Sensors, Haptics & Displays

A team of IDTechEx analysts attended CES 2017 in the first week of January. Our aim was to cover all of the latest updates and trends in each of the topics that we cover. In this exclusive premium article, we report our observations in the VR, AR/MR, smartwatch & fitness tracker, sensors, air quality monitoring, displays and haptics spaces.

The scenario that shopping without checkout lines has been described multiple times since the introduction of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and many people believed if that could come true, it must be RFID that enables it. However, Amazon Go will demonstrate to us that other emerging technologies are going to realize it first, due to the significant improvement of deep learning, computer vision and sensor fusion, as announced on 5th December 2016. This leads us to consider which technology will be the future in the retail industry: computer vision, or RFID?

Day 2 of CES was dedicated to start ups and new companies doing interesting things.

The excitement has been building up in Las Vegas over the past few days with media days and press conferences, expectations have been riding high and the opening day of CES did not disappoint. Dr Harry Zervos reports from Las Vegas, Nevada.

These past 12 months have seen numerous celebrity deaths, athlete drug scandals and the end of Brangelina however, it was also the year Tesla announced fully automated cars, Alexa became part of the family and Leicester City won the Premier League. As we plan ahead for 2017, IDTechEx analysts have taken a look back over the past 12 months and picked out the most impactful technology launches, acquisitions and products from 2016. Happy New Year from all at IDTechEx!

Last week Paris experienced its worst spike in pollution since records began. Cars were banned from the streets and public transport made free in the city and surrounding areas. Such vehicle bans have only been introduced four times in the last two decades, and never before on consecutive days.

While in Santa Clara for the IDTechEx Show, technology analyst Dr David Pugh met with staff at Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers. The 68,500 capacity stadium was opened in 2014 and is one of the most technologically enabled entertainment venues in the world.

Sensors that are printed on flexible substrates represent a growing market. Although the biggest segment — blood glucose test strips — is currently shrinking, the next generation of printed sensors will enable other applications...

From the Exhibition Hall at the IDTechEx Show! in Santa Clara last week came a wide variety of new product announcements and press releases. Here we summarize some of the announcements.

The winners of the IDTechEx Awards were announced yesterday evening (16 November), at the end of the opening day of the IDTechEx Show! in Santa Clara, CA, where over 3,200 attendees were brought together at the biggest conference IDTechEx has held. The awards recognized the most significant innovations in electric vehicles, energy harvesting and storage and the internet of things (IoT).