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Source Code at CES: The robots are in charge

Hey there! It's day three of CES. Today we're talking robots, drones, webcams, projectors, dishwashers and more. Most of all, the tech industry is looking inward, trying to figure out how to be better.
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Mike Murphy writes: It's been clear for a while now that the future of technology is less about consumers doing things with their technology and more about their technology doing things for them.
The last few years have been dominated by automakers, aviation companies, roboticists and even tractor manufacturers. Companies are pushing to make the lives of everyday people safer and simpler, and an entire cottage industry has sprung up around this push into autonomy. Companies peddling lidar systems, others that want to bring robots into our homes to do literally anything other than vacuum, and software firms that want to provide the tech stack for autonomous products are now as common at CES as gaming laptops and novelty phone cases.
There has been a bevy of autonomy-focused announcements so far this year, too:
But hold your horses. CES can be an excellent showcase for tech, but it's better to think about it as a window into what may be coming in the future rather than what's here today. (Not to mention, a good planning exercise if you're building stuff in the robot stack.) We are years — perhaps decades — away from general autonomy, and the picking challenges required for Samsung's robots are some of the most difficult hurdles roboticists have been trying to conquer for years. At least our phones can roll themselves away now, though.
Obviously there are more important things in the world right now than CES. (I mean, pick your favorite just from Wednesday, between impeachment, record COVID deaths, new COVID variants' spread and the fear of more riots to come before next week's inauguration.)
Maybe that's why a couple of the most important, affecting moments so far this week at CES came from tech leaders calling on the industry to try a lot harder to make the world better.
There have been a lot of stop-in-your-tracks moments in the past year. Whether it's the pandemic as a whole, the riots at the Capitol, or the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others, these events that made it all-too painfully clear that things need to change. And every corporate leader needs to see those moments as not something to get through and move past, but as a catalyst to be better.
For Raj Hazra, who is senior vice president of corporate strategy and communications at Micron, there has never been a more thrilling time than this golden age of data. In this interview, Hazra describes how "we are now at the doorstep of taking things that we thought were science fiction and making them real, and it's only going to be exponentially faster going forward". Read more from Micron's Raj Hazra.
Speaking of projectors: I'm oddly smitten with the Asus ZenBeam Latte, a portable projector/Bluetooth speaker about the size of the old Google Home. It sounds like a perfect travel gadget/living room accessory/party trick. Much better than making everyone stare at your phone — just throw the latest Shantytok banger on the wall, and you're good to go.
For Raj Hazra, who is senior vice president of corporate strategy and communications at Micron, there has never been a more thrilling time than this golden age of data. In this interview, Hazra describes how "we are now at the doorstep of taking things that we thought were science fiction and making them real, and it's only going to be exponentially faster going forward". Read more from Micron's Raj Hazra.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
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