Lighting

Last month was chock-full of highly salient events in rapid succession. First came CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Then it was NAIAS, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. And the DVN Workshop held just days ago at Munich capped off the month. Here we bring you capsule summaries of all three of these events.

CES

For decades, the Consumer Electronics Show was all about what you’d expect to see at a show thusly named: stereo systems, television sets, audiovisual equipment, computers, and related…consumer electronics! But as the electronics content of vehicles has smashed free of the previous boundaries confining them to unseen functions like powertrain management, as cars have become computers (and living rooms) on wheels, as the electronics world and the automotive world merge and converge at an accelerating pace, and the auto industry’s Silicon Valley diaspora grows big and strong, automotive technology has come to be a substantial, important chunk of CES. In response, this year for the first time DVN went there to document vehicle-related products and services on display. With an estimated 200,000 attendees, all involved in some manner with the consumer electronics industry—the show’s off limits to the general public—it’s the largest of the many trade shows held every year in the sprawling exhibition centres amidst the garish gambler’s paradise that is the Las Vegas strip.