A glimpse of the leopard: product technology direction from CES 2016

Every year, CES always showcases a lot of exciting products, but most of them are difficult to come to ordinary consumers and integrate into ordinary people's lives in the following year. This year's CES products are also dazzling. CES provides us with a good opportunity to see all the latest high-tech products that can improve our health, diet and daily life.

For industry observers, CES is a weathervane for the industry, and we can often see the development trend of the technology industry that year through it. So, what is the biggest direction this year? What are the technologies or products that make people shine? Perhaps we can understand the popularity of products or technologies from the following aspects:

Virtual Reality

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Smartphones, ultra-high-definition TVs, and wearable devices are the three major categories of products that have dominated CES almost every year. However, this year, virtual reality is in the limelight and is an important highlight of the exhibition. The number of related exhibitors is expected to increase by 80% at this year's CES, and more than 40 exhibitors will showcase the new development direction of virtual reality systems. With the implementation of applications in the past few years, VR/AR related technologies are maturing, and the industry prospects are also becoming broader.

Drones

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This year, more than 20 companies exhibited their drone products, which is a big improvement compared to the past. This also reflects the popularity of the drone field. In addition to the new products of "old" drone manufacturers such as DJI, there are also many new bloods joining the drone field, such as the "Ying" drone jointly developed by Tencent and Zero Degree, the Parrot Disco fixed-wing drone that can be thrown into the air and launched, and Ehang's self-driving manned aircraft. Qualcomm and Intel brought the Snapdragon flight platform with built-in Snapdragon 801 processor and the Yuneec and Ascending drones with real-sense technology, respectively.

Smart Cars

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The "traditional" automobile industry is gaining new vitality under the influence of the Internet. The products related to automobiles come from more than a dozen fields such as "electric vehicles, driverless cars, computer vision, deep learning/artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, real-time 3D maps, radar sensors, wireless charging, and after-market services". It can be said that automobiles not only carry the mission of transportation, but are also an important carrier in human technological life. Many car companies including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Ford participated in this CES exhibition. Apple CarPlay and Google Android have brought a large number of in-vehicle applications, aiming to provide users with customized in-vehicle needs. The improvement of sensors and related technologies provides more favorable support for autonomous driving and intelligent driving.

In contrast, although there were many exciting products on display in the three categories of smartphones, smart TVs and wearable devices, the enthusiasm has weakened and they are relatively low-key. As far as the global market is concerned, the smart home and wearable markets in China, the United States and Europe are just starting, while smartphones have entered a saturation period and a relative bottleneck period after years of development.

In short, this year's CES products are still diverse, with smart elements as the main feature. Product performance and technology are closer to functions, with less fantasy and more detail fine-tuning. The functions and practicality of some conceptual products are increasing, and the maturity of practical products such as mobile phones and tablets is also further enhanced.