On the surface, the show was about bigger, denser displays (4K), tablets of varying sizes, and oddball novelties like robots that clean windows. But underneath, it was about the slow but sure progress toward user-centric computing.
The most important change since last year is the rise of the smartphone as control point for the user’s pantheon of devices and the “app” as the user-friendly software interface. I’m not the only one who observed this phenomenon. Brian Chen of The New York Times noted in his piece last Friday that people are increasingly using cell phones to control and interact with other devices.
But the smartphone isn’t just a remote control. It represents the most convenient access to your stuff. And the access is bi-directional. You not only use the phone to tell your other devices, through the cloud, what to do. They let you know what’s going on by using the same communications path in reverse.
In recent history, Microsoft and Intel mounted campaigns to convince people that the PC should be the hub of their personal networks. Until just a couple of years ago, the PC really was the star. But its leading role has been slipping, and that slide is accelerating.
However, this change doesn’t really depict a contest between two form factors, the PC and the smartphone. It represents the shift of an important interface toward more mobile devices. To put that thought in context, as computing has moved from a single device to many, the “center” has moved from the device (the PC) to the individual. I described user-centric computing in some detail in a column last week. Essentially, you are surrounded by your devices, and the cloud coordinates them for you.
Now, the cell phone can act as both a conductor’s baton and mini-player. The PC acts as a larger, more readable screen for content consumption, a more convenient means to create content, and, yes, also a control point. The tablet is mostly for content consumption, but can be used as a control point, too.
If CES 2013 ratified the cell phone as the preferred control point of the personal network, then it also demonstrated how the device pantheon is expanding. The “information object” in the cloud that represents your state formerly contained data pertaining to PCs, tablets, and phones. Now, it can also include security systems, home appliances, cars, and other things.
At the show, Netgear showed the VueZone wire-free home monitoring system (with add-on night-vision camera). An app-driven system, the VueZone allows the home owner to record and play video snippets from a phone and receive alerts as email or text messages. The VueZone can be controlled from any Apple iOS or Google Android device as well as from a browser on a PC or Mac.
On the home appliance side, Whirlpool, a company not known as a leading-edge tech firm, demonstrated a line of connected appliances with what it calls 6th Sense Live technology. Embedded systems on washing machines, dryers, and refrigerators can be monitored and controlled from and can send alerts to smartphones or browsers. Thus, for example, when the dryer stops, an alert can tell you to remove those delicate items before they cool down and wrinkle. A temperature sensor in the refrigerator can indicate that someone left the door open and send a note to a parent who cares.
Viper, a company that makes automotive accessories, showed an app that lets Apple’s voice system, Siri, lock and unlock as well as start a car remotely from an iPhone. Viper also sends a message if the car’s alarm system goes off.
In this last example, control can be handled by only one device, the iPhone, but in the previous two, the user has a choice of smartphone platforms as well as browsers. This flexibility demonstrates that, while the phone is the most mobile, convenient control point, the PC still has a role to play in this area.
So, pieces of the ideal, which has existed for almost a decade, are beginning to fall into place: multiple devices that serve different functions all pointing at the user and maintaining state, network communications and cloud-based services that coordinate them all, and control points and apps that allow the user to get the most out of his or her device pantheon in the most convenient way.
I expect the picture will be even more complete and the whole system more functional by CES 2014.
© 2013 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
