Natasha de Caiado Castro, our collaborator at CES 2018, tells us about the blackout that surprised the international technology community at the fair and how, in the 21st century, even the greatest advances in world science can collapse if there is no light.
By Natasha de Caiado Castro in Proxxima
Like every year, I came to CES in search of content and disruptive news to help my clients strategically and this year I came back with philosophical and structural questions.
If the world is connecting in macro and micro ecosystems, if I watch the Warriors game sitting on my comfortable and smart couch that reclines and massages, while at break time I have Alexa, Google Home or Bixby ready to drop my popcorn and my friends are on the screen of my super 100-inch modular Samsung TV replaying the best baskets at the angles of my choice among the hundreds of options that Intel has made available or even waiting for a pizza that comes from a driverless Uber that my pet robot receives while watching tv, what happens if the power goes out?
That’s what happened at the fair. A blackout.
3000 “smart” products being launched, booths offering integrated solutions, all using hi-fi and Bluetooth, a very expensive show of lights and sounds and the energy drops for 2 long hours at the Convention Center.
Very interesting case from the point of view of event organizer. The different forms of reaction, the cultural shocks.
I was at Bosch hearing about smart cities, air control, smart parking lots when it got dark. The Germans immediately raised their “flashlight cell phones” and asked no one to move for security reasons.
As soon as they headed for the exits, I went to the Asian company stand to understand the reactions. They were the only exhibitors with independent generator mounting light and were quietly evacuating the stand and rescheduling visits.
I ran to one of the American unicorns and there was only talk of a hacker invasion plot and the information was not uniform. There was no centralized command.
I was imagining a Brazilian company, already creating memes, right?
Once the light has returned, as a strategist and curious I went to the same stands to understand crisis management. Super case of events, analysis of organizational cultures and mainly planning.
But the question I wanted to answer is what are the environmentalists fighting over natural parks going to do with this information? If the power goes out, my smart home is no longer secure, the smart door doesn’t lock or open. If the smart home doesn’t store energy, how long does the heater work? Or if the water and food “self-shopping” system connected to my smart fridge, washing machine that reads washing instruction labels, dryer and newly launched clothes folder doesn’t work, how long does the stock of basic survival that I have at home will last? And if my electric or autonomous car doesn’t recharge I can’t get to the supermarket, right?
Without questioning the security of information or financial cloud.
Energy experts and researchers, will we please negotiate the deadlines? Will we come up with viable solutions before 5G arrives?
And what is the safe automation limit? In different cultures? In Brazil? In the world?
(*) Natasha de Caiado Castro is founding partner and CEO of Wish and collaborator ProXXIma direct from Las Vegas
Read in full: https://www.proxxima.com.br/home/proxxima/noticias/2018/01/12/251842-2.html
