The US consumer electronics industry reached approximately 228 billion dollars by the close of 2017. Globally, it’s predicted to reach 2.9 trillion by 2020. With this type of growth, the future of precision lenses is bright.
In the past few years, the population of middle-class people has increased. Among the urban consumer is a growing preference for usage of electronic devices for daily activities. This is one of the factors that is driving the market for more consumer-based electronics.
Increasingly disposable income and soaring internet penetration are allowing more consumers to use electronic devices across many platforms. These factors will influence the market growth over the next several years.
In January of 2018, the Consumer Electronics Show hosted their 51st Annual Convention. There were plenty of new gadgets, smart phone devices, self-driving cars, and wearables spotlighted. Many of the major players in the cell-phone industry were showing the possibilities of their new devices, but this year, there were some new technologies and gadgets introduced that didn’t make the headlines.
Here’s just a few things that were showcased:
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (virtual reality) meets instant messaging. Augmented reality is the technology behind devices such as Samsung’s Gear VR or Sony’s PlayStation VR. A start-up company, AiFi created Holo Messenger showcasing AI and computer vision technology which the company plans to adapt for consumer-facing solutions. This lets users turn themselves into a hologram to an AR message. To get a clear picture of what the intention is, think R2-D2 when he projected Princess Leia’s plea for help in Star Wars.
Connected Telescope
Unistellar, a French startup showcased their Enhanced Vision telescope. The consumer telescope uses a low-light sensor to gather light through a series of short exposures. The company indicated that the user will be able to see nebulae, distant planets, and objects that are too faint to be seen clearly through telescopes designed for home use.
Scrabble Playing Robot
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is a Taiwan-based high-tech research organization that will let visitors play Scrabble with a robot. The robot, running on ITRI’s Intelligent Vision System, will even pour coffee for its human opponent.
The vision system inside the Scrabble playing robot is designed to let robots and other machines interpret the visual world around it, act on the data, and then learn from the same experience.
The demonstration included the robot being able to distinguish between the different tiles, words, and locations on the board. It also showed how the robot could tell how full or empty the coffee cups were. The robot demonstrated the ability to interact with the Scrabble tiles and coffee cups without crashing into other objects or spilling the coffee.
Without the design of a precision lens for each of these new technologies, they wouldn’t function properly. At Universe Optics, we engineer and manufacture precision lenses for new technologies that are on the market. We work side-by-side with your developers and designers to ensure that your creation delivers the intended results. We believe that the future of precision lenses is bright, and technology is just scratching the surface.