The eyes of the business world turned to Sin City this week for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. It's the technology world's annual smorgasbord of the latest gadgets, doo-dads and gizmos that early adopters hope to get their hands on soon. The companies selling those gizmos just hope the rest of us are shell out too.
This year was no exception, with tech titans eagerly showing off their latest smartwatches and web-connected devices, while blathering about something called 'The Internet of Things' It was a more familiar technology, though, that grabbed some of the attention.
Television makers like LG and others were all there and trumpeting their latest invention: 4K TVs. In addition to having fancy, bendable screens, the next generation of sets reportedly have four times the amount of pixels from the suddenly old-looking flatscreen in your home, a perk the industry is hoping will spruce up sagging sales of conventional sets.
The tech world gathered in Vegas this week to show off their latest fancy devices. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
But that advanced technology may actually be holding these TV's back, the CBC's Aaron Saltzman reported this week, because the rest of the media industry may not be ready.
"Until studios start investing in better hardware for delivering 4K content, until we see more streaming in 4K as well, there's really not any need to invest in a television right now," technology journalist Seamus Bellamy said in the CBC report.
Driverless cars make a splash
Tucked between all the new technology, automakers were also on hand at CES, hoping to show they have plenty of life left and desperate to tout their latest offerings in the world of driverless cars.
GM Canada president Steve Carlisle sat down with the CBC's Amanda Lang this week, eager to discuss his company's latest electric vehicle, as well as some of the other wireless and digital additions the venerable automaker has come up with.
"We're at an inflection point that's going to be really exciting for the consumer," Carlisle said of the industry's latest offerings.
The upside of cheap oil
After several years in the doldrums, the auto sector is acting a lot more optimistic of late. That's partly due to the decline in oil prices, which puts money back into their customers' pockets and makes them more likely to hit the open road.
But they aren't the only winners. Some of Canada's biggest banks crunched some numbers this week that showed there will be some unexpected beneficiaries to cheap oil, even in Canada.
Sure, Alberta's red hot growth is going to cool down and provinces like B.C. and Ontario look poised to reap some benefits of cheaper energy. And oil stocks might be cratering, but manufacturers could be sitting pretty as the cheap loonie makes Canadian-made goods look much cheaper and therefore easier to sell to U.S. customers.
Canadians in every part of the country are going to feel a little richer this year as the money they used to spend on energy is suddenly available for other things.
"What we're seeing in terms of lower oil prices is … essentially a very sizeable tax cut for consumers," Royal Bank economist Paul Ferley told the CBC's Ron Charles this week.
How much? A lot. BMO estimated on Friday that the savings at the gas pump alone could add up to about $1,500 a year for every single Canadian family.
That's a lot of spending cash, no matter how you slice it. The only question is whether it's enough to give the economy enough of a shot in the arm to offset the acute pain being felt in the oil patch.
Rate hikes coming?
But our most-read story this week hints that Canadians may wisely be planning on doing something else entirely with that money: pay down debt.
The CBC's Susan Noakes reported this week that 2015 is expected to be the year we finally see a return to more normal interest rates. After years of cutting rates to effectively zero in an attempt to stimulate borrowing and spending, there's a broad consensus of experts who agree 2015 will be the year we finally see rates creep higher.
It was a continuing theme throughout the week, as we brought you this helpful explainer about how to prepare yourself for higher rates — and this contrarian view that looked at some folks who say the central bank is as far away from raising rates as ever.
Other stuff
Those were some of the biggest stories in the business world this week. Be sure to check back with our website often for more, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter here. In the mean time, here's a day-by-day list of our most read stories every day this week.
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
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