Our team just returned from a glorious CES show… a return to an almost normal where everything from advances in space tech, to a self-driving baby carriage, to pee analyzers you place in your toilet, to tractors that know a weed from a wheat stalk. Plus enough smart home products for your house to get its own PhD.

On a social level, there was kissing, hugging, catching up with each other’s triumphs and disasters, and planning the future. Reports say that there were over 115,000 in attendance. The joy was nearly manic. 

CES is also one of the best-run shows on the planet. To the naked eye, exhibits magically appear across miles of aisles with their splashy LEDs and ginormous installations. But the coordination to pull off an event of this magnitude is astounding. 

But, here’s the thing. CES and other exhibits like it are fast and fleeting. They’re over in a blink, before you can even process what the hell went on. No two people experience the same show, unless they’re glued at the hip. And it’s literally impossible to see everything, regardless of how organized you are. 

Not coincidentally, none of the major virtual conference or event tech stacks exhibited at CES. While work-from-home was discussed as a concept – mostly based on hardware technology like Zooming in high resolution – it was not promoted as a theme at the show. Event tech solution behemoths like Zoom, and important players like Cvent, Notified, and Hubilo were all absent. Touchcast demonstrated its metaverse strategy along with Microsoft where they created a car configurator. Metaverses like Decentraland, Sandbox, Roblox and Unreal were absent, but they were talked about. (I did meet with Unity in their private suite, and had some great volumetric capture and metaverse discussions with Accenture.)

After last week’s newsletter, some of you wrote to ask for more information about spatial computing. Spatial computing’s definition is sort of like the definition of porn, you know it when you see it. More and more companies are using the “S” word in their descriptions. The idea is that you are fully immersed in an environment whether that’s using VR, AR, audio, haptics or any of your other senses to surround you.. 

Sony – typically known for its video announcements at CES – showcased a purely digital spatial reality screen driven by Unreal engine and output to a display with a stereoscopic vision that portrays depth and volume. Vermont-based OVR Technology believes the nose is the missing ingredient from the spatial experience. At CES it demonstrated a headset that contains a cartridge with eight aromas that can be combined to create different scents. Can’t wait for smelly virtual meetings!