If San Diego Comic-Con is Nerd Prom, CES (that\u2019s Consumer Electronics Expo for the non-nerds in the audience) is sort of Tech Monkey Homecoming. The big names bring big gadgets, put on shows, get spiffed up to maximum shiny, and everybody else makes frankly catty judgments about who\u2019s in and so, so out.<\/p>\n
Including us! Unlike Homecoming, CES matters. What blows up and falls down there will decide what is or isn\u2019t running your life in a year. In that spirit, we won\u2019t be electing Kings and Queens (we\u2019re strictly pro-democracy, thank you) but here are five tech trends and takeaways to keep in mind for 2018 in tech.<\/p>\n
1. Alexa Rises!<\/strong><\/p>\n In the never-ending Cold-Yet-Personable-War between Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Google Assistant (Where\u2019s Google Assistant\u2019s subtly sinister a human name? Doesn\u2019t it deserve one? Somebody start a petition) the House of Bezos is pulling ahead. <\/p>\n CES showed widespread adoption of Amazon\u2019s AI assistant. Google still has an active maker community and Microsoft and Apple still have their bundled devices, but among third-party manufacturers Alexa is, at least for the moment, the voice of choice.<\/p>\n 2. Robots Don\u2019t Work Yet!<\/strong><\/p>\n With the runaway success of AI applications, it\u2019s no surprise worthy geeks are taking the next bold step into Canonical Sci-fi Future and trying to sell us adorable in-home robots. And real talk, Sony\u2019s new Aibo is pretty cute<\/a>. <\/p>\n Thing is, the Aibo\u2019s only cute because it\u2019s not trying to do anything. Sure, LG\u2019s admittedly very Jetsons Cloi house manager-bot BSOD\u2019d onstage, much to the amusement of the Internet, but glitches happen. The bigger problem is that when it comes to household robots, the vast majority are solutions in search of problems. We\u2019re talking dropping Benjamins to automate the 45 seconds it takes to fill the dog bowl or fold laundry. <\/p>\n That\u2019s some nonsense, whether it works or not. I could make a case for accessibility for people with disabilities, but, no. When you\u2019re selling a $150 dog bowl, \u201caccessible\u201d is not a word you get to use. Short a major price change and\/or a serious reassessment of how these tools work and for whom, tech just isn\u2019t ready to run your house for you. At least that means there still won\u2019t be a robot apocalypse<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3. Screen All The Things!<\/strong><\/p>\n We called this one<\/a>! Behold our prophetic powers of remembering sometimes people lose their phones. As linked, Amazon committed to a Home Assistant with a touchscreen and a charmingly retro integral speaker. <\/p>\n