CES is always an eye-popping, jaw-dropping experience. But CES 2020 is absolutely mind boggling.
Yesterday I started to scratch the surface and had some time, in between keynotes and panel sessions, to get up close and a little more personal with some amazing technology. Specifically, I got to get much closer to the flying Hyundai vehicle, the S-A1. It was impressive enough on-screen, but seeing it live was a whole different ball game.
(Image courtesy of Hyundai)
The S-A1 is designed to carry four passengers, at an altitude of up to about 2,000 feet at 180 mph. While the plan is for this to be autonomous, initial versions will require a driver- er- pilot. This impressive EV has a range of 60 miles, so it is very much an urban mobility solution and very capable of getting you from your Manhattan office to JFK, without any of the headache of the traffic below you.
This vehicle is part of a team-up with Uber, which will mean you’ll have the opportunity to book a ride on an S-A1 as part of the Uber Elevate program. For more information on the program itself see the Hyundai press site.
I hope to have more time to explore throughout the remainder of the week, but this was a great way to kick off my CES 2020 experience.
I managed to attend four sessions today including the Delta Keynote, where Ed Bastian gave away two pairs of Delta One tickets to anywhere in the world that Delta flies. The give-away was cleverly done as the passes were stashed in blankets that were given away to the attendees at the keynote. Why give away blankets? These blankets are part of Delta’s recycling campaign and are actually produced from the plastics that Delta is recycling as part of its operations. How is that for sustainability! (Watch the video of Delta’s keynote.)
IoT and edge computing
My favorite session of the day was hosted by Deloitte and was focused on IoT and edge computing. This session included representatives from Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky, Flex and VMWare. Each panelist brought a different and interesting perspective. There were, however, three key themes that carried through from each of the panelists. Those are security, workload portability, and artificial intelligence.
Of these three themes, security was the most talked about — for good reason. With tens of billions of IoT nodes deployed today and significant growth ahead, there are many threat vectors. Security needs to be at the core of everything we do to protect our safety, privacy and financial assets.
While there were no concrete answers on how to effectively secure all these IoT nodes and edge devices, there was complete agreement that security needed to start at the chip level and continue all the way to the cloud. Furthermore, securing the data at capture, in transit and at rest is also recognized as a critical factor.
In terms of workload portability, we need to be flexible. Ed Whitty from VMWare provided an excellent example of why, his example being a situation where we are relying on information being generated and decisions made at the edge. As Ed put it, if there’s a natural disaster that removes that capability — and without the flexibility to shift that workload to the cloud and have a continuity of flow of information for situational awareness — we will be disastrously limited in our ability to respond.
One last point that was driven home by the panel was the need to be flexible in building out your ecosystem for the solutions. There is a lot happening right now, in IoT and AI as well as edge computing. You never know where you’ll find the best solution, so be flexible.
To see what ClearObject is doing in IoT and at the edge, to deliver value while keeping endpoints and data secure, visit us at www.clearobject.com. Meantime, let’s keep the conversation going. You can find me on Twitter @r_felice.
About the Author
Ron Felice is a product owner in ClearObject’s Engineering Product Development R&D group. Prior to ClearObject, he was a solution architect at IBM, where he worked for 14 years. He has worked in the technology sector for 25 years overall.
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About ClearObject
ClearObject is a digital transformation leader in Internet of Things (IoT) Engineering and Analytics. As IBM Watson IoT and Google Cloud Business Partners, we deliver global embedded software development environments for our customers, and design and deliver unique data analytics digital products that help them recognize the value of their data. Our objective is clear: help the world’s best companies build intelligence into their products and gain intelligence from them. The future is clear. Do you see it?
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