In a CES 2024 keynote address, Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon and other key execs from the company offered a look at how the retail giant is putting technologies like drones and augmented reality (AR) as well as generative AI and other artificial intelligence tools to improve the customer shopping experience. Walmart unveiled new products, including a pair of AI-powered platforms for managing search for replenishment of products. In addition, a new AR social commerce platform, now in beta, called “Shop with Friends” was also highlighted. Continue reading CES: Walmart Introduces AI Reorders and ‘Shop with Friends’

A CES session on government AI policy featured an address by Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Alan Davidson (who is also administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration), followed by a discussion of government activities, and finally industry perspective from execs at Google, Microsoft and Xperi. Davidson studied at MIT under nuclear scientist Professor Philip Morrison, who spent the first part of his career developing the atomic bomb and the second half trying to stop its use. That lesson was not lost on Davidson. At NTIA they are working to ensure “that new technologies are developed and deployed in the service of people and in the service of human progress.” Continue reading CES: Panelists Weigh Need for Safe AI That Serves the Public

Amazon is rolling out Matter Casting, which lets customers cast directly from supported streaming apps on iOS and Android to Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devices. Viewers can begin watching a movie or browse for a Prime Video show on their phone, then cast it to a compatible Fire TV or Echo Show screen. Amazon called the CES announcement “an industry-first demonstration of implementing Matter Casting,” referring to the open-source Matter standard protocol for connectivity between smart home and IoT devices. Amazon is a founding member and active contributor to the Matter standard. Continue reading CES: Amazon Offers Casting from Prime Video App to Devices

CTA Senior Manager of Government Affairs John Mitchell led a discussion at CES on the use of blockchain as the basis of a new economic ecosystem. Coinbase Head of U.S. Policy Kara Calvert, FinClusive CEO Amit Sharma, and Paradigm Policy Director Justin Slaughter expressed enthusiasm about the potential for financial inclusion and digital identity as well as frustration over U.S. legislators’ approach to regulation. “Here, blockchain is positioned as a problem to address, not an opportunity to be seized,” suggested Slaughter. Meanwhile, they note, Switzerland, China and other countries are taking the lead. Continue reading CES: Leaders Urge Regulation to Unleash Blockchain’s Power

Lindsey Slaby of brand strategy consultancy Sunday Dinner opened a CES panel discussion on storytelling by noting Google’s phase-out of third-party cookies in 2024. Sophie Bambuck, CMO of outdoor performance clothing and gear company The North Face, admitted that she’s “a little scared.” “But it’s getting me excited about what this means for creative work,” she added. “What this most likely means is that we’re going to have to go back to basics to find ways of engaging so people will want to connect to your brand.” Panelists told tales of innovative ways they related organic stories to connect with customers. Continue reading CES: Crafting Effective Brand Stories in Today’s Marketplace

Audiences are migrating from broadcasting to streaming, and Google just announced its decision to phase out third-party cookies. What’s a marketer to do? At CES, Disney, Pfizer and GroupM marketers discussed how they plan to evolve in a changing landscape. The Walt Disney Company’s Lisa Valentino emphasized the need for interoperability of data across platforms, with the consumer at the center. GroupM debuted its Ad Innovation Accelerator to “strategize and create scalable ad formats that are designed to be ubiquitous across ad-supported streaming environments.” Partners include BrightLine, Disney, KERV, NBCUniversal, Roku, Telly and YouTube. Continue reading CES: Marketers Shift Tactics in Streaming, Post-Cookie World

Impact and opportunity surfaced as the dominant theme of a full day of Digital Hollywood sessions devoted to artificial intelligence at CES 2024. We are in a period of disruption similar to the early 90s when the Internet went mainstream, said Forbes columnist Charlie Fink, moderating a panel of industry leaders from CAA, Paramount, HTC, Nvidia and Google. Yet despite the transformation already underway, panelists agreed that this is neither the first nor last technology to shift the status quo, more the latest example of inevitable change and adjustment. The current conversations around AI at CES are a refreshing departure after a few years of evolutionary, not revolutionary tech confabs. Continue reading CES: Digital Hollywood Session Explores AI at Inflection Point

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip for extended reality platforms is designed to allow those who incorporate it into their gear to give Apple’s ambitious and technologically advanced Vision Pro headset a run for its money. Qualcomm says as part of the second gen Plus launch announcement that Samsung and Google have committed to using its new chip to power gen two XR experiences. Among the noteworthy XR2+ features is its single-chip architecture for 4.3K spatial computing at 90 frames per second. It supports 4.3K per eye resolution and 12 or more concurrent cameras to VR and mixed reality experiences. Continue reading CES: Qualcomm Chip Enables Faster Mixed Reality Features

Intel has teamed with Florida-based investment firm DigitalBridge to launch Articul8, an independent company catering to the GenAI software needs of enterprise customers by offering secure, vertically-optimized full-stack solutions. Intel says the GenAI system can read text and images. It was reportedly developed by Intel to meet the security needs of Boston Consulting Group to run in its data centers, and later scaled for general enterprise use. Articul8 aims to keep customer data, training and inference “within the enterprise security perimeter,” Intel notes, adding that customers can choose between cloud, on-premise or hybrid deployment. Continue reading Intel, DigitalBridge Launch GenAI Software Firm for Enterprise

LG Electronics will showcase its latest television technologies at CES in Las Vegas next week, including its 2024 lineup of QNED and QNED Mini LED TVs with models up to 98 inches, and the company’s top-line M4 and G4 OLED TVs (more on those sets in tomorrow’s ETCentric). LG says the advanced graphics capabilities of faster AI processing will provide viewers with a brighter picture, smoother motion and superior, vibrant colors. The company also announced an upcoming soundbar lineup, featuring premium surround-sound devices specifically designed for its new OLED and QNED TVs for what LG describes as an “elevated home cinema experience.” Continue reading LG Plans to Demo Its New OLED and QNED TV Tech at CES

Apple recently announced advances in artificial intelligence research that could introduce more immersive visual experiences and enable sophisticated AI systems to run on the company’s popular mobile devices. Two new research papers highlight techniques for creating 3D avatars from video content and efficiently deploying large language models on devices challenged by limited memory. The real-time ability to create avatars and 3D scenes from an iPhone camera could bring a range of new possibilities for CE devices in areas such as synthetic media, telepresence, social interaction, virtual try-on and more. Continue reading Apple Unveils New Advances in Artificial Intelligence Research

Google has unveiled a new large language model designed to advance video generation. VideoPoet is capable of text-to-video, image-to-video, video stylization, video inpainting and outpainting, and video-to-audio. “The leading video generation models are almost exclusively diffusion-based,” Google says, citing Imagen Video as an example. Google finds this counter intuitive, since “LLMs are widely recognized as the de facto standard due to their exceptional learning capabilities across various modalities.” VideoPoet eschews the diffusion approach of relying on separately trained tasks in favor of integrating many video generation capabilities in a single LLM. Continue reading VideoPoet: Google Launches a Multimodal AI Video Generator

Password management firm 1Password has launched a public beta for a program that implements passwordless logins, joining the trend to eliminate its bread and butter: passwords. Those who sign up to participate, creating a new 1Password account via the public beta, will get “an extended free trial that lasts for the duration of the beta,” the company says. Initially, “the ability to unlock 1Password with a passkey is reserved for new users, but will be made available to those with existing 1Password accounts sometime in 2024. Passkeys let people sign in to accounts without having to memorize a password or manage a secret key. Continue reading 1Password Introduces Passkey Support for Desktop and iOS

The Federal Trade Commission has proposed new rules to strengthen the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), further limiting the collection of children’s data, particularly those who seek to monetize the information through targeted advertising. FTC Chair Lina Khan says the proposed changes aim to prevent tech firms “from outsourcing their responsibilities to parents” when it comes to ensuring privacy for children’s data. The FTC says it has issued fines totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to Google’s YouTube, and to a lesser extent, ByteDance’s TikTok, for mishandling the data of children 13-years-old and younger. Continue reading FTC Seeks to Bolster COPPA So Firms Can’t Surveil Children

Google is rolling out Gemini to developers, enticing them with tools including AI Studio, an easy-to-navigate Web-based platform that will serve as a portal to the multi-tiered Gemini ecosystem, beginning with Gemini Pro, with Gemini Ultra to come next year. The service aims to allow developers to quickly create prompts and Gemini-powered chatbots, providing access to API keys to integrate them into apps. They’ll also be able to access code, should projects require a full featured IDE. The site is essentially a revamped version of what was formerly Google’s MakerSuite. Continue reading Google Debuts Turnkey Gemini AI Studio for Developing Apps