Whether it’s a doorbell or refrigerator, a TV set or a toothbrush, chances are it will be connected to digital assistants powered by artificial intelligence aiming to anticipate needs or desires.

“I think you’re going to see the year of smart,” said Jack Gold, a technology analyst with J. Gold Associates.

One of the largest trade shows in the world, the January 9-12 CES will attract about 170,000 visitors and 3,900 exhibitors from 150 countries and will showcase innovations in computers, gaming, robotics, vehicle technology, virtual and augmented reality and more.

Gold said gadgets will be increasingly tuned to glean insights about the people using them, with an aim of anticipating what might be desired at any given moment.

“Your device will learn about you and will know your preferences, and it’ll then try to get smarter about how to interact with you,” he said.

As consumer electronics evolve, an overriding theme has become voice-assisted digital assistants being integrated into more devices, said Stephen Baker of the research firm NPD.

“I think you are going to be overwhelmed by smart homes and voice — the voice speakers yelling at you in the convention center and up and down the (Las Vegas) Strip will be overwhelming,” Baker said of CES.

He said gadget makers will infuse more products and services with virtual aides such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana.

“What happened is all the appliance and device guys gave up (on making their own isolated smart home systems) and instead are building an ecosystem in which pretty much everybody’s devices will talk to Google or Amazon, or eventually Siri,” Baker said.

Still, says Gartner analyst Brian Blau, large and small tech firms are locked in battle to be at the heart of smart homes and devices.

“To some degree there is still a war on for the connected home platform,” Blau said.

“Communication standards are being worked out, but the other thing is whose allegiance you will commit your home to — will it be Samsung, LG, Amazon, Google?”

Carolina Milanesi of the consultancy Creative Strategies said major electronics firms like Bosch, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung are looking to showcase how several devices can work together with a connected hub.

“I definitely see the speaker still be key to controlling the connected home,” she said.

– Tesla wannabes –

Bob O’Donnell, analyst and consultant with Technalysis Research, said artificial intelligence also opens the door to “computer vision” used in drones, autonomous cars and robotics which will be showcased at CES.

Major carmakers will be on hand as well as makers of tech platforms for self-driving vehicles such as Intel’s Mobileye and chipmaker Nvidia, along with a dozen exhibitors in the autonomous car “marketplace.”

CES hosts the debut of a $130,000 electric car from Fisker — a relaunched startup led by former BMW designed Henrik Fisker whose previous venture went bankrupt — and one of several challengers to rapidly expanding Tesla.

Although CES ends just days ahead of a major Detroit auto show, O’Donnell said automakers are eager to show their new technology to a wider public.

“It’s a place to make a statement about technologies that will have resonance,” he said.

“And the vast majority of the new innovations in cars are in fact tech things.”

– Empathy factor –

O’Donnell said the success of these new technologies will depend on how well machines can think the way people do.

“We are looking for ways these devices have contextual intelligence,” he said.

This would enable a device or assistant to understand multipart questions and develop responses which are adapted to the individual, O’Donnell said.

“The whole idea of understanding context is a big theme in AI, and we’ll see a lot of effort to improve the empathy of devices,” he said.

O’Donnell said he expects to see “an evolution of the intelligence of those devices,” adding that “AI is going to improve the experience of the device even if it doesn’t change what they are.”

At this year’s show, CES will include zones and marketplaces for sports technology, health and wellness, robotics, smart cities, product design and manufacturing and more, and conference panels on many of these topics.

Keynote speakers include Ford Motor Co. chief executive Jim Hackett, Intel’s Brian Krzanich and Huawei consumer chief Richard Yu.

Conferences on tech policy will include US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Federal Communications Commission chief Ajit Pai and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

Such people would be “central” in their social networks, and thus likelier to spread disease-causing germs from one group to another.

Assuming there is an outbreak, and not enough vaccines for every person in the world, immunising these well-connected individuals would remove social “bridges” by which germs can spread, experts wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The study, which tracked the digital and physical contacts of more than 500 university students, concluded that people who are central in their digital networks are also central in their real-life human networks.

“If you are a hub for your friends in the sense that you have many contacts via phone calls or on Facebook, making you a bridge between diverse communities, chances are high that you are also likely to be a bridge to connect those communities in case of an epidemic, such as influenza,” study co-author Enys Mones of the Technical University of Denmark told AFP.

“By understanding the online contacts, we can find individuals who are such central members of the population and focus targeted counter-measures on them when there are limited resources for vaccination.”

Using computer modelling, the research then calculated that vaccinating these “central” individuals would be “almost as efficient as the most optimal (existing) vaccination strategies”.

It was also cheaper, as digital activity is easy to trace.

The goal of vaccination is to reduce the size of the population at risk of infection. It achieves something called “herd immunity”, whereby unvaccinated people are increasingly unlikely to come into contact with an infectious individual.

The move by Apple responded to an uproar from iPhone users — and a series of lawsuits — after news of the battery problems stoked concerns the company was unfairly nudging consumers to upgrade.

“We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize,” Apple said in a message to customers on its website.

“We’ve always wanted our customers to be able to use their iPhones as long as possible. We’re proud that Apple products are known for their durability, and for holding their value longer than our competitors’ devices.”

Apple said it was reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement from $79 to $29 for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January through December 2018.

The company said it also would issue a software update to make it easier for customers to see if an aging battery is affecting performance.

“As always, our team is working on ways to make the user experience even better, including improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as batteries age,” the statement said.

The controversy erupted last week after Apple acknowledged a feature to “smooth out” spikes in demand for power to prevent iPhone 6 models from shutting down due to the cold or weak batteries.

Rumors had persisted for years at tech news websites devoted to Apple products and among fans of the company’s products that iPhone performance was being intentionally slowed, perhaps to push users to buy newer models.

Apple’s latest statement said that “we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.”

But it noted that “batteries are consumable components that become less effective as they chemically age” and that factors such as heat can affect performance.

Apple said a software update last year “manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown” and that “in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance.”

SoftBank will own 15 percent of Uber’s equity following closing by acquiring shares from early investors, cutting the estimated value of Uber by 30 percent of those shares, according to a source familiar with the terms of the deal.

The new investment is part of an effort by Uber to move past a series of scandals and missteps and reform its board structure as it gears up for a 2019 public share offering.

A source familiar with the deal said SoftBank had reached agreements with investors to achieve its target of a 15 percent share.

The two firms did not provide details of the valuation but the source said the investment was based on Uber’s worth of $48 billion, down from $71 billion earlier this year.

“We look forward to working with the purchasers to close the overall transaction, which we expect to support our technology investments, fuel our growth, and strengthen our corporate governance,” Uber said in an emailed statement.

A separate statement from Rajeev Misra, chief executive of SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, “We are appreciative of the support from Uber’s shareholders in the successful tender offer and look forward to closing the overall investment in January.”

“We have tremendous confidence in Uber’s leadership and employees and are excited to support Uber as it continues to reinvent how people and goods are transported around the world,” he added.

The source said SoftBank’s total investment in Uber will amount to $7.7 billion including a $1 billion infusion announced earlier this year.

– $54 bn ‘blended’ value –

The earlier investment was made at the higher valuation and the share repurchases at a lower value, leaving a “blended” valuation for Uber at $54 billion, according to the source.

The investment is part of the effort by SoftBank to become a major player in the global tech world with a massive $100 billion fund, much of it targeted for Silicon Valley startups.

At Uber, new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi has vowed to fix the company’s work culture and business practices, after taking over earlier this year from ousted founder Travis Kalanick.

Even as Uber has seen unprecedented growth by expanding to dozens of countries, it has been hurt by missteps including allegations of executive misconduct, a toxic work atmosphere and potentially unethical competitive practices.

The SoftBank deal is expected to put an end to litigation among stakeholders and clear the way for new board members, further loosening Kalanick’s grip.

Uber however still faces numerous challenges including rulings from regulators that it unfairly competes with taxi operators, with London authorities having pulled its license.

Uber is also seeking to become a major player in autonomous cars, and has agreed to buy and adapt vehicles from Volvo to begin operating self-driving taxis. But it faces a trail from former Google car unit Waymo alleging Uber executives stole trade secrets.

The ridesharing group’s website says it has operations in 616 cities in 77 countries and some 16,000 employees. In most cases Uber drivers are treated as independent contractors.

The global bitcoin craze has attracted almost everyone, from mom-and-pop traders to giant investment banks.

Promoters of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tout them as being safe and secure, and without oversight from financial regulators.

But there is some concern that these very advantages could be exploited by terrorists to transfer funds from one place to another.

Financial intelligence experts from the region say this is already happening, with several suspicious financial transactions detected recently.

Some of these experts gathered in Malaysia last month for the Third Counter-Terrorism Financing Summit. The security experts from 35 countries unanimously agreed that the first step to disrupting militant operations is by cutting off their funds.

A new alliance between Australia and South-east Asia has also been formed to directly target and disrupt the funding lifeline of terrorist groups by denying them access to the international financial system and other sources of funds.

Sources told The Straits Times that the high degree of anonymity offered by digital currencies makes them a possible preferred avenue for militants in South-east Asia.

“The number might not be big but we know it’s picking up. Their ultimate goal is to make sure that these funds get where they’re supposed to be,” said one source.

“Small or big, it can help move any terrorism planning to the next level – launching attacks.”

While the surge in the value of bitcoins and similar cryptocurrencies has garnered widespread media attention, security experts say the terrorists use digital currency not to make money, but for ease of moving funds between borders without the regular banking scrutiny.

For operational reasons, officials declined to reveal the locations and frequency of such transactions. But the identity of some of these financial movements on the Web has been determined, said a second source.

“Special equipment and database are already in place to help analyse these patterns. Identity is key to uncovering terrorism activities. We can monitor and trace the origin of the fund but to know who’s behind it is very tricky,” he said.

“We have all these equipment in place, but it’s still very hard to ‘crawl’ in the dark Web market,” the source added.

Malaysian criminologist P. Sundramoorthy said the consequences of militants or sympathisers switching to the use of cryptocurrency would be devastating as terror groups could be expected to execute attacks after receiving the funds.

“Given that cryptocurrency offers a high degree of anonymity and is popular and user-friendly, measures to control it must be put in place as soon as possible. They will always find a way to exploit such channels. We can’t eliminate the use but we need to limit it.”

Still, some experts say the issue might have been played up.

In a recent study by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), the British intelligence think-tank suggested that there is little link between cryptocurrency and terrorism. It said the claims that bitcoin is funding terrorism are greatly exaggerated.

Mr David Carlisle, an independent consultant with Rusi, said in a March 2 commentary: “Treating cryptocurrencies as an exceptional threat creates the misleading impression that more conventional financial products are not already equally, or more, vulnerable to terrorist exploitation.”

A regional security source acknowledged that most militants are indeed still channelling funds via conventional banking and money remittance services.

Still, it has been noticed that digitial currency has also been used as a means of transfer.

“We still see most of them funding their operations by taking personal loans, selling their belongings and so on. But to say the possibility of these militants turning to the dark Web is little or unlikely, that’s dangerous as we’re already seeing suspicious movements which we believe are terrorism fundings,” he said. “They will always try to find new ways to exploit technology to materialise their sick agenda.”

The danger of terrorist financing can be gleaned by the capture of Marawi in the southern Philippines by militants that ended in October after a five-month siege.

The Associated Press reported last month that Philippine military chief Eduardo Ano said at least US$1.5 million (S$2 million) was sent by terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to finance militants planning the Marawi attack.

As Malaysia begins to impose controls over the growing use of digital currencies, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), its central bank, has required that conversions of cryptocurrencies into cash must be reported under the strict transactions under anti-money laundering laws.

Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed said: “BNM has announced measures that would regulate the use of cryptocurrencies in Malaysia, especially the conversion of cryptocurrencies into cash and other equivalents. This measure will help the police and other enforcement agencies to manage terrorism financing.”

Artificial intelligence will operate more like humans, while human drivers will be less needed for the level 4 autonomous driving next year, a report by LG Economic Research Institute forecast Wednesday.

The institute cited AI and level 4 autonomous driving technologies among the top 10 major technologies that will prevail the information communications technology industry next year under the four biggest trends: hyper-intelligence, hyper-automation, hyper-connection, and hyper-convergence.

Deep learning-based AI technologies will overcome existing technological difficulties and evolve more like a human brain that can learn things proactively. Appliance of brain science will also be more importance as AI develops.

Experiments on autonomous driving that will minimize operations by human drivers will be conducted next year, opening the level 4 self-driving era, the report said. Level 4 means the second highest autonomy with the vehicle being able to handle most normal driving tasks. Level 5 autonomy means the car can drive entirely on its own.

The report said that the current level of self-driving technologies will be elevated along with the upcoming fifth-generation telecom network, and efforts to improve efficiency in the auto driving sector will be made.

Social robots and drones are likely to be used more widely, becoming more like users’ companions in everyday life, the report said.

Manufacturing businesses will start to apply smart technologies to their factories, enhancing productivity of the traditional manufacturing industry.

The other technologies the institute mentioned were edge computing needed for Internet of Things, quantum computing, blockchain, virtual reality and augmented reality, and digital healthcare.

“Global big 5 ICT companies that are Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, will face a fiercer competition as they penetrate into each other’s businesses as those technologies become more sophisticated next year,” the report said.

“Other than Silicon Valley, new innovation clusters will be formed in many parts of the world, and new forces from there will have to intensely fight for hegemony of the ICT industry against the current leaders,” it added.

They also contributed to the economy by bringing direct investment from overseas venture capitalists and investors.

One of the most prominent start-ups who played a key role to help increase efficiency in the real estate industry is the Builk One Group. The company has provided software, big data analytic, e-commerce platform, and communication platform to all stakeholders in all construction and real estate industry supply chains.

Patai Padungtin, founder and chief executive officer of Builk One Group, said that the group’s mission is to help reduce risk while increasing efficiency in the industry. A start-up contributes to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by increasing the efficiency of the real sector industry (in each vertical industry) through digital transformation, he said.

“In real estate, Builk has helped increase industry efficiency by 5 per cent of total construction value (via Builk’s business platform) of Bt30 billion. It is my role since start-ups come to solve existing [industry] problems,” said Patai.

Builk provides free software to small contractors and small construction material shops to help them with digital transformation. Currently, there are 25,000 companies using software and there are over 1 million purchase orders recorded via Builk’s software that are turned into big data assets for the company to offer big data analytic service to manufacturers and brands.

Builk also provides the intelligent e-commerce platform called Yellow, which connects contractors, suppliers, and manufacturers. The intelligent platform will help match transactions between small contractors and suppliers; and large contractors and manufacturers by sourcing the best price for them. Currently, there are 5 million real-time product prices on Builk’s platform. This year’s total e-commerce revenue was Bt220 million, increasing from Bt70 million in 2016. It aims to reach Bt1 billion in 2018.

“The beauty is it is a win-win situation for all because Builk plays the role as an intermediary, providing them benefit, offering them free software and offering the best price for products [they order via e-commerce]. We connect manufacturers and supplier to contractors. We play a role as a virtual wholeseller for them to help bring online-to-offline (O2O) e-commerce in the construction industry,” said Patai.

One of its main focus is to help transform traditional construction material shops into digital businesses by offering free software and getting them into the e-commerce network as a distribution channel. This year it has encouraged 40 shops and next year it will have 160 shops in 77 provinces nationwide. He said there are 6,000 shops in the market.

Moreover, Builk has helped 300 large contractors achieve digital transformation for years by offering enterprise resource planing (ERP) software. For real estate companies, Builk also offers customer relationship management (CRM) communication platform. Currently, it provides for 15,000 condo units at three real estate properties. Next year, it plans to offer 50,000 units from more developers.

He said the role of a start-up is to help drive Thailand 4.0 in the real sector, in each vertical sector to undergo digital transformation. Thai start-ups can play an important role in helping a lot of SMEs transform their traditional business and help them to increase efficiency and competitive capability. Well-established start-ups also help the country by hiring more workers.

Meanwhile, Krating Poonpol, manager of 500 TukTuks, one of |the most active venture capitalists in Thailand, said that start-ups are the new economic engine for the country.

This year, the role of start-ups in Thailand is to play a role in generating employment. It estimates that start-ups can help 100,000 people earn through both direct and indirect employment.

500 TukTuks invested in 46 start-ups, and 47 per cent of them are growing and have fund-raising in bigger rounds. Start-ups under 500 TukTuks’ portfolio have together created 1,000 direct jobs and |created almost 10,000 jobs for people in Thailand. For example, Skootar has 3,000 messengers, Claim Di Bike has 3,000 messengers, Seekster has 1,000 house-mades, Pomelo employs 300 staff, Fastwork has 1,000 freelancers, and Ookbee has 100,000 writers.

Meanwhile, it expects that in the next 10 years, Southeast Asia can create many tech start-ups with company value of US$100 |billion (Bt3.27 trillion). If there |is one Thai start-up worth $100 billion it can help increase the country’s GDP immediately.

Sompoat Chansomboon, director of Business Innovation & dtac Accelerate, one of the most impactful start-up accelerators in Thailand, said that this year the prominent start-up ecosystem would see collaboration between start-ups and large corporates. The role of a start-up is to help corporates do innovation as part of corporates’ digital transformation journey. For example, SCG and Giztix and Finnomena and fund houses.

Apart from collaboration with corporates, the other prominent role of start-ups is to draw direct investment from overseas to inject into Thai-based start-ups totalling $87 million, excluding non-disclose-value deals. The government has budgeted Bt20 billion into the local start-up ecosystem. Meanwhile, dtac Accelerate itself has enabled 34 start-ups and together have raised $3.5 billion, drawing oveseas direct investment of over $10 million. This has helped create 10,000 jobs for Thais.

Vachara Aemavat, president of Thailand Tech Startup Association, said that Thai start-ups in the past year had played a prominent role in helping create jobs, careers and business in many real sectors such as real estate, finance and banking, logistics, and healthcare. The role of the association is to connect the real sector and commercial associations with start-ups as well as to connect start-ups among themselves to increase their capability.

“The association did a survey of 240 start-ups in Thailand and found that 25 per cent of them had received fund raising, while 50 per cent of start-ups had success in seed fund raising. It is rare for them to achieve series-A fund-raising,” said Vachara.

He said, one strategy to help start-ups grow is to match them with corporates and the association will play a key role in matching them.

No matter your industry, you have the opportunity to use your energy, enthusiasm and confidence to create a competitive and, perhaps, wildly successful company.

As a long-time serial entrepreneur, before coming to Oracle to work with startups and SMBs, I experienced the excitement and satisfaction of creating a thriving enterprise from an idea. I’ve also come to recognize that this process is a marathon, not a sprint. Just as when you run a marathon, you will experience different stages along the route, and each of them represents a different challenge for you as a leader.

Perhaps the most daunting, and difficult to recognize, is the early shift from startup to SMB. It’s a stage where some of the leadership characteristics that were great assets at first have become liabilities. Making the transition may mean shifting your leadership style, of course without sacrificing your ideals and brand, or even assuming a different role while bringing on others who can provide long-term leadership for the company.

A new business is held together by the optimism and involvement of the founder. When all you have is an idea, maybe a working prototype, even a customer or two, and you’re still working to find the right market fit, you’re a startup. At that stage, it’s the enthusiasm of leadership and the power of the idea that binds everyone together and keeps them forging ahead. Founders also wears many hats, and tend to be directly involved in almost every aspect of day-to-day operations.

There will come a point, though, when you have gotten large enough that it’s no longer possible to operate that way. When you go from a couple of customers you know personally to a customer base big enough to track in the cloud, or when you have a scalable business, you’ve moved into the ranks of the SMB.

That’s often when that boundless optimism and desire to manage every aspect of the business personally can become liabilities for the founder and the company. Now, the company needs to establish formal processes and procedures. It needs to manage a growing workforce that may well include remote offices and even mobile employees. There’s far too much going on for the founders to be part of every decision and every piece of the operation.

While you should never shed your optimism, this is the time to develop a bit of humility to balance the raw enthusiasm of the startup phase. Leaders also need to recognize the company’s vulnerabilities before they get too large to overcome, and be willing to make some difficult decisions. The things you do at the transition to SMB will have consequences two years from now, when the company has become an enterprise.

Technology can help you make that transition, and maintain an optimistic and effective culture. Because you can’t communicate with everyone face-to-face all the time, use online channels to keep the lines of communication working across the organization and from the top down. Video conference meetings that let remote employees see and be seen can help keep everyone working together.

Using the cloud to help analyze data and gain insights can be extremely important at this stage, too. Having information at your fingertips via the cloud will let you evaluate markets, opportunities and decisions with greater confidence. You can be a lot more enthusiastic about your SMB when you’re able to make decisions based on solid, data-based insights.

Most important, this transition is the time when leaders need to recognize their own blind spots. It’s the rare individual indeed that can make the successful transition from startup founder to the CEO of a public company. The skills required are entirely different. Start now to add people to your leadership team who are smarter than you are, people who have more experience and have been through these kinds of transitions before.

That may not be easy to do; it can be hard to back away from being the decision maker for everything. But driving down decision making in the organization, trusting your people to get things done, and trusting your extended leadership team to support you, is what will enable your SMB to thrive. Making the right decisions, using the right technology, and being honest about your limitations, will help ensure you have a culture and a company that can survive for the long haul.

LG Display’s plan to build an organic light-emitting diode plant in China was conditionally approved by the South Korean government after a five-month-long review, giving the green light to the firm amid growing demand for OLED TVs in the global market.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Tuesday it approved LG Display’s OLED plant for televisions in Guangzhou, considering its positive ramifications, including market expansion and job creation at LG Display’s partner companies.

The approval, however, was made on the condition that the display maker increase the use of Korean firms’ materials and equipment; its future investments should be made in Korea; and security should be strengthened to minimize technology and manpower leakage.

LG Display welcomed the decision, saying, “With respect to the delayed approval, we will work hard to provide products in a timely way to clients by shortening the schedule.”

In July, LG Display announced its plan to build a plant for generation 8.5 of its OLED panels for televisions in China in response to growing demand for OLED TVs in the global market. The Korean display maker is currently the sole producer of large OLED panels for televisions globally.

At the end of July, the display firm asked for approval from the Korean government to build a plant in China. A company should obtain permission from the government before building a plant overseas to produce one of the nation’s designated key technologies in order to prevent leaks and protect key industries.

The government belatedly gave the green light to the firm, as it had been unsure whether it was appropriate to build plants in China. Some Korean conglomerates have faced operational setbacks due to political issues.