CES Awards, Smart Cities, and More: 4 Tech News Trends

by Joe Murphy and Riley Bowman · Published January 25, 2023 · Updated January 24, 2023

A look at the technology industry news from PR Newswire in November and December that you might have missed.

(Note: This is an edited version of a blog post originally published on prnewswire.com. Read the original for more.)

First off, Happy New Year! (Is it still early enough in the year to say that?) We hope your 2022 ended well and your 2023 is off to a great start.

Things at the wire slowed down a bit at the very end of 2022, allowing us to catch our breath a little after another busy year. Nonetheless, we still managed to send almost 9,800 business technology releases in November and December. The busiest stretch was Nov. 15-17, when we sent out more than 1,300 tech releases in a three-day span.

Among the most-viewed tech releases in the last two months of 2022 were:

As you may recall, back in early November we looked at 4 business technology news trends from September and October: smart homes, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse. Those topics are still seeing some momentum, especially the metaverse/Web3. But rather than rehash those, we wanted to focus this installment on new trends we’re seeing.

Jump to one of the new trends: Fitness Tech | CES Innovation Awards | Smart Cities | Robotics

Tech News Trends for November and December

Let’s dive into the four trends we tracked across nearly 10,000 tech-related press releases in the last months of 2022.

Fitness Tech

November and December have long been considered a struggle for fitness, as people tend to exchange fitness routines for “fitness whole cookie in my mouth.” Still, that hasn’t dissuaded fitness companies from doing their due diligence.

PR Newswire issued 413 fitness-related releases in November and December. Breaking down those releases a bit further revealed a couple of specific trends related to tech:

Smartwatches/Wearables

The smartwatch/wearables market continues to become more and more saturated with high-quality fitness products that do more than just track your steps and heart rate. According to a report from Grand View Research, Inc., the global wearable technology market size is expected to reach USD 186.14 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 14.9% over the forecast period.

Here are a few of the releases we saw:

On Nov. 8, Garmin unveiled its Instinct Crossover smartwatch with features including Sleep Score and Advanced Sleep Monitoring.
On Nov. 15, iTOUCH Wearables announced a multi-year partnership with Health and Wellness Expert Jillian Michaels to develop exclusive wearables that will be available for purchase this year.
On Nov. 16, Zepp Health’s Amazfit brand launched a fitness challenge in partnership with adidas Runtastic that required participants to track and share three hours of accumulative workout data to either the adidas Running or adidas Training app between November 22 and December 5, 2022.

Workouts

Whether you’re looking to burn some calories at home or want the accountability of a public space, companies such as Peloton, Planet Fitness, Wodify, and Shimmy had something to offer consumers in November and December through their new tech initiatives and partnerships.

On Nov. 7, Peloton and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation announced the launch of a special adaptive fitness collaboration designed for wheelchair users living with a spinal cord injury (SCI) or other causes of paralysis.
Planet Fitness released two separate tech initiatives in November. First, it announced a collaboration with Amazon Halo on Nov. 7. Then, at the end of November, it unveiled its redesigned app as part of its “bricks with clicks” digital strategy.
At the beginning of December, Wodify debuted Wodify Retain, which uses an algorithm to predict which clients are likely to cancel their gym membership and creates an “at risk” list for gym owners.
Also in early December, non-profit Shimmy released a free iPhone app designed as a workout advent calendar. The initiative drew the support of philanthropists Jessica Alba and Chris Paul.

CES® Innovation Awards

November also had the release of the CES 2023 Innovation Awards — a prelude to CES 2023, held Jan. 5-8 in Las Vegas. The awards program consists of 28 product categories, from “accessibility” to “wearable technologies.” Companies were either recognized with an “Honoree” or “Best of Innovation” award.

This year’s CES Innovation Awards program received a record-high number of submissions — more than 2,100.

PR Newswire issued 18 CES Innovation Award releases on Nov. 16 and 17 alone. Among the big winners were:

Three of Abbott’s industry-leading tech advancements won CES 2023 Innovation Awards, all within the Digital Health award category.
Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group announced that it won nine awards for its next-generation technologies in green energy and mobility.
John Deere was named a CES 2023 Innovation Awards Best of Innovation honoree in the Robotics category, and an honoree in the Vehicle Tech & Advanced Mobility category for its fully autonomous tractor.
LG earned more than two dozen CES 2023 Innovation Awards, including three coveted Best of Innovation Awards for LG OLED in the computer peripherals, gaming, and video display categories.
OtterBox was a CES 2023 Innovation Awards Honoree for the new MagSafe 3-in-1 Charger.

Many of the honorees will showcase their product(s) in the Innovation Awards Showcase at CES, located in the Venetian Expo. A full list of the honorees can be found here.

CES® is a registered trademark of Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®.

Smart Cities

Similar to the trend of smart home products from the previous two months, smart cities were trending throughout November and December. Using a combination of artificial intelligence, 5G, the internet of things, and advanced data analytics, smart cities are becoming a reality.

Where smart home products make cleaning, cooking, and securing your home easier, smart cities can improve traffic, waste collection, and infrastructure.

Between November 1 and December 31, 2022, PR Newswire distributed 64 releases mentioning smart cities, which is equal to the previous two-month period.

Here are some more examples from November and December:

Robotics

Advancements in robotics are continuing to make our lives easier and safer. Whether it be in logistics and warehouses, autonomous vehicles, on construction sites, or general-purpose robots, news about robotics was front and center on the wire in November and December.

During November and December, PR Newswire distributed 263 releases mentioning robotics. This is a slight decrease compared to the 298 releases from the previous two months.

One of the most interesting and futuristic comes from Sanctuary Cognitive Systems, which received a $30 million investment from the Government of Canada. Sanctuary is working on a general-purpose robot with human-like intelligence through AI. These robots would address labor challenges by keeping people out of harm’s way by performing dangerous tasks usually done by humans.

Here are a few more notable robotics releases:

Takeaways

Even with the holiday slowdown, the tech industry did not take a break. From consumer products like the Garmin Instinct Crossover and the many who received CES 2023 Innovation awards, to the large-scale robotics and smart city projects going on around the world, the wire was alive with tech content.

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CES Awards, Smart Cities, and More: 4 Tech News Trends

A look at the technology industry news from PR Newswire in November and December that you might have missed.