CES2019

Microsoft CEO candidate understands the danger

16 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Vestberg living large at CES.

“It’s normally not given that the winners in the first phase are the winners in the second phase”, said Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson at CES last week. It might be that someone on the Microsoft board was listening hard, because the rumor of the day has Vestberg on the shortlist to be its new CEO, replacing Steve Ballmer, who announced his impending resignation last year.

Vestberg was talking about the challenge in front of Ericsson, which was an early behemoth of the mobile phone business, but has remade itself as it fell far behind in handset manufacturing and its infrastructure business lost ground as voice networks were upgraded to handle broadband.… More

FCC chair Wheeler says it's time to cowboy up

13 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Be careful where the bull throws you.

“This is not my first rodeo. I played in the formulating of the rules for the very first spectrum auction”, said FCC chair Tom Wheeler, at CES last week. “I went around with my hair on fire talking about the end of western civilisation if they don’t do it my way”.

Wheeler was CEO of the National Cable Television Association from 1979 to 1984 and of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) from 1992 to 2004, the Washington DC-based national trade associations for the cable television and mobile phone industries.… More

Consumer electronics collapse into the mobile phone

12 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Copernican model of consumer electronics.

Smart phones, tablets and wearable bits of networked silicon dominated the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as the television was declared dead, high end audio and desktop computers were invisible in the flagship booths of major manufacturers and laptops were indistinguishably grey.

The week began with an analyst with the Consumer Electronics Association – the show’s organiser – projecting that smart phones, feature phones and tablets will, together, account for 45% of industry revenue in 2014.… More

Lowe's Iris home automation service goes national

11 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Point of sale.

“We made the investment to go national”, said Kevin Meagher, vice president and general manager for home automation at Lowes. “We’re pleased with progress to date, we have confidence in the huge potential for the market”.

He was talking about Iris, Lowe’s home automation control platform that was introduced at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, amid predictions that it was doomed to failure. Instead, as Meagher explained at this year’s show, it’s grown to include about thirty devices from more than a dozen manufacturers.… More

The end of TV and the rise of the microwave oven will define consumer electronics of the future

10 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Twilight of the gods.

“The TV has been challenged for the the last four or five years and, frankly, it’s on the way out unless they reinvent its presentation in the home”, said Peter Corcoran, assistant dean at the National University of Ireland. He spoke yesterday at a CES session sponsored by IEEE and focused on future technology.

“The TV needs to reinvent itself”, Corcoran said. The way to do that is to marry it to smart phones and tablets and make it a two screen experience.… More

FCC puzzles mobile broadband crunch and spectrum auctions

10 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Washington works by twists and turns.

“I keep describing it as a Rubik’s cube”, said FCC chair Tom Wheeler as he answered questions at CES about plans to auction off television frequencies for mobile broadband use. Like a Rubik’s cube, it’s a constantly moving problem on three axes: a reverse auction to buy back TV channels and a regular auction to sell the bandwidth to mobile phone companies, all while repacking television stations into less spectrum.… More

Three ways for start-ups to cash in on the Internet of things

9 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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There ought to be an app for that.

“There is money to be made in the internet of things”, said Steve Brumer, a partner at 151 Advisors. “There is a vertical market, there is a horizontal market and there’s an ecosystem” that innovative entrepreneurs can tap into to make money. “There’s not one vertical that’s not touched by the Internet of things”.

Big companies might be building the infrastructure, but figuring out what to do with the data they collect is anyone’s game.… More

Wheeler's success as FCC chair hinges on his enthusiasm for intervention

9 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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So far, so collegial at the FCC, commissioners Pai and Rosenworcel at CES.

Chairman Tom Wheeler’s intention of enforcing a “network compact” via the FCC’s Internet neutrality rule – the open Internet order – won’t go down well with republican-appointed commissioners, but his idea of case by case review might.

“The open internet order was a solution in search of a problem”, said commissioner Ajit Pai at CES yesterday. “The FCC lacks the authority to promulgate the rule”.… More

Bitcoin is virtually a developing country

9 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Open for business.

Four thousand transactions a day and total 2013 transactions of $100 million would be chump change for Visa or Mastercard, but it represents blindingly fast growth for Bitpay, which only moved $3 million in 2012. It’s an Atlanta-based transaction processor, one of three Bitcoin-related companies sharing a small booth in the back of CES’s south exhibit hall.

Bitpay is one of several companies that make it possible for merchants – big or small, online or bricks and mortar – to accept Bitcoins from customers and get dollars, or whatever national currency they prefer, in return.… More

International passengers make voice calls on planes, politely

9 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Can’t we all just get along?

“At Delta, we’re very much promoting cellular transmission on airplanes but not voice calls”, said Kirk Thornburg, an engineering executive for the airline. Chuck Cook, his counterpart at JetBlue, agrees. “We do not support the use of cellular voice airborne, that’s customer driven”.

In fact, nearly everyone on this morning’s CES panel discussing consumer electronics on airplanes agreed that passengers should be able to use cellular data services in the air, but shouldn’t be allowed to talk on their phones.… More