Show review CES, LAS VEGAS
CES 2018 ushered in a new era of connected-home electronics, from artifi cial intelligence and voice
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control to groundbreaking TV technologies, but not every innovation played ball. Steve May reports from the show fl oor
before their TV did what it was told. And it was quickly apparent that
artificial
intelligence... sometimes
f IFA 2017 hinted at the role artificial intelligence will play in tomorrow’s consumer tech, CES laid out a road map. In the retail spaces of tomorrow, it’s not going to be enough to merely connect products. Consumers are going to expect to interact with them too. Of the two leading voice-control platforms at CES, Google was the most vocal. It took over the Las Vegas monorail, shouted ‘Hey Google’ from billboards across town, and wheedled its way into countless products, from in-car with Panasonic through to assorted headphones and screens. Although sometimes the message wasn’t entirely clear.
Google Assistant built-in and Google Assistant compatible nomenclature
offer plenty of scope for confusion. For example, LG’s ThinQ AI TVs will launch in the US with Google Assistant built-in – a microphone in the remote allowing users to issue voice commands directly. However, LG UK’s head of product marketing and partnerships, Darren Petersen, confirmed to ERT that corresponding models would only be Google Assistant-compatible in the UK, meaning that buyers would need to provide their own Google smart speaker
isn’t. In time-honoured fashion, LG kicked off the annual CES press day, trumpeting a new era for connected appliances by introducing Cloi, yet another smart assistant. Cloi, we were told, would engage users on an emotional level. Unsure
what spin cycle to wash your smalls? Cloi would feel your angst and offer advice. Unfortunately, the only emotion Cloi engendered was frustration. After some cheerful on-stage banter, Cloi threw a strop, refusing to respond to questions. “Even robots have bad days,” quipped LG marketing vice-president David VanderWaal, looking increasingly flustered. He pleaded and cajoled, but Cloi was having none of it. “Cloi is not going to talk to me,” he ruefully acknowledged. Inevitably, HDR remained a huge water-cooler topic. Funai Electric, the North American licensee for Philips TVs, announced that it would incorporate Technicolor HDR into its sets for 2019. Broadcast is now very much on the US TV agenda, with the upcoming ATSC 3.0 standard including HDR provision. Technicolor HDR is of little interest to UK viewers, though. We’ve already committed to HLG for our over-the-air HDR broadcasting. Of more importance was HDR10+, an open source dynamic metadata rival to Dolby Vision. The standard gained valuable traction before the show
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