CES 2018

This Year at the Consumer Electronics Show

Every year at the beginning of January, I attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with my son Eric in Las Vegas, Nevada.  This is where almost all companies involved in technology show up to show off their latest-and-greatest products and services which they’re rolling out in the coming year.  It seems every year they break new attendance and exhibitor records.  There were about 184,000 attendees (like us) and 4,000 exhibitors from all over the world.  My favorite areas have always been the newer smaller companies.  Of course, all the huge companies are here too, but there’s so much interesting new innovation that I have been drawn each year to spend more time pouring over the new inventions and businesses being introduced.  In addition to the video below you may want to check out my photo album from the show on Facebook.

Join Me for a Walk-Around

Here’s a 10-minute video showing various clips from the show floor.  I took shots of some of the things I found interesting and maybe you will too.  You’ll see info on the following things in this video:

1. Cloud-based Windows 10 (Access Windows 10 through any browser – it’s like having a Windows 10 PC without buying the computer.)
2. DeciZone:  Interactive flow charge provides a much more interesting way to provide information on “anything”; it’s especially good for a more interesting Knowledge Base experience.
3. 360 Degree Video Camera:  This invention from Taiwan is a video camera worn around the neck which “sees” 360 degrees and records/broadcasts all video in a 360 degree range.
4. OCTEL:  This is a tiny TINY Windows 10 PC, about the size of a cell phone, but far more powerful.
5. WiFi Hotspot:  From Holland; lets the user purchase Wifi for a year, works through mobile carriers in many countries; no carrier account needed.
6. Furion Exo Bionics:  Exoskeleton racing machine.
7. Gibson Guitars:  Lizzy Hale performance.
8. Photozone Hypervision:  Hologram projection.
9. Educational Robots for children.

The foregoing were just interesting items I noted on one of the 4 days of the show.  Below the video I list what I think are my 10 most interesting “finds”.  So keep scrolling down after this video!

My Favorite Picks From CES 2018

Here they are.  My favorite items from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in 2018.  They’re in no particular order.  We may use some of them in the business.  I see value in each one of them as a potential use in some aspect of our enterprise.

• CrystalDisk:  This is a really neat product designed to enhance the capacity of mobile devices.  It’s not just a storage device, but also a one-touch backup for your smartphone or tablet and connects wirelessly.  It’ll also stream music and videos directly to your phone so if you’re already using your extra SIM or memory this super-extends your capacity.  Please note this is a Taiwan company and their site is in Chinese.  You can use Chrome with the right-click context menu and translate to English.  Prices are noted in NT (New Taiwan Dollar) so the $128GB version listed at $3,990 is really only about $135.77 in USD.  I like this for people who use their mobile device as their primary computing device because it provides massive extra storage, streaming and backup capacity that isn’t dependent on cloud storage (ie your backup belongs to YOU and is in your physical possession at all times).
• BBen WINDOWS 10 MINI-PC:  This is a nice product but sadly, one of the slowest-loading web pages I have seen. Be patient.  This is a good alternative to a laptop but lacks a screen which is built into the other mini-PC featured here.  Still it’s worth comparing.
• MKTEL: This is a cell phone manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China.  They have a nice product and can produce high-quality cell phones.  I don’t see this as something we would want to sell immediately. But they are located in the same part of China as our rugged walkie-talkie cell phone manufacturer, so if customers are interested enough to order THAT product (walkie-talkie cell phone), I may wish to visit their factory when I visit our current manufacturer – which I hope to do sometime in 2018.  It all depends on whether or not customers begin placing orders for the phone we are promoting.
• OCKTEL:  From the Netherlands, this company offers a tiny PC about the size of a cell phone, running full Windows 10.  It sells for $179 to $299 and could be very useful for our members who don’t have a good computer or laptop and wish to learn Ranking Trainer courses.  This PC should be plenty adequate for anyone who wants to do online marketing and website development, which cannot be adequately done from a cell phone or laptop.
• SIGNONTHEGO:  I don’t know much about this company yet, but signing applications are always of interest to me.  We have been using esignlive.com for a few years now.  They are good, simple, responsive.  This one looks good because they have a free signup, pay-as-you-go feature instead of the standard monthly payment (which is pretty nice when there’s only a small volume of signed documents required) and a strong emphasis on mobile signing through smartphones and tablets.  We may look into this one more closely.
• IGORIA CARD: This looks interesting because as we grow our Affiliate team worldwide, it’s always good to have multiple methods to send commission and bonus payments.  PayPal remains our first choice for sending payments. However, there are some areas in which PayPal may not provide the best choice.  This prepaid MasterCard allows us to load funds onto our Affiliate’s card so they can instantly access them from any ATM.  It works for 18 different currencies, in the EU plus USA.
• WORLDFIRST:  This caught my eye because they provide an alternate method for customers to pay us (ie “receiving accounts”) in the UK, Europe, Canada, Japan, China and the USA.  I’m not sure if they are adding more.  I’m still studying this to see if there’s a “fit” or not.  But they do facilitate both sending and receiving funds internationally and appear to have very good foreign exchange rates.
• uCLOUDLINK:  This company offers multiple interesting products.  Two of the most interesting products to me are (a) GlocalMe Portal Wifi Devices, (b) GlocalMe Smartphone SIM and (c) SIM-free.  The Portable Wifi Devices allow people to have a good Internet connection in more than 100 countries without any change in cost.  Pay a single fee and wherever you are, this device the size of a half deck of cards gets you connected.  The Smartphone SIM does the same thing except that it’s a SIM card for your phone.  When you travel, your phone just “works” because this SIM connects you with the local telcom without the necessity of buying a local SIM or changing your local plan.  The SIM-free service allows connection wherever you are without a SIM card by using their WiFi device.  This product is worth further exploration as something that could enhance our internal business operations and our staff who are on the move Internationally.
• AMAZON ADVERTISING:  I didn’t know Amazon had a site specifically for advertisers.  Since we’re deeply into marketing, I’m going to investigate further.  The booth people were busy so I didn’t really get to talk with them but I grabbed some of their literature and will be following up in the coming months.  I’ll blog about it if I find anything interesting here that we can use. YOU can check it out too with the link!
• DCA SERVICES:  This company specializes in software development for telecoms.  They are unique in the fact that their business model is to negotiate a percentage of sales in exchange for doing the development, software support and hosting for FREE.  This is really a misnomer . . . “free” to them means a $20,000 minimum deposit, against which they will credit their earnings.  So . . . anyway they have a good method to bring together our disparate systems of different switches, CRM, payment portals, broadcast services, etc. and administer everything through a single portal.  This will become critical as we get larger.  I’m keeping their contact info for later . . .
• DECIZONE:  I talked with these guys in my video.  My primary interest here is to use their platform to enhance our upcoming knowledgebase.  It looks like a much more interesting way to provide information for people who need it than the standard text-based knowlegebase I have seen and use from other companies.
• LINKFLOW:  This is the 360 degree wearable video camera shown in my video above. It’s promoted mostly as a security device for law enforcement, but the one at CES, and the model linked to in this description looks like it’s designed more for consumers.  I just thought this was cool  . . . maybe there’s a business use for it?  Let me know if you have ideas.
• WE.STREAM:  This is the product from my video where I talked with the lady from Holland.  It provides unlimited data in a small wifi hotspot for $179/year.  I’ll be looking into this to see how we could use this to provide the data connection for Voifone services worldwide, especially in areas where customers don’t have adequate data connections on their cell phones.