Exclusives

Technology experts took a look at what was unveiled at CES and what’s coming up at NAB on March 8, during the Connection Corner webinar “Tech Trends CES to NAB 2024: AI, AR, Automation and Quantum,” hosted by Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH).

Among the top tech trends this year are quantum computing, AI everywhere, and robotics.

The panelists predicted what will be adopted in 2024 and explained what they saw as the key benefits and risks involved with that technology and how we can protect our agency and privacy.

The panel was made up of Suriel Arellano, author, speaker, and executive coach on digital transformation and AI leadership; Jenni Ogden, president and CEO of Eye Q Productions; and Sabina Sokol, co-founder and COO of Girls in Quantum.

They discussed the products they are working on, how they can improve users’ lives, and predicted the impact of the products.

Jeanette DePatie, professional “techsplainer” with Propellerhead Inc. moderated the panel.

“We came up with this panel because I do a fair amount of trend casting both for CES and for NAB,” DePatie said at the start of the webinar. “We saw some very interesting trends come up at CES in a more general sense.”

Arellano coaches C-level executives on how to integrate AI in a way that is ethical and moral, he pointed out.

Ogden has been “working in immersive design and in a variety of formats from 3D mapping” to virtual reality (VR) for 20 years, she said.

During the COVID pandemic, Ogden also started a technology company [that] built … a blockchain-based music metaverse [that is] focusing on volumetric technologies for performance,” she said. That, she noted, “hopefully will be launching soon.”

That is “kind of all over the map but what brings everything together really is the emergence of design and harnessing emerging technologies to tell a story or create experiences,” she added.

And Sokol noted that Quantum is an international, very large organization now that she said is “committed to building the most diverse quantum workforce possible.” Quantum has been “doing that by posting everything from live workshops to posting on social media and to working … with different researchers and institutions all over the world,” she added.

Ogden addressed the category of immersive entertainment, which she noted goes “all the way back to the 50s” and cheap red and blue VR 3D glasses.

One challenge faced by the metaverse is more human nature than anything technical. It is just “a matter of  finding a way for everybody to play nice together,” said Ogden. But “right now, everybody just kind of owns their own thing.”

Also addressed during the webinar was generative AI, which has significantly boosted interest in AI overall.

DePatie closed the webinar by predicting that the “interfaces between these different technologies [are] where I think a lot of the most exciting innovation in the next 10, 20 years is going to happen.”