AI, sustainability, inclusivity, and human security take the center stage
Every year, the global tech industry looks forward to the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to witness tech’s biggest brands and buzziest startups unveil some of their most significant products for the year.
While CES 2024 continues to boast gadgets and gizmos aplenty, with launches from Abbott, Ambient Scientific, Bosch, Doosan, EssilorLuxottica, Harbor Lockers, Hyundai, Hisense, Indy Autonomous Challenge, Ink Invent, KIA, LG Electronics, Ottonomy, Panasonic, Samsung, SK Hynix, Sony, Swapery, TCL, Timekettle, UHD Alliance, Valeo, and Volkswagen, event owner and producer Consumer Trade Association (CTA) marked its 100th anniversary this year showcasing how tech can enhance human potential and drive equitable progress. While it is no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere, CES 2024 saw sustainability and inclusivity underpinning the latest advancements in mobility, health, content, finance, gaming, agriculture, food, and smart cities.
The CTA introduced its Consumer Technology Circularity Initiative (CTCI), a groundbreaking and voluntary industry initiative to reduce waste, encourage more reuse, enhance recycling, reduce climate impact, and see less disposal of consumer electronics. It enlisted Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony as founding members, who each announced commitments to reduce their environmental and associated climate impacts to help the circular economy become a reality.
CES 2024 saw global innovators and thought leaders delving into discussions about technology’s relationship with human security, a concept introduced by the United Nations (UN) that encompasses human rights, good governance, and access to opportunities and choices. Leading up to the event, the CTA announced its partnership with the UN Trust Fund for Human Security and the World Academy of Art and Science at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, positioning technology as one of the pillars of human security alongside economic, environmental, food, health, political, personal and community. The partnership aims to promote technology as an enabler of development, empowering us to do more with less, tackle the world’s most pressing challenges, and get closer to achieving global sustainable development goals (SDGs).
With various societal problems attributed to the tech sector’s penchant to move fast and break things, CES 2024 represented its best intentions and ideas to fix, or at least make a dent in addressing, enduring global issues and further inspire imaginations and collaborations to make the world kinder for more people.
Tech for good
Interesting innovations promoting sustainability and inclusivity launched at CES 2024
- Terra by Amira, a women-led MIT team of scientists, AI researchers, and engineers, is a wearable system with a bracelet and cooling mattress pad that predicts and preemptively counteracts hot flashes for menopausal women.
- When older people fall, quick help is a matter of life and death. One in two older adults who lie on the floor for longer than one hour die within six months of the fall. Nobi developed AI-powered Smart Lamps that detect and prevent falls and monitor their health and activity patterns.
- What if you can simply charge your laptop or smartphone by exposing it to a light source wherever you are? Ambient Photonics pioneered a low-light, indoor solar cell technology for everyday electronics, most currently powered by disposable or rechargeable batteries. It partnered with Google to develop a new consumer product featuring the world’s most powerful indoor solar cell technology that turns any light source into power, ushering in a new age of sustainable, battery-free, connected devices.
- EssilorLuxottica introduced hearable glasses to help those with mild to moderate hearing loss. Users can control the volume through the glasses, an app, or a small remote, which can be adjusted for environments such as large crowds.
- Japanese company Kubota presented its various agritech solutions and how they harness electrification, AI, sensing data, and automation to help farms worldwide become more productive while promoting food security amid climate change.
- Probably Honda’s cutest electric vehicle, the Motocompacto is a foldable scooter designed to fit compact spaces. Imagine riding it to a meeting, folding it once you get to your destination, and keeping it under your desk while you’re at your appointment, saving you the stress of needing to find and spend for parking.
