'Overhyped' at This CES: AI Everywhere, Connected Cars, Virtual Currencies, CableLabs Chief Says

"Overhyped" at the coming CES are artificial intelligence everywhere, connected cars and virtual currencies, but immersive story telling, social virtual reality and machine learning for security excite CableLabs CEO Phil McKinney, he said. "We've been talking about AI for quite some time" with "lots of claims ... but it's just not there" yet, he said in a video on 2018 tech innovation predictions. "We've had the promise of connected cars for decades, and we're still waiting for them." Cryptocurrencies, which he has talked about since 2010, has seen little progress other than the "overhyped" value, McKinney said Wednesday. Of areas where he sees the network as "the common thread," he said movies and games can make it feel "like you're part of the story" and "not sitting back as a voyeur." And "we've been talking about VR now for a number of years," but social uses take it to the "next level," McKinney said. Monitoring networks and learning from attack patterns can avoid breaches and take "security to an entirely new level," he said.