In the world of today, where tomorrow rapidly introduces advances in technology and innovations, can insurance products keep up with the emerging risks presented by these advancements? What product liability risks lie in a suitcase that follows you around the airport, a mouthguard that tells you when a child playing sports suffers a serious head injury, chips that power all of a self-driving car; or in the future, a driverless vehicle that can cook and deliver pizzas; or a personal electric vehicle that looks like a wheelchair? What cyber threats exist for a lamp that brings wireless internet into the home, or a robot who takes photos and videos of your home and family?

CES 2018

Mobility

Robot s And Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Smart Tech

Summary

CES 2018

In case you were unaware, CES 2018 took place January 9-12 in Las Vegas, NV. CES is the official name and former acronym for the Consumer Electronics Show, which is a huge annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. CES 2018 has been highly anticipated by many industries, but primarily the technology and autonomous industries. The CES 2018 keynote focused on Intel's 49-qubit quantum computing chip, virtual reality (VR) applications for content, its artificial intelligent (AI) self-learning chip, and an autonomous vehicles platform. CES 2018 advertised it would showcase the tech trends for the year ahead, and the most important products that will affect businesses and professionals; and that it did! “Best of Innovation” award winners included the ForwardX CX-1, the AI-powered suitcase that follows you, the MyLiFi lamp for wireless networking through LEDs, ElliQ, the social robot who helps the elderly interact with their devices to stay in touch with their families, and the SGNL smart strap that turns your hand into a phone!

Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich gave the keynote address, calling Intel's 49-qubit quantum chip a major breakthrough in quantum computing, and the next step to “quantum supremacy”; however Intel did not provide any timeline details for the chip. As an aside, Intel announced last year that it would be providing its 5G mobile trial platform, processors, and technologies to be used for Korea Telecom's 5G network for the Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games in 2018. What this means for Olympic attendees is that they will be given access to gigabit-speed wireless broadband and live-streamed content at several of the Korean Olympic venues, so they can watch and listen to the events live without being everywhere at once. For those of us who can't attend the Olympics, Korea Telecom has demonstrated 5G technology that includes a 360-degree VR viewing experience said to provide multiple channels in real time, which will allow us to watch the games from different directions and angles, and even make us feel like we're the ones doing the sports. Don't you just love new technology?!

So what else happened at CES 2018? Well, to start, the reveal of the Volocopter and the introduction of lots of electric cars and gadgets that demonstrate the power of data to transform our day-to-day lives and improve efficiency and more in the world through data, connectivity and mobility. We cannot begin to feature all of the products introduced, but here are some highlights:

Mobility

The unpiloted flight of the Volocopter was exhibited, a German-based helicopter-drone hybrid with Intel inside. The Volocopter made history last summer as the world's first drone taxi, when implemented in Dubai as an “Autonomous Air Taxi”. Powered with the Intel® Flight Control Technology, the Volocopter was announced by Intel to be the “first fully electric, vertical take-off and landing aircraft, designed for passenger transport”. It has been flown over 400 times in Germany and overseas, but limitations on U.S. FAA regulations have so far prevented its implementation here.

Bell Helicopter introduced a concept for how a flying taxi system would work, showing an egg-shaped pod that would hoist riders into the air. The pod has four seats, room for luggage, and large windows. Working with Uber, Bell wants to fly the pods at 150 mph.

In addition to Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm also introduced new products with chip technology that make games play faster, allow for even thinner computers, and speed the way for self-driving cars.

Of primary focus were Nvidia's autonomous car effort and its Xavier chipset, which is ready for testing by manufacturers. The microprocessor packs 9 billion transistors onto a chip in a small package that can power all of a car's self-driving features. Volkswagen has said that it would use Nvidia chips for its self-driving vehicles and Uber disclosed it had been using them in its fleet of autonomous Volvos. Volkswagen and Nvidia announced that their future cars will recognize drivers and respond to their needs, and Volkswagen unveiled a concept car that will have features like an Intelligent Co-Pilot with an in-car virtual assistant powered by Nvidia.

Qualcomm unveiled deals to add more technology to cars from Honda and Land Rover – the 2018 Honda Accord will feature Internet connectivity, navigation and entertainment systems powered by Qualcomm chips; and Land Rover will use Qualcomm chips to offer cellular Internet connectivity in some of its models.

Chinese startup Byton introduced the 'Concept', an electric vehicle meant to replace smartphones, with a 1.25-meter screen that spans across the entire dashboard, controlled by hand gestures and including Alexa's voice recognition technology.

KIA launched a battery-operated hybrid crossover car called Niro EV that comes bundled with tech like Active Pedestrian Warning System (with front-view cameras, front speakers and object recognition technology). The battery is capable of delivering 238 miles, can charge fast, and give 115 miles in thirty minutes.

Toyota introduced a driverless concept vehicle called the “e-Palette” based on their partnership with Pizza Hut that could one day cook and deliver Pizza Hut pies.

CTA Foundation, IBM, and Local Motors partnered with companies to identify technological advancements that could be integrated to improve vehicle accessibility for individuals with visual, hearing, physical and cognitive impairments. #AccessibleOlli can direct anyone, including a passenger who is visually impaired, to empty seats using machine vision to identify open spots and audio cues to direct the passenger.

The Whill Model Ci is a 'personal electric vehicle' that can go ten miles on a single charge and up to 5 mph. Will this be driven on the highway or the sidewalk? Either way, watch out!

Robots And Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Sony introduced the revamped Aibo robot dog, with 22 points of articulation and various motion sensors that allow it to detect and interact with humans and other Aibo dogs. Sit, Aibo.

Aeolus Robotics demonstrated a prototype of their household helper robot, Aeolus. Aeolus can deliver food and drink, pick up clutter, vacuum, locate lost items, and act as a security robot, and you can talk to her using Amazon's Alexa.

Several other robots performing various functions were showcased, including home robots Kuri and CLOi (who failed its live demo), BUDDY, who is a home and family assistant/companion as well as a surveillance monitor robot, and Omron's Forpheus, a robot who plays ping pong (none of these available as yet). Three LG robots were demoed that could replace service industry workers, such as servers at hotels and airport lounges, porters handling check-in and check-out functions at hotels and carrying luggage to rooms, and work at a supermarket telling customers the price of items and guiding them through the aisles.

Sophia, the humanoid robot built by Hanson Robotics, attended. Sophia can not only hold a conversation, turn her head and use facial expressions, but she has legs and can walk. In the future, Sophia may have application in medical therapy, healthcare, factory work, business and education.

Prevent Biometrics displayed Prevent Gen 1.2 Head Impact Monitor System, a monitoring mouthguard that can track if a child has a serious head or neck injury while playing. The app guides you through five evaluation steps that doctors use to determine if the child cannot continue play.

Smart Tech

FolidMate returned to the stage, demonstrating its newly designed robotic concept to fold a full machine load of laundry in less than four minutes.

E-vone displayed their smart shoes, which send an alert if the wearer, such as an older person or worker, falls.

Lishtot demoed their TestDrop Pro, which is a device that measures the quality of water, so you can know if water is safe to drink before tasting it. The TestDrop Pro allows testing of three different types of water with different parameters for each type of test. Tap water, bottled water, and natural water all have different criteria for detecting contamination.

Sony and Samsung demonstrated TVs using new Micro LED technology, which offers better and brighter pictures. Samsung introduced “The Wall”, which lets you configure your TV to whatever size you want, and they displayed a 146-inch version. LG showcased a prototype of a new 'rollable' 65-inch 4k OLED TV, which can be rolled up to hide away when not in use. LG also debuted the first 88-inch 8K OLED TV.

ThirdEye Gen president Nick Cherukuri modeled his company's X1 SmartGlass, a set of augmented reality (AR) glasses. Vuzix Blade™ AR glasses were unveiled, a set of augmented reality glasses that float a computer screen in the upper right corner of your vision, within the eyewear frame. These are the first AR glasses to make use of Amazon's Alexa digital assistant. There were numerous other smart eyewear pieces with AR overlays at the show.

The Nightingale® Sleep System plugs into a nearby wall outlet to mask indoor and outdoor noises, and has customizable sounds and volume with an app.

The Roost Smart Garage Door Sensor was unveiled, which can send notifications to let you know if the door is open or closed.

Viaroom Home is an AI powered multi-hub that connects and syncs smart home products. The device uses a forty-eight-hour setup period to analyze what is happening in your house, and uses AI to learn your habits to automate them, such as knowing when to turn lights on, close the garage door, start the laundry, etc.

Kohler's Numi is the latest and greatest intelligent toilet, which has a heated seat, a foot warmer, a bidet, ambient lighting and music.

Summary

Overall, the smart home will connect virtually all of our appliances and provide Google assistant or Alexa to coordinate our requests. In addition, we will have robots to cater to our needs, work for us, and play with us; and our cars or air taxis will take us where we want to go so we can relax and simply enjoy the ride. Computers with artificial intelligence will open the door to virtual living, where we can simply leave the world and its cares behind and enter a life of augmented reality. We might be interrupted only if our garage door tells us it is open and needs to be shut, or our oven completes our dinner we have programmed it to cook, or we want to watch our magnificently large and highly pixeled TV. Insurance products need to be evaluated to make sure they will be adequate for these new and upcoming products and the additional risks they pose.