The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest.
It's one of the most anticipated weeks of the year...
Several members of the Stansberry Research team spent the past week in Las Vegas for the International Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") – the world's largest annual technology event.
CES and events like it are where Stansberry Venture Technology editor Dave Lashmet has uncovered some of the most lucrative tech recommendations in our firm's history.
And this year's event certainly lived up to the hype... It featured more than 4,400 exhibits showcasing new technologies, including artificial intelligence ("AI"), advanced robotics, self-driving cars, next-generation 5G wireless networks, and much, much more.
The event officially kicked off Tuesday...
During the day, Dave and Stansberry Innovations Report editor Christian Olsen tried out the latest gadgets... They also met with countless industry experts, research scientists, and executives in search of the next blockbuster innovations in technology. Dave tells us he's already found several promising ideas. He shared one in a private e-mail this week...
LG has a roll-up OLED screen as a 65" 4K TV. Every major tech news outlet is covering it. The big idea is, your TV can roll away... Imagine – no more moving the furniture or arguing where it goes. The TV doesn't even need a wall...
Alas, LG is planning a huge price point – probably north of $5,000, or about 10 times what you have to pay for a smaller 4K screen today. But if this takes off and the number of units sold begins to spike, the price point will come down...
Now, this is a pretty cool story...
As Dave noted, prices should eventually come down enough that we'll all have these roll-up televisions in our homes. But he believes there's an even more important story here that few outside of the industry understand today...
Everyone is covering this story... But here's the breakthrough everyone missed: Virtual reality is finally possible – because of LG's bendable OLED screen.
Let me explain... Your eye is a ball. Sounds simple, I know. But it means that as you look to the right or left, your lens moves in an arc. With a flat screen, getting the lenses to make the edges of the screen as close to you as the middle was impossible.
(Well, it's possible, but it's expensive and heavy when made with glass – or it's cheap and not very persuasive in plastic.) Put simply, it's not "reality." In fact, no current system can give you wrap-around vision on a head-mounted system.
Instead, you'd need an entirely curved view screen lit up by a projector – like a flight training simulator (aka $100,000).
But now, if you can curve the screen – and make it with organic light-emitting diodes – you can curve a small screen. In this case, with LG's new material, the optics become trivial – you just need a magnifying glass (albeit, a curved one).
Why is this important?
Because all the other hardware necessary for a completely immersive virtual reality experience already exists. All that has been missing has been a cheap and effective way to view it.
Now, it's here... And Dave believes this breakthrough will open up a revolutionary advance in virtual reality in the near future...
Here at CES, Wall Street analysts yawn when LG rolls out an expensive home screen format... because it will never scale. But it's not the TV that matters. It's that LG has proven it can build a highly bendable, full-color screen.
Globally, there are more than 500 million video gamers. All of them want a fully immersive game experience. LG just showed it off. It's worth a fortune. But nobody else is covering this. That's why we came to CES.
On Wednesday, their "boots on the ground" research continued...
After the second day of the event wrapped up, Christian wrote to us with some insights. In particular, he's excited about the development of "smart robots," which he believes is one of the next big tech investment opportunities. Here's Christian...
We're at the beginning of a long run which will be a revolution for the manufacturing sector. And one day soon, it could end up causing laborers to disappear from the factory floor altogether.
You see, robots can sustain repetitive motion at speeds greater than humans. We already know this, and manufacturers use robots today as cars roll off the production line. Using robots made a huge difference because it extended what a labor force could do. The robots already relieved them of some labor, which meant increased productivity. Instead of doing a task with his own hands, a worker shepherds a task next to a robot and lets the robot do the brunt of the work.
As Christian explained, smart robots are the next logical step...
And it could change the workforce as we know it. More from his e-mail...
Smart robots will make human laborers unnecessary. They can "see" with sensors... With the addition of artificial intelligence ("AI"), they can "learn" and begin to "reason." And when one smart robot learns, they all learn. That's the "smart" part.
Think about what happens when you don't need a factory staff of 3,000 workers at an auto plant. Now, extend that out across the entire sector. Salaries, labor unions, pensions, paid time off... You won't necessarily need all of those things.
Considering that just five years ago, the U.S. manufacturing sector employed 12 million workers – or nearly 9% of U.S. employees – this could have massive implications going forward. More from Christian...
At CES, I saw a Japanese robotics company whose smart robot learned how to play ping pong against a person in real time. It saw what the player did – what his habits were, and how he would respond to a side shot. Then, the smart robot took the information and beat him. It could see... move... and learn.
I talked to one of the company's salesmen. He said everything we saw is double what it was last year... Significantly better perception and faster learning. The trick the company is using is that all of the AI happens on location with the robot. In other words, data doesn't need to stream to the cloud since all of the learning happens on the circuit board next to the smart robot.
Of course, it's not about playing ping pong... It's about jobs disappearing as the robots work perfectly 24/7.
For the first time ever, we sent a full film crew along with Dave and Christian to Las Vegas...
The cameras followed every move the pair made as they searched for the biggest opportunities to pass along to their subscribers – from the demonstrations we told you about earlier, to their meeting with folks from the "connected car" industry, to their testing of virtual reality headsets and flying drones, and much more.
Over the next few weeks, Dave and Christian will compile their notes, observations, and videos from CES. They'll schedule follow-up calls and in-person meetings, and complete extensive research to figure out which companies you should put money to work in now.
After that, they plan to publish a special CES "Super Tech Portfolio" – a collection of strong buys and companies to watch. You're unlikely to see some of these recommendations anywhere else. To make sure you don't miss out on this opportunity, we've put together a special offer...
Right now, you can get a lifetime subscription to Stansberry Innovations Report, a four-month subscription to Stansberry Venture Technology, and immediate access to the CES Super Tech Portfolio as soon as it's revealed... all at a massive discount to the usual costs of each of these services. It's by far the single best deal we've ever offered on our full suite of technology research. Get all the details here.
Regards,
Justin Brill
Editor's note: A team of Stansberry Research analysts just returned from the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In their quest to find the latest blockbuster innovations in the tech world, the team met with myriad experts, scientists, and company executives. For a limited time, you can catch all of the trip's highlights – and learn how to claim a special offer for their premium research – by clicking here.