CUK Carnival Plc

By Tim Higgins and Georgia Wells 

When the Consumer Electronics Show began 50 years ago, few could have imagined that a trade show for transistor radios and black-and-white television sets would ultimately span across dozens of industries, from cameras and home appliances to automobiles and cruise ships.

More than 170,000 people are expected to attend CES 2017 in Las Vegas this week, walking through a maze of 3,800 exhibitors spread over 2.5 million square feet. Illustrating how ubiquitous technology has become, some top-billed speakers will come from other industries.

Carnival Corp. Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald is expected to deliver a keynote speech on Thursday as the cruise-ship company highlights its use of connected wearables and other advances on boats that essentially are floating cities. Under Armor Inc. CEO Kevin Plank is scheduled to speak Friday on the athletic-apparel maker's vision of using sports clothing and wearable technology to track health and fitness.

The show, which began in 1967 in New York with 117 exhibitors and 17,500 visitors, has evolved into a mecca for companies world-wide to learn what's next in technology. "A buyer from South America can be meeting with a company from Germany or Japan or Korea," said Gary Shapiro, longtime president and chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on CES. "That's what the show is designed for."

CES 2017 will showcase technology to all attendees from Thursday through Sunday. Here are some trends to watch:

--Test drive -- About 138 automotive-related companies will be at the show, a dramatic increase in presence from a decade ago when General Motors's CEO delivered the first automotive-focused keynote.

The show threatens to overshadow the Detroit auto show the following week, the traditional gathering of the world's largest car companies. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV plans to reveal a new vehicle at CES this year. Carlos Ghosn, who leads the Renault-Nissan Alliance, will deliver a keynote address, and Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields will speak on Friday.

Many companies are expected to talk about their strategies for self-driving cars. Ford, Toyota Motor Corp. and others are aiming to have autonomous cars on roadways by 2021. CES also serves as a showcase for the suppliers providing technology to the auto makers.

"What we're doing is turning the car into a mobile device that gets smarter and smarter even after you bought it," said Danny Shapiro, senior director for automotive for Nvidia Corp., the graphics-processor company.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is slated to give a keynote speech Wednesday on artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.

--The internet of health -- Web-connected gadgets have become a central part of the show, and the hardware makers are now crystallizing around more serious use cases such as health.

HAX, a hardware accelerator based in Shenzhen, China, and in San Francisco, is bringing several health-focused startups to CES.

One of HAX's companies, HabitAware, has created a bracelet that buzzes to prevent the wearer from doing an unwanted behavior, such as nail biting or skin picking. Co-founder Aneela Kumar designed it help her stop pulling out the hairs in her eyebrows.

The pragmatic focus of these startups is driven by slowing growth of wearables. Research firm eMarketer expects usage of wearable devices to grow 25% this year, down from 60% expected growth in 2016. Part of the reason for slowing growth is that smartwatches have yet to reach the mainstream.

Wearable fitness-tracker maker Fitbit Inc., which will be exhibiting its devices at CES, is trying to position its products as health gadgets that measure longer-term conditions than simply heart rate or sleep patterns.

--Home invaders -- Security is taking a central role in how companies pitch their home networking products. For years, router and gadget makers pushed the idea that connecting as many devices as possible to the internet would simplify life. But data breaches in the home have shifted that message.

Cujo LLC and eBlocker each are scheduled to promote devices that block hackers and provide privacy to people using devices on a home-internet connection.

Other firms, such as Promise Technology Inc., are exploring how to sell personal cloud servers to consumers so they can access their files from anywhere without ceding control to tech companies such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

--Tech butlers -- Look for Amazon.com Inc.'s virtual assistant Alexa to pop up in more products. The competition among voice-command assistants has only intensified after the surprise hit of Amazon's Echo speaker, which uses an artificial intelligence system called Alexa to perform searches.

At CES, companies are clamoring to develop ways to integrate Alexa into their products. General Electric Co. will display a table lamp embedded with Alexa, while Ubtech Robots will show a humanoid robot with Alexa-enabled voice commands.

Write to Tim Higgins at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com and Georgia Wells at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 03, 2017 13:08 ET (18:08 GMT)

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