Devices get smarter, friendlier at CES present

Dubbed AirTouch, BMW’s conceptual system operates entertainment, navigation and communication features using hand gestures only.

Its media-shy CEO Reed Hastings will deliver the opening keynote of CES 2016 about Netflix‘s expansion into a global giant by the end of 2016. We look forward to launching the future Glasses-Free 3D Revolution together with you!

No matter what your interest, the CES 2016 will have something to catch and keep your attention. Everyone understands that the technology will be powerful and significant, but most households still can not afford the real deal.

Mysterious Tesla (TSLA) competitor Faraday Future is launching its first concept vehicle at CES. CES 2016 kicks off next week in Las Vegas, and InformationWeek will be on-site to see which trends are in the spotlight.

At CES 2016, the Eureka Park Marketplace, presented by the National Science Foundation and Techstars, will be located at CES Tech West, on Level 1 of the Sands Convention Center, and features the latest innovations from 500 startup companies from 29 countries, with more than 50 percent of exhibitors coming from outside the U.S. New countries represented in Eureka Park in 2016 include Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, and UAE. Rumors have Ford Motor Company (F) teaming up with Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) to announce a joint venture on a self-driving auto.

Autonomous vehicles have come a long way, with Google’s self-driving cars already roaming the roads of Silicon Valley and Volvo’s autonomous vehicle making its way in downtown Atlanta, the industry has made plenty of progress in this sector.

And often times, what’s there gives a pretty good indication of what’s going to generate the most excitement in the industry for the rest of the year.

Sony is set to follow with its own press conference on Tuesday when we should get more details of the PlayStation VR – the add-on headset for its bestselling console. Numerous companies, including HTC, Microsoft and Sony, will begin marketing a new generation of virtual and augmented reality headsets in 2016 – and people at the convention will be among the first to test them.

Finally, the smart home continues to be a big thing. It is now expected that drones will fly higher in 2016. That means new LG and Samsung TVs will serve as smart home hubs, serving up notifications from your connected appliances, providing control of lightbulbs, connected speakers and more. And it won’t just be the devices themselves on display, we’ll also get a better sense of the jockeying going on in the background to be the central hub of these smart devices, with competing standards like Apple’s HomeKit, Google’s Weave, LG’s SmartThinQ and the Samsung/Google/Nest collaboration called Thread. We haven’t had a chance to put that on our heads yet, so we hope to have a chance to see how it stacks up during the show. The sad reality is that CES is offering up a huge variety of newly intrusive devices, and today’s IOT marvel could be tomorrow’s data breach.