It's Christmas......CES is Here

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the Consumer Electronics Show or CES is here. For the more than 175,000 consumer tech lovers who attend, this is the first of three Christmases. Mobile World Congress is the second and then there’s the traditional Christmas as third.During CES, everything from PCs, TVs, games and cool consumer tech devices will be debuted. And 5G will steal the spotlight followed closely by transportation, think driverless vehicles. I’m not sure whether anything else matters at this point and here’s why:5GWith Verizon and AT&T vying for the title of ‘first,’ you can expect major suppliers such as Qualcomm and Samsung to debut chipsets and other technology bits. While 5G-ready devices will be all the talk at CES, the networks capable of offering 10 gigabytes-per-second speeds are not expected to go live until 2020. Once completed, the possibility will be endless. VR will be more of a reality than a sparsely used technology, device-to-device communication (car to car, home electronics to wireless devices) will likely explode due to increased network load capabilities.AutonomousContinuing the trend for autonomous vehicles at CES, this year will be no different. Telemetry suppliers as well as the big car manufactures will have a lot to show off. Companies are jockeying for supremacy here. We were recently in Silicon Valley and had a conversation with innovators in this space. They likened autonomous vehicles to a 15-year old with a new drivers’ license. While tremendous progress has been made, there are speed bumps in the road ahead and minor fender benders could occur. Right now, the idea of driving next to them would make someone nervous, give them a couple of years behind the wheel and they’ll be great. It will be exciting to see what’s in store for auto makers.While Silverline is following CES news and events, we won’t catch everything. CNET is one of the best sources for immediate news and analysis to keep you up to date as developments happen.