News Getting Connected
News Getting Connected IFA 2015 is all about networking – people, and the world As the world enters a phase of “getting Smart” the industry concerts at IFA to plot a course for the short-term and long-term future. In this exclusive interview, we asked IFA Executive Director Jens Heithecker how trends are developing. TV manufacturers are still experiencing huge challenges in the markets, as the ever increasing competition is challenging their profits. However, as we will see again at IFA this year, the TV sector is still key in the consumer electronics industry, because the TV is still the main display for almost every consumer. On the other hand, this year’s big theme is “connected devices” - rather than just the “smart home”. For this, we are seeing many new devices and software solutions, and this is the market all the manufacturers are targeting. So it’s more like a “smart world”? It’s a connected world, and we have to be careful when talking about smart, IoT, and all these things. For the consumer, “smart” means automatic solutions for some of his needs. The connected world means the consumer can transfer images or music to any device anywhere, anytime. And IoT is a backbone for the smart and connected consumer world. In that respect, Tecwatch is an interesting aspect of the show – a kind of harbinger of the future… What can we look forward to here? Tecwatch is an integral factor in the success of IFA. The international participation is rising in this as well. It is a section of the show dedicated to researchers, engineers and developers, to the young companies – even start-ups. There are more companies (…) the current business is on the show floor, the next stage of technology is in Tecwatch, and the future trends from the visionaries and thought-leaders are at the IFA+ Summit. participating, and at the same time we feel there is more interest from the trade visitors’ as well. With the IFA+ Summit in its second year it seems to be coming along well. What will be the highlights? The summit aims to look at where technology is going in the future. As we all know, trade visitors come to the show to do business for the next season. Tecwatch looks three to five years of the current product range. The summit looks ten to twenty years ahead - at what the next big things will be in the market – for which we can already see the first products and developments today. So that’s the range we do: the current business is on the show floor, the next stage of technology is in Tecwatch, and the future trends from the visionaries and thought-leaders are at the IFA+ Summit. That was already the case in the late 1920’s, when Einstein gave his speech at the show talking about how radio would bring the world together. Even then, the show was plotting the course for the future. Yes, it’s always been the case. Einstein is a very good, clear example, because he expressed these ideas in his speech. You can still see the speech and if you have time to hear it all you will be impressed by what he saw - what power and what impact electronic media would have. But we have many more of these milestones in our history. One of these, that didn’t make a big noise at the time, but which had a huge impact, was the first ever presentation of MP3 technology at IFA in the mid-90s. It was invented by Fraunhofer, one of our long-term partners in the Tecwatch area. Most of the people then didn’t realise how MP3 Jens Heithecker IFA Executive Director would revolutionise the entertainment and world and the media industry! Indeed, a lot is revealed in the international keynotes every year as well. It’s very interesting that Microsoft – an IT company – is under the spotlight this year… It’s true that when we talk about Microsoft, we tend only to think about Windows 10 or other new software. But what’s more interesting is what impact Windows 10 will have in the world of devices made by their partners. That’s the reason we will have here on the stage from Microsoft the head of their OEM business. But we have other keynotes that will be absolutely fascinating, such as the opening keynote by LG Display President and CEO, Sang-Beom Han. We all talk about the connected or smart world and I am very happy that the opening keynote will focus on display technology. It’s the core of everything, because without a display, a smartphone is not smart. There are some fascinating new developments in this technology that I am really curious to hear about from this visionary speaker. www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Monday 31 st August 2015 7
