The Upgrade
There’s Nothing New at CES 2019
Welcome to the off year
There’s a question I always ask vendors at CES, the sprawling tech expo now underway in Las Vegas: Is this new?
Increasingly, the answer is no. The product has been shipping, in some form or other, for a few months or even years. I’ve long ago given up any hope of spotting a unicorn here — the life-changing product everyone will be talking about. The big companies are now focused on introducing initiatives and projects that will help define future products instead of actual products themselves.
CES 2019 is like an entertaining Broadway musical that lacks a hit song.
Still, I can usually count on smaller discoveries — a handful of products that everyone agrees were the most important introductions of the week. But even that consensus is hard to find this year. CES 2019 is like an entertaining Broadway musical that lacks a hit song. I can’t think of a single gadget anyone has talked about for more than a few hours before moving onto the next thing.
