January 10, 2014
With this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (also known as CES) now in the rearview mirror, Dan Rowinski of Read Write Web explores a major takeaway from this year’s show:
The first phase of mobile was about turning our cellphones into what are essentially powerful pockets PCs. This posed unique challenges because of the size of the device and data connectivity issues. Over the past seven years (dating from the launch of the first iPhone), engineers worked to make everything smaller and faster while software developers created apps and systems to turn a cellphone into an “everything” device. The second phase will be to take that concept of everything and spread it everywhere. The connected home, the smart car, the television and commerce are all being informed by the advances that have been made in mobile.
“We are in the middle of the inflection point from developing the technology to deploying it,” said CEO of Ericsson Hans Vestberg when describing what he called the second phase of mobile at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
With mobility increasingly dominating our lives, Rowinski’s takeaway from CES dovetails nicely with two major policy topics at this year’s show: spectrum allocation and the transition to all-IP networks, both of which will be critical for the always-connected future on display at CES to work.