But the heart and soul of CES are not the eloquent predictors or the journalists who follow them. It’s the tech makers who make the show special, and a virtual CES was not necessarily good for them. “The smaller brands were probably the ones that suffered the most this year,” says Carolina Milanesi, an analyst and founder of research firm The Heart of Tech. “Because unless you found a designated place or experience on the site, it was just a long list of names.”
Milanesi shared an observation that one of my WIRED colleagues also made: the serendipity of the discovery was gone. One of the most exciting parts of CES was finding a strange product in the back corner of the giant expo hall and learning about something new through pure coincidence. At a virtual CES, this is a virtual impossibility.
Several technology companies I emailed or spoke to told me they were just not participating this year. The CTA still charged between $ 1,200 and $ 1,500 for a device that is a “digital exhibitor”. This does not include the additional fees for participating in major events such as Pepcom (from $ 2,500 to $ 10,000, according to documents reviewed by WIRED). For that amount, many smaller businesses would be better off emailing journalists or potential business partners directly and setting up their own Zoom briefings.
Eventually, this year’s CES got out of step with current events. A session on gender and racial prejudice in AI did not mention Timnit Gebru. Another panel with executives from Twitter and Google focused more on GDPR than on the bigger, more immediate news: the spread of disinformation on social media and Twitter’s role in the violent Capitol storm a week before the show.
There were exceptions that made the performance of the moment feel firmer. During AMD’s keynote speech, CEO Lisa Su added by scientists who explained how extra teraflops AMD computing power helps them investigate infectious diseases like Covid-19. Tuesday’s conference sessions kicked off with a thirty-minute conversation with Abbott’s executive vice president for rapid diagnosis and Microsoft’s chief medical officer on molecular testing and the logistics supply chain of vaccine distribution. In another keynote speech this morning, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, addressed the issues of the day directly and spoke about the recent SolarWinds cap and the far-reaching implications of this type of cyber espionage.
This, of course, is the thing about technology: it can be both our source of danger and a solution to our problems. CES has traditionally been more about solutions, and that’s a big part of its appeal. “We’ve seen the strain on healthcare systems, our schools and large and small businesses,” says Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Technology Association, which produces CES annually. ‘But in this time of uncertainty, technology has been a stabilizer. A unifying force.
I asked the CTA if he had considered canceling this year’s event altogether or holding a serious downsizing show. A spokesman said he still believes CES 2021 is an opportunity for the tech community to unite, come together and focus on a better future. ‘ The CTA has not yet shared how many people signed up for the online CES. The organization stressed that it is virtual that it will be much more accessible to people around the world this year.
This could very well be true. And as with any CES, there were some technologies, novelties and quirks that I will probably talk about for months to come.
But I really want to be together again next year.
More from WIRED at CES 2021