Features

Gearing up for CES 2017

By   |  

CES has been the event for the launch of major entertainment technology innovations such as the VCR, CD players, HDTV, satellite radio and OLED TV. So, it made some waves when Fiat Chrysler recently picked the 50th anniversary CES over the Detroit auto show to reveal a new vehicle.

group of people using VR headsets

But, as Dell Technologies research shows, for businesses to play a part in the next industrial revolution, they must transform digitally. Our customer Jaguar Land Rover recently gave insight into how they’re doing that when they unveiled a concept electric vehicle using virtual reality.

“Powering the VR experience for the press were 66 Dell Precision workstations, each with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs onboard. In addition, Dell Precision workstations were also used during the design and development phase of the I-Pace Concept, and will likely continue to be used as the vehicle makes its transition to production form,” Hot Hardware reported.

Technology analyst Rob Enderle said the event was an amazing experience and it even led him to sign up to buy one. He added: “Dell, HTC, and Jaguar are changing not only how you buy cars but how you design, build, and buy them.”

But concept cars and virtual reality aren’t the only things to watch at this year’s CES which takes place January 5-8, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

We have a concept of our own that PCMag recently noted we’ve been working on since 2014 that will be ready for its debut there. Attendees of the Adobe MAX conference got a sneak peek and TechRadar noted this product and our partner Microsoft’s Surface Studio “are leaning hard into design and production, which could make them direct competitors to Apple.” They added:

“Recent pushes to cut down the size of the recently launched MacBook Pro have actually made it less appealing to some creatives, which is ironic given Apple’s reputation for making computers better suited for art than PCs.”

We’ve got a few other announcements in the works and honors in the CES Innovation Awards program that I can’t reveal yet. But, we have announced that our new Alienware 17 gaming laptop was named an honoree and there will be more. It’s the world’s first intelligent notebook with Tobii Eye Tracking which capitalizes on eye tracking’s unique ability to identify and anticipate a user’s actions based on their presence and attention. I’ve been amazed by Tobii’s technology since our Dell OEM team began working with them several years ago.

“This 17-inch laptop might be our favorite new addition to the Nvidia Pascal-powered gaming notebook family,” TechRadar said in their early look at “the first portable rig designed specifically to unleash the true potential of Nvidia’s new 10 series GPUs”

During #CES2017 we’re taking over the Yardbird Southern Table & Bar space in The Venetian (map) for our #DellExperience. If you’re unable to be in Vegas this year, you can still see what’s happening by following Dell on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat (be sure to swipe for our filter if you’re near us in Vegas).

Until then, enjoy the holidays!

About the Author: Laura Pevehouse

Laura Pevehouse was profiled as one of five “social media mavens” in the March 2009 issue of Austin Woman Magazine and named an AdWeek’s TweetFreak Five to Follow. She has been part of the Dell organization for more than 15 years in various corporate communications, employee communications, public relations, community affairs, marketing, branding, social media and online communication roles. From 2014-2018, Laura was Chief Blogger/Editor-in-Chief for Direct2DellEMC and Direct2Dell, Dell’s official corporate blog that she help launch in 2007. She is now a member of the Dell Technologies Chairman Communications team. Earlier in her Dell career she focused on Global Commercial Channels and US Small and Medium Business public relations as part of the Global Communications team. Prior to that, she was responsible for global strategy in social media and community management, as well as marcom landing pages, as a member of Dell’s Global SMB Marketing, Brand and Creative team. When she was part of Dell’s Global Online group, Laura provided internal consulting that integrated online and social media opportunities with a focus on Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. She managed the home page of Dell.com, one of the top 500 global web sites in Alexa traffic rank, and first brought web feeds and podcasts to the ecommerce site. In her spare time she led Dell into the metaverse with the creation of Dell Island in the virtual world Second Life. Laura has earned the designation of Accredited Business Communicator from the International Association of Business Communicators, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Louisiana State University. Before joining Dell Financial Services in 2000, she worked at the Texas Workforce Commission and PepsiCo Food Systems Worldwide.