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Every January, massive crowds show up in Las Vegas for CES. Since March of 2020, however, there have been many conferences postponed or moved online in attempts to avoid having massive crowds in one location. Despite the technology available to make this work, it radically depreciates the value of a conference. Today, we will briefly discuss the conference’s role in business, how CES 2021 will work, and some of the tech coming out of an all-virtual CES.

Conferences and Their Role In Business

Conferences have an important role to play in business. Not only does it give multiple businesses the opportunity to show off the goods and services they’ve been working on, it also gives their people the opportunity to see what their competitors are doing, network among their industry peers, and to learn about the new innovations that are happening inside their market. For many businesses, they are some of the only opportunities available to gain the exposure they require to keep going. That’s not to mention the workshops and breakout sessions typically given by industry leaders and experts.

CES 2021

As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has made large gatherings rather tricky (and very risky), so many conferences have tried their best to forge ahead virtually. CES 2021, which is one of the largest conferences attended by technology professionals every year, had to move to the Internet. You may think this would be fitting for an expo of innovative technology, but it has come with some logistical challenges.

How do you get 1,800 companies to coordinate online with 150,000 attendees? Streaming video. Companies from all over the world who normally would have a station in Las Vegas, are instead focusing on introducing their products and services virtually. Here are some of the trends of the three-day exhibition.

COVID-19 Technology

Obviously, people are having a hard time getting a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic as infection rates are up across the globe. Not surprisingly, there was a fair share of COVID-related devices. There were smart masks that connect to your phone and monitor your breathing and the quality of air in your immediate area. There were numerous introductions of touchless appliance fixtures using both motion sensor technology and voice recognition. There was a robot designed to use UV-C light to destroy viruses on surfaces, and a wearable air purifier.

Television

TV innovations are always popular with CES attendees and a virtual conference doesn’t change that. One of the most innovative televisions was from LG, which introduced a 55-inch transparent TV that is built into a bed frame. They also introduced a 48-inch bendable display that can curve on demand.

Smartphones

CES 2021 saw two separate companies come out with new rolling displays for smartphones. LG introduced their rollable phone, they are calling LG Rollable as of now, that they plan on launching this year. Chinese company TCL also came out with a rollable phone that extends and contracts the display as you need it. 

5G

Everyone knows that 5G is probably the most important technology for 2021 (besides arguably COVID-19-themed tech), and despite what telecoms have been marketing, the technology is just now starting to be implemented. Companies discussed how 5G will improve the speed of society and provide new options for telemedicine and education. 5G is one of the core technologies needed to build smart cities, which is gaining plenty of traction as the technology gets deployed.

Autonomous Vehicles

Fueled by 5G, one technology that has been emerging for some time, and that had a prominent place in CES 2021 is the driverless car. This is one of those “future” technologies that is very close to happening. There was even an event that explained that the tech is so close that people should start talking about the rules of governing autonomous vehicles.

Despite having to do it over the Internet, CES 2021 went off as planned. It may not be ideal, but it proves that innovation can’t be stymied by a global pandemic. Did you see something interesting from CES 2021? What do you think is the most impressive tech coming out of CES 2021? Comment below and return to our blog for more useful technology content.

It’s not a surprise that most businesses choose tools they can both afford and work for their needs. This typically has more to do with integrations it has with other pieces of software the organization uses. Let’s look at some of the variables that businesses have to consider when determining what productivity software is right for them. 

Cost

For businesses, it’s no secret that cost really matters. Most organizations, when comparing productivity suites, will find little differences between the actual software itself. Sure, one particular word processor is better than another, one spreadsheet program works best with your existing tools, and so on...but as a suite, the cheapest option is probably going to give you the ability to do what you need to do. That said, this software is going to be used for storing (and sharing) presumably sensitive company data. For that reason it has to be a reliable option. 

Compatibility

Your staff has a way of functioning that is different from another set of people. As a result, your productivity software has to be compatible with as many platforms as possible. If you have a team that uses ChromeOS-fueled laptops, but your productivity suite only supports Windows 10, it’s not going to do them any good. Make sure that the apps can be available on most or all of the major computing platforms. 

Mobility

The ability to access files on a mobile device has to be considered essential for today’s business. Today, many of the top productivity suites are available as a cloud-hosted service. This provides much of the mobility that users who access business data on the go would need.

Security

This kind of goes hand-in-hand with reliability, but it’s always important to prioritize security when you are picking software for your business. Two of the most-utilized productivity suites, Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace, come as cloud-hosted solutions. This means that Microsoft and Google, respectively, will host your files and data as well as the software.

Communications

Today, communications that happen over the Internet are extremely important to any business with remote workers. Most of the top productivity suites also come with hosted email and the ability to at least integrate a video conferencing solution. This ensures that your team will have options in which to communicate and collaborate in innovative ways.

Regardless of which appset you choose, you should know that Digital Seattle can help your organization design a computing infrastructure and deploy all the tools your staff needs to keep your company productive. Call our expert technicians at (206) 709-9556.

Securing Your Hardware Solutions

Restricting access to your business’ essential hardware solutions is certainly not a new idea. Even when on-site network and storage infrastructures were the way of doing things, these elements were restricted to employees who needed to work with the equipment—and had the key needed to get in.

Of course, these hardware solutions can be expensive to procure, run, and maintain, particularly for a small business. So, rather than investing the time, space, and energy into supporting these processes, businesses have instead shifted to procuring cloud services. This gives the subscribing organization access to the computing resources required for their needs, while freeing them of the associated responsibilities.

This also helps secure the business’ hardware, as the important stuff is tucked away in a provider’s data center. Since it is stored there, it is under their care and protection… certainly an effective means of restricting access.

The Purpose of IT

Let’s make something clear: information technology was never to be—and should never be—seen as a luxury investment for a business to make, or to simply be procured for the sake of having it. Rather, every new solution brought into your business needs to have an operational benefit.

Therefore, a business should not look to its IT resource to constantly be adding to its solution set, but it should also anticipate that the IT resource will do more than just keep their operations going. Instead, there needs to be a concerted effort by IT to establish how a new technology or approach to the business’ processes would provide some observable, positive results. In this regard, any IT resource that an organization leans on should be considered a consultant: an expert voice providing beneficial feedback and input—not just the reason that the computers work.

Threat Management

The typical processes for a business’ IT threat management have gone through a few iterations. Initially, a lot of these processes were responsive in nature—if a hacker could potentially get in, throw a few restrictions and password requirements into the mix. As time passed and threats developed further, this restrictive approach was amplified.

More recently, this has seen a bit of a shift, although keeping a network secure is still a priority. Nowadays, however, the solutions that are being utilized themselves feature greater security features, with more emphasis placed on educating users to better identify threats. After all, the employees a business hires are going to inherently be one of its bigger security liabilities without some understanding of how they make a company vulnerable.

Clearly, while the available technology we have access to has improved, the practices we’ve developed have needed to in kind. Digital Seattle is here to help you implement the technologies and processes that can make your business operate to its highest efficacy. To learn more about the solutions we can help you put into place, and how to leverage them to their full potential, call (206) 709-9556 today.