-time.
The example that I was given, was for monitoring tampering in a barrel of chemicals. The AI Nano Cloud processors would be self-powered, provide anti-tamper monitoring, monitor chemical solution for dilution, and offer basic inventory tracking.
Packaging was one of the areas that they spoke of as an early use case for the technology. I think a much more compelling, broader application, (and likely later adoption,) would be to not only monitor how perishable shipments change, but use the data to improve cold-chain practices and solutions through better visibility.
The company is a subsidiary of Tata Motors. I look forward to possibly being able to add it to the tech specs of the AVA Byte line once the price comes down low enough.
The following other cool companies are noteworthy for their solutions. Their selection is based on potential, impact, or relevance to projects around me.
EU SME Instruments booth
Photonicsens
Photonicsens: “Apicam combines innovative optics with sophisticated algorithms to generate a real-time depth-map and RGB image in one shot using a single lens. With AR coming to smartphones, these units could scale to orders for billions of units.”
SEE.SENSE
Lighting the way for safer and smarter cities. Seems perfect for urban bike share fleets and other tourist friendly services.
SMARTCIM
Computerized ball valve for Industry 4.0 in retrofit water plumbing and radiant heating.?
wheel me
I admit it, I only came across this through the SME link above.
Eureka Park
Agrieye.io
This company is on my radar based on having spoken with one of the many awesome entrepreneurs at CES and hearing that they have been doing many of the right things.
PassivDom
Autonomous Off-the-grid 3D-printed Smart House.
KWAMBIO
3D printing and additive manufacturing were not an area I spent any time with this year. Ceramics printing will open up a whole new capability to create high strength:weight ratio structures.
Verso
Universal Gesture control. The drummer use is something I wanted at the beginning of the millennium.
Cognata — Deep Learning Autonomous Simulation
Selfie and Sign
Take a selfie, sign your touchscreen, and now have been verified an onboarded for KYC or transactional multi-factor authentication.
FLEXWAVE — Zhubei City, Taiwan
Embedded PV solution. Potential as low cost ubiquitous early remote sensor networks
Rumbo Mobile — Montreal
Smart parking solutions.
combineo + Perspective-S
Smartphone based AR furniture shopping. An inevitable and welcome solution. Working outside of Unity and Unreal systems.
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Climate City
Cities, the future, pollution simulation modelling. Easy sell.
A complete approach to crop management with scientific quality measurements and easy to use design.
Lightup — Bay Area
AR has endless educational applications. On display was a hexagonal game board that acted as an anchor for multiple educational AR demos.
ViSO AR
NSF grants are a good way to validate you might have something sciencey.
If you aren’t satisfied by all of that:
Peter Diamandis’ Abundance 360 conference is happening now, and the World Economic Forum livestreams from Davos are on from January 23–26. January is a great time to get on top of what technologies and trends we should be focusing on the rest of the year.
