A session on 5G and robotics, moderated by Eugene Demaitre, senior editor of WTWH Media’s The Robot Report, drew a substantial crowd at CES 2020, although few in the audience raised their hands when asked who was involved in robotics. The panelists drilled down into how the advent of 5G is already and will further impact their industries, including manufacturing, agriculture and automotive. Produce Marketing Association vice president, technology Vonnie Estes noted that more and more farmers are adopting the new technology. Read more

Deloitte chief of staff, technology, media & telecom industry Glen Dong introduced a discussion on the global economic landscape with a focus on China, which he dubbed “arguably the largest economy in the world.” He introduced Dr. Ira Kalish, Deloitte’s chief global economist, who put that into perspective with a 2020 economic outlook. “We’ve already seen a substantial deceleration of growth in the global economy,” he noted. “The Chinese economy has had some of its slowest growth in a decade.” Read more

Wooptix approaches the problem of light-field image capture in an interesting way. Using a single camera lens, they capture the same image at multiple depth-of-field settings. They then assemble a 3D version of the captured image by identifying and grabbing the areas of each depth-of-field image that are in focus. The result is a clear, if slightly flat and layered, 3D image with some degree of parallax. The company’s tech could have multiple applications. Read more

CTA chair/chief executive Gary Shapiro held court with two high-level government leaders: FTC chair Joseph Simons and FCC chair Ajit Pai, in two separate, 30-minute CES sessions. Simons first took the stage and described the Federal Trade Commission’s mission as two-fold: competition and consumer protection. “As we get further into the digital age, privacy concerns are becoming more important,” he said, noting that the FTC Act governing these concerns is 100 years old. “It’s time for Congress to adopt something more modern.” Read more

Following a discussion with FTC chair Joseph Simons, CTA chair/chief executive Gary Shapiro welcomed FCC chair Ajit Pai who has tried unsuccessfully to speak at CES for the last two years. Since the change in net neutrality laws, which met with a lot of pushback, noted Pai, “speeds are up, broadband infrastructure is up, more fiber was laid in 2019 than in any other year.” “We often heard that this was the end of the Internet,” Pai said. “But more Americans get faster Internet than ever before.” Read more