Informative video about Google Smart Screens

The presentation is rather flat, but the information in here is good.

9to5 Google

Adoption of Smart Speakers... fast followers

"Fast followers" is an important concept when watching consumer electronics.

New products happen usually this way: Someone sticks their neck out and takes a chance...

...the herd watches to see if the pioneer thrives... or is eaten by predators... or falls off a cliff...

... if the pioneer thrives, the rest of the herd follows in a stampede.

This happened with cell phones, personal computers, smart phones & tablet computers. (The first smart screens) and with Smart speakers

Check out "Smart Speakers."

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Wikipedia

Release date	November 6, 2014

Amazon had been developing Echo devices inside its Lab126 offices in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Massachusetts since at least 2010 in confirmed reports. The device was part of Amazon’s first attempts to expand its device portfolio beyond the Kindle e-reader.^[3] The Echo was prominently featured in Amazon's first-ever Super Bowl ad in 2016.^[4]

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Wikipedia
Google Home is a brand of smart speakers developed by Google. The first device was announced in May 2016 and released in the United States in November 2016, with subsequent releases globally throughout 2017.


Now, there are 107 Smart Speakers in Consumer Reports List

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A quick trip down memory land for "tablet computers." Do you remember the "Grid Pad?" Palm Pilot? Apple Newton? Pocket PC? All these runs at it since the late 1980's and early 1990's before the concept finally got traction -- when the technology was good enough to inspire mass adoption.  Early Tablet Computers 

With the iPad it passed the "anyone can use it" threshold.

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We have had the first SMART Screens. They are tablet computers. We have had the first smart speakers (voice activated personal assistants.)

Combining the technology -- the adoption rate of this is going to be very rapid. It takes something we're used to, (Tablet computers) and combines it with something most of us are getting used to (Smart speakers) to increase the utility dramatically.

Google has telegraphed that "smart screens" are coming. With the smart speaker combined with a screen and voice activation.  

Some of their partners in this are also partners with MicroVision. (Goertek and particularly RockChip -- here) Yes, on the WPG Holdings list of "hottest" items is a MicroVision projector engine combined with the RockChip processor dedicated to voice recognition. (Unfortunately, they close their site for Chinese New year. ) 

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Over the weekend I met someone who carries a Motorola phone with the projector mod. She loves it, uses it at work(for work) and at home and while out and about.

However it's use case is a lot like an early tablet computer. It's not convenient technology. It's power hungry, not very bright, and requires playing with a particularly finicky (technical term!) focus wheel. It's not convenient and easy for just anyone to use. 

Projection in smartphones has now reached that all-important threshold. Ragentek has the "anyone can use it" projector smartphone.

...and a lot of interest in lasers... by some companies playing with near-eye displays.

Smart Displays. Voice Recognition. Google.

There has to be a pony in here somewhere.

"Android Things" Android Developers

"Starting tomorrow, you can visit the Google Assistant Playground (booth CP-21) at CES to view new products, chipsets, and reference designs by our partners. In addition, these devices are also available for display in other company spaces throughout the conference, including Lenovo, LG, JBL, Qualcomm, MediaTek, NXP, Rockchip, iHome, Goertek, and Tymphany."

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Rockchip "Hey Google"

CES2018 Rockchip announces Android Things™ Turnkey SOM

2018-01-09

Rockchip announced its new Android Things™ Turnkey Solution - RK3229 System-On-Module (SOM). It will help developers build multiple categories of IoT products and bring them to market more quickly.

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From Here: WPG

RockChip TV Boxes

Confirmation of Thesis....

Have some urgent business to take care of before I can compile everything. What I saw confirms my thesis: Summed up best with these older posts.

There's a TON of Value here.

Microvision is involved in the busiest technologies at this year's CES:

Personal assistants -- Self driving cars -- Mobile Phones -- Augmented Reality -- Internet of things. Where those things were at CES, there were lines of people trying to see it.

Fairest of them all.

Bleeding Edge to leading edge.

FAST Followers.... 

What is the value of these businesses?
Pico Projection	Price Calculator
Interactive Pico Projection?
Near Eye Displays
LiDAR
"Black Box"
Total

What do you think it's worth (or how much more than it's trading for?)

Of course to find the right company now, you'd look to something that was going to be a key component of an up and coming new technology. 

• Mobile technology is still in its infancy -- find the next must-have feature, and you're golden. 
• Personal assistants, like the Amazon Echo or the Google Home are gaining popularity, and will likely become more and more common, and more widely available everywhere -- especially if video features can be conveniently added to them. 
• The Internet of Things is talked about everywhere, more and more powerful computers are being put in everyday items. If you're old enough to remember the 1990's a powerful personal computer of the 1990's was required to play the game "DOOM" -- but that computing horsepower is now available in a thermostat. [Doom on a Thermostat] The thing about that computing horsepower is that people need a good way to interact with it, that will be a key component.
• Augmented Reality, the ability to enhance the world you see with computer generated information, is so new most people have seen little of it except perhaps an experience with Pokemon Go. They're getting great results with this technology in industry, greatly increasing productivity -- and it's a wild fantasy of gamers. It will be bigger than Virtual Reality -- it brings people together, or it can. Virtual reality isolates them. 
• Self Driving Cars and Automation: I know self-driving cars are controversial -- they're not going to happen all at once though. They're going to happen a little at a time. More and more sensors will appear, the ability to automate some functions of the car, and the ability of the car to process the sensors' information and intervene when necessary is going to increase. No one is complaining about cars automatically NOT hitting pedestrians, or parking themselves, or alerting us when there's another car in our blind spot. This happens through primarily sensors that can detect and identify other objects.