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Starcom Mediavest Akqa Vivaki

What was the best tech discovered at CES? Digital chiefs from AMV BBDO, AKQA, TBWA, Xaxis, Starcom Mediavest, Zone, Maxus and DigitasLBi reveal their favourites

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By Katie McQuater, Magazine Editor

January 12, 2015 | 8 min read

The madness of CES took place again at the beginning of January, and saw 160,000 people attend the Las Vegas event, keen to see the latest technological innovations. Here we speak to a cross-section of the advertising and digital industries to get their take on which of the new technologies launched this year will be the most transformative.

Gregory Roekens, chief technology officer, AMV BBDO

Sony MESH and Ozobot

When I was a kid, if you wanted to play a computer game, you had to code it; either by creating one yourself or recopying the weekly published programs from the newspaper. This created a whole generation of software developers. Nowadays, you just place your fingerprint on a TouchID and incredible games download onto your smartphone in seconds. At CES this year, I was really glad to see creative and fun use of technology and apps to help teach children science, math, and tech. A couple particularly caught my attention: Sony MESH and Ozobot. MESH makes it easy, fun and convenient for kids (or adults without engineering or coding skills) to build their own inventions. It is a platform of hardware blocks that connect to each other through wireless technology and that can be programmed via a simple Graphical User Interface to define a function. Ozobot is a cute robotic toy that teaches robotics and coding through fun, creative and social games.

Isabelle Baas, managing partner, digital, Starcom MediaVest Group

3D printing

It was simply mind blowing to see what is now capable of being printed, from fashion (dresses, shoes, handbags) to edible cookies and table decorations. Printers are coming down in price opening up a whole new era of creativity in the home, business and classroom, showing the ability to influence career development. The service industry is poised to develop around this and will see us have the choice of having anything printed, in any material or colour, personalised and shipped to us. Likewise 3D design services is another industry opening up.

Christopher Marsh, director of technology operations, AKQA

MakerBot

CES was packed full of devices providing incredible sensory experiences, but the technology that stood out for me overall was MakerBot’s demonstration of its PLA composite filament. Instead of the standard filament used for 3D printing, the composite range is infused with a variety of other materials. This allows MakerBot Replicator printers to seemingly print designs in sandstone, maple wood, bronze or iron. These were so realistic that the wooden product actually smelled of wood, and the iron product was magnetisable. The impact of this technology on how we produce and consume both utility and luxury items in the future will be enormous.

Lori Greene, content director, Maxus North America

Theta 360 camera

A plethora of camera companies exhibited a vast array of products at CES. While I am totally fascinated with the incredible uses of drone technology for shooting video, I found a simpler and more affordable way to create amazing content – the Theta 360 camera by Ricoh. It goes beyond panoramic and 360 degree images and instead creates a spherical experience with just one click. The compact colorful camera retails for just $299 (around £265) and its use will have content implications for travel, real estate, and the event industry among others. Right now college campuses are using the technology to develop inexpensive virtual tours of their campuses. In the future, this device will lead to innovative marketing uses for just about every industry.

Marco Bertozzi, president Audience on Demand ¬– EMEA and US client services, VivaKi

Smart home

The tech to focus on is the tech you can’t see. It is not about clever watches or TVs. It is the underlying infrastructure. The end use case is the device, what powers its connectivity is the game changer.

CES has always suffered from the ‘just because you can, does not mean you should’ syndrome. Part of what powered that sentiment was the myriad of connected devices that made up the early shoots of the ‘internet of things’, but the fact they were often based on proprietary and isolated systems meant they were likely to overpower the user with so many different interfaces. This year we have started to see consolidation with the connected home now being driven by three primary operating systems of Google with Nest, Apple and HomeKit and Samsung with SmartThings. The most exciting element to this, however, is the fact they are offering an open architecture that allows for greater simplification and consolidation. This allows the user to far better utilise the benefits of the connected home.

Rafe Blandford, mobile strategist, DigitasLBi

Smart home

Whirlpool’s ‘Works with Nest’ washing machine was just one of the many smart home products on display at CES. Integration with the Nest thermostat’s Home and Away modes means the washing machine knows when you are home and can adjust its washing cycle according. Furthermore, those signed up to Nest’s Rush Hour Reward program can opt to have the machine automatically delay the start of a cycle during high-demand energy periods. This type of integration between connected objects, along with the idea of delegating decision making from man to machine, is where the real value in the smart home lies.

Dominic Mills, chief technology officer, Zone

Scout 5000

It’s usually only when a market approaches saturation that the box is truly thought out of… so does Motorola know something about wearables that we don’t? Its Scout 5000 bundles the GPS tracking tech already successfully deployed in the pets wearables market with an almost HD-camera and, cunningly, collar-mounted speakers. OK, so being able to shout ‘Down boy!’ from work as your pooch goes for the postie isn’t earth-shattering, but look beyond it, and you’ll see its about monitoring, fitness and safety. Really, it’s Motorola’s partnership with Hubble – the mobile-platform-as-a-service outfit whose tech powers the device – that shows where the future is headed.

Mark Grether, global COO, Xaxis

In-car second screens

Mercedes, BMW and Audi showed off some new, multi-screen cars and we think this is a trend that is going to be particularly attractive to automakers going forward. Passengers will gain dedicated ‘co-pilot’ screens, which will enable them to find directions, search for restaurants and hotels and access the internet. These connected screens will be an ideal venue for audience-based ads, delivering relevant and useful messages to car passengers. For example, if you’re in a Mercedes S Class, you might get recommendations for Michelin-starred restaurants in the vicinity.

Peter Ha, creative director and editor-in-chief of Nissan United, TBWA

Cord-cutting

Cord cutting has been a thing for years now, but ditching your local cable company hasn’t been easy. We’ve been relegated to cobbling together multiple services hoping that one of our set-top boxes has an app for each one.

But HBO’s move to offer HBO GO as a standalone service some time this year signaled the need and want for ala carte style programming. And with DISH’s Sling TV announcement last week, we just might be able to have it all sooner than we thought.

Check out our dedicated CES hub to find out more of what happened at CES this year.

Starcom Mediavest Akqa Vivaki

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