CES 2017: NVIDIA Keynote Live Blog

09:18PM EST - NVIDIA has one of the major keynotes for the CES show

09:18PM EST - Set to start in just over 10 minutes

09:18PM EST - We expect to see Jen-Hsun Huang on stage talking GPU, Automotive

09:19PM EST - Ian on text, Billy on photos

09:23PM EST - While NVIDIA has done CES keynotes for several years now, this is the first year that they are giving the "prime" keynote. The most important and well-attended of the show's keynotes

09:24PM EST - For a number of years Microsoft held this slot. Since then it has shuffled among product manufacturers

09:25PM EST - Venue is filling up - being a main CES Keynote means a couple thousand people

09:26PM EST - What makes the opening/prime keynote so important is that the Consumer Electronics Association likes to set the tone of the overall show with the keynote. So for NVIDIA this is a very big deal; it may be many years where they have another keynote this well attended

09:26PM EST - Some familiar faces in the crowd too

09:27PM EST - In terms of press, that is (GTC fills a larger space, but it's largely developers)

09:27PM EST - 5 minute warning

09:27PM EST - Ryan will be adding commentary

09:33PM EST - Here we go

09:33PM EST - Starting with a 50-years-of-CES video

09:36PM EST - 'The magic of CES is that there's always something that blows your mind'

09:37PM EST - Gary Shapiro, CEO of CES Assoc, to the stage

09:37PM EST - Introducing Jen-Hsun Huang

09:37PM EST - 'Gaming is the largest entertainment business in the world'

09:38PM EST - 'When NVIDIA invented the GPU...'

09:38PM EST - 'NVIDIA is at the forefront of artificial intelligence'

09:39PM EST - JHH to the stage

09:39PM EST - In his usual leather jacket, of course

09:41PM EST - Video showing 'the promise of AI', robots, and future things

09:42PM EST - 'Our imagination opens up amazing new worlds, NVIDIA brings them to life'

09:42PM EST - 'What comes next?'

09:42PM EST - Video over

09:42PM EST - JHH : 'We are going through the most exciting time ever in computing'

09:43PM EST - NVIDIA is dedicated to a model of AI and vision computing

09:43PM EST - 'We dedicate ourselves to tackle the most challenging computing problems in the world'

09:43PM EST - 'We love video games - the highest volume, the most computationally intensive actiont the world has ever known'

09:44PM EST - 'Our technology is also used in the cloud, building AI supercomputers'

09:44PM EST - 'Also, the most exciting: self driving cars and autonomous vehicles'

09:45PM EST - 'Researchers working on deep learning meant the big bang of AI happened'

09:45PM EST - 'It allows software to write software'

09:45PM EST - 'Allows the computer to recognize complex patterns'

09:45PM EST - 'Representing complex patterns from sets of layers of simpler patterns'

09:46PM EST - 'Edges, contours, features, then finally a face'

09:46PM EST - 'It needs to deal with variability'

09:46PM EST - 'Deep learning is the key'

09:46PM EST - 'This foundational technology is difficult - the handicap is the amount of data processing is enormous

09:47PM EST - 'Then the AI researchers met the GPU, and the achievements have been fast and furious'

09:48PM EST - 'A network has to learn context too'

09:49PM EST - 'Reinforcement learning through trial and error meant a network could learn to walk by itself'

09:49PM EST - 'The ability to percieve the world through technology'

09:50PM EST - 'the enabling technology behind all of this is GPU computing'

09:50PM EST - 'Geforce - the #1 gaming platform, 200m geforce gamers, 2x revenue in 5 years'

09:51PM EST - 'Before anyone gets a console, they have a PC'

09:51PM EST - 'Our market moves forward by the content being produced'

09:51PM EST - 'VR is coming'

09:52PM EST - 'Gaming is the worlds largest sporting event - 100M MOBA Gamers, 325M eSports Spectators'

09:52PM EST - 'MOBA is a game of strategy, teamwork, knowledge, hence why it gets so many spectators'

09:53PM EST - 'Streaming is now a $5b industry'

09:53PM EST - Announcing Geforce Expereince connects to Facebook Live

09:54PM EST - Capture a video image/stream direct to Facebook, as well as live broadcast

09:54PM EST - Connect via two clicks to facebook

09:54PM EST - Aaryn Flynn to the stage, general manager for Bioware

09:54PM EST - they're going to show footage of Mass Effect Andromeda

09:55PM EST - 'Mass Effect has a great story'

09:56PM EST - 'The people watching are going to tear down every frame of this upcoming preview'

09:57PM EST - 'Real in-game footage with a GTX1080'

09:57PM EST - Video now

09:58PM EST - Yup, it looks like Mass Effect

09:58PM EST - definitely engine footage

09:58PM EST - shooting flames from the hand

09:58PM EST - guns guns guns

09:59PM EST - (I've only ever played the first Mass Effect at any length, and that was what, a decade ago?)

09:59PM EST - 'Captured in engine, representative of game experience'

09:59PM EST - March 21st release date

10:01PM EST - '1 billion PC users are not game ready'

10:01PM EST - 'no real way of installing a GPU into those PCs'

10:02PM EST - 'if we could put a PC into the cloud, like AWS, then consumers could game easier'

10:02PM EST - e.g. GRID using Pascal

10:02PM EST - 'Launch a game wherever, whenever'

10:02PM EST - 'Any latency ruins the experience'

10:03PM EST - Announcing GeForce Now for PC: Gaming on Demand

10:03PM EST - Turns any of your PCs into your most powerful gaming PC

10:03PM EST - Giving an example, PC laptop and a Mac

10:04PM EST - NVIDIA has been offering streaming for a few years now, both gaming and their virtualized desktop GRID solution

10:04PM EST - Launching Steam on GeForce Now on the PC, takes about 15 sec

10:05PM EST - A few more seconds, and your personal steam account is there

10:05PM EST - Also works on the Mac

10:05PM EST - All the same games from your personal account

10:05PM EST - You can buy a game in the interface, and games are downloaded in a minute

10:06PM EST - Running Rise of the Tomb Raider on the Mac

10:06PM EST - At a reasonable quality too

10:07PM EST - 'Video Games for the other billion users'

10:07PM EST - Available in March for early users

10:07PM EST - The current iteration of GeForce Now served up to NVIDIA's mobile devices is very game-centric. That is to say, you buy the games through the service

10:07PM EST - $25 for 20hrs of play

10:07PM EST - 'A gaming PC on demand'

10:07PM EST - Several grades of performance, the more performance = lower time per $25 credit

10:08PM EST - That they're instead offering a virtual machine on demand that can link into your Steam account is a significant shift in how the service is offered

10:08PM EST - Note, you also have to personally buy the games on Steam

10:08PM EST - I wonder if it counts the time you're not in a game

10:08PM EST - Now Android TV

10:08PM EST - But the lack of Steam integration has always been a friction point with GeForce Now. Customers don't want to buy a game twice

10:08PM EST - 'With a powerful computer connected to a store to running applications, an Android TV Console: NVIDIA Shield'

10:09PM EST - On the other hand, now they need to pay for service by the hour, as opposed to GeForce Now's flat costs

10:09PM EST - 'The performance is always getting richer'

10:09PM EST - Announcing a New Shield, supporting 4K HDR

10:10PM EST - Worlds first entertainment platform to support Netflix and Amazon content in 4K HDR

10:10PM EST - A steam for shield, that connects to your PC, to enjoy 4K gaming on your TV from the PC

10:10PM EST - 1000 games in the NVIDIA shield game store

10:11PM EST - The two most popular consumer electronic platforms are Smart TVs, but the other is the Amazon Echo

10:11PM EST - 'It brings AI into your home'

10:11PM EST - 'We thought, why have two devices when you can have one'

10:11PM EST - 'We worked with Google to create the worlds first TV with Google Assistant'

10:12PM EST - 'Now the TV can be controlled by natural language interaction'

10:12PM EST - Doesn't AppleTV already do that?

10:12PM EST - 'You shouldn't have to lean over to a table to talk to the TV'

10:13PM EST - To be fair, the AppleTV requires a remote to do that. NVIDIA is suggesting an ambient assistant

10:13PM EST - Announcing NVIDIA Spot

10:13PM EST - Plugs directly into the wall

10:13PM EST - because the computing is done on shield, can have them installed over the house

10:13PM EST - far field microphone

10:14PM EST - voice triangulation via beamforming if multiple devices pick you up

10:14PM EST - all goes to one SHIELD over WiFi

10:14PM EST - Now a video for Spot

10:15PM EST - a guy in the video saying 'OK Google' a lot

10:15PM EST - Seriously, this video just shows how 'OK Google' is too many syllables

10:16PM EST - NVIDIA Home AI = Google Assistant + Smart Things + SPOT

10:16PM EST - 'We should build Jarvis for everyone'

10:17PM EST - new SHIELD for $199, pre-order now, available later January

10:17PM EST - SPOT to be released in the coming months

10:17PM EST - Now, AI for transportation

10:18PM EST - $10T transport industry

10:18PM EST - $199 is also where the last-generation Shield Android TV launched

10:18PM EST - 1B cars, 20m taxi rides/day, 1.2T miles from trucks a year, 500k buses in operation

10:19PM EST - 'The amount of waste in the transport industry is huge'

10:19PM EST - >so self driving helps reduce waste

10:20PM EST - JHH is basically saying self-driving cars helps reduce waste

10:21PM EST - 'GPU Deep Learning has made it possible for us to realise the self-driving vision in the next year'

10:21PM EST - 'Perception, Reasoning, Driving, HD Mapping, AI Computing'

10:21PM EST - 'Will deep learning we can percieve the world, rather than just sense it'

10:22PM EST - 'We can teach a car to drive by watching a human driver'

10:23PM EST - 'We can compare perceptions live with knowledge in the cloud to act, and you can keep learning'

10:24PM EST - 'Xavier AI Car Supercomputer: 8-core custom ARM64, 512 core Volta, 30 TOPs DL, 30W'

10:24PM EST - Announced last year

10:24PM EST - Runs Driveworks OS

10:25PM EST - 'Designed for ASIL D Functional Safety'

10:25PM EST - 30 TOPS = 30 tera-operations

10:25PM EST - For more details on Xavier, please see the original September announcement: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10714/nvidia-teases-xavier-a-highperformance-arm-soc

10:26PM EST - SHowing the BB8 autodriving car in video

10:26PM EST - Ryan is having a demo in it later this week

10:26PM EST - 30 TOPS DL is 50% higher than when Xavier was first announced

10:26PM EST - Picking up speed on on-ramp, merging at speed

10:27PM EST - video is cutting to different perception metrics

10:27PM EST - disengage autopilot via a voice command

10:27PM EST - I think Ryan will have fun later this week

10:28PM EST - A self-driving car with the theme song "do something crazy" is certainly an interesting combination...

10:28PM EST - 'These cars should be able to drive from A to B practically anywhere in the world'

10:28PM EST - 'It can determine its confidence level on paths it doesn't know, and hand back control if it doesn't have enough confidence'

10:28PM EST - 'AI should be a co-pilot'

10:29PM EST - Announcing the AI Co-Pilot

10:29PM EST - The car has perception, cameras and speakers. It knows where it is and the state of the driver/passengers

10:29PM EST - 'This car can perceive, and so if it runs all the time, it can either drive you, or look out for you'

10:30PM EST - 'When it doesn't have the confidence to drive, it still has everything working to tell you what it thinks and is completely aware'

10:31PM EST - Showing a cyclist ahead, or a motorcyclist behind changing lanes

10:33PM EST - AI CO-PILOT does face recognition on the driver - it knows who is driving and their demeanour

10:33PM EST - it does head tracking and gaze tracking, so it knows which way you are looking

10:33PM EST - Also lip-reading

10:33PM EST - 'Take me to starbucks' and it can tell

10:34PM EST - 'wouldn't be nice' - so this is still a goal for NVIDIA

10:34PM EST - Lip reading can be 95% accurate based on current research. Human lip reading is about 53%

10:34PM EST - >but then again, smart AI assistants are meant to be 95%+ accurate too

10:35PM EST - 'This is the NVIDIA AI Car Platform'

10:35PM EST - Drive PX, Driveworks OS, Auto-Pilot, Co-Pilot, Mapworks, Cloud HD Map, Cloud AI Assistant, NLU

10:36PM EST - DNN = Deep Neural Net

10:37PM EST - 'A co-pilot that will automatically open the gates on your driveway as you pull into the street'

10:38PM EST - JHH is describing features of the car platform, like Mapworks

10:40PM EST - Announcing partnerships with Zenrin and HERE

10:41PM EST - ZF is now a partner - they're the leading truck and commercial supplier in EU, top 5 worldwide

10:41PM EST - ZF is first to announce a Drive AI to the market

10:42PM EST - Announcing Bosch as adopting the NVIDIA Drive computer

10:43PM EST - Bosch is the largest supplier to the automotive sector

10:43PM EST - Major update on the partnership in March

10:44PM EST - Announcing, Audi and NVIDIA to partner to build next gen AI cars

10:44PM EST - On the road by 2020

10:45PM EST - Audi to the stage, Scott Keogh, President Audi US

10:45PM EST - Audi is a frequent NVIDIA automotive collaborator, so this isn't too surprising

10:46PM EST - 210k Audi cars sold in US last year

10:47PM EST - Within 4 days, a learning car can already navigate obstacles

10:48PM EST - 'We're talking level 4 autonomy by 2020'

10:50PM EST - 'Let's make sure none of our kids ever have to learn to drive'

10:52PM EST - Wrapping up now: GeForce Now, NVIDIA Shield and Spot, Drive AI Car Computer