One might discover from which area the new product ideas will be coming from by going to the Del Mar Electronic and Manufacturing show. It has exhibits of manufacturers of electronic and mechanical products and parts and also two days of seminars.
The seminars are relevant to the current interests of participants. Several years ago it was GPS, later touch screen displays. Last 2 years there was a lot of seminars on 3D printers. This year - 2017 - the presentations were dominated by new advances in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things). IBM's speaker explained how their supercomputer Watson can analyze data to discover patterns and meaning. One can try Watson free and then subscribe on the monthly bases. And as you probably know from the news the Google AlphaGo Artificial Intelligence program defeated the best professional human Go player. The machine came up with new surprising moves not known to the players before. It learned by playing several thousands times against different versions of itself.
TE presented various methods of wireless charging and sensing in consumer IoT applications. The company was interested in new product ideas.
Fanuc showed video of the robots that can sense the person near by and automatically slow down to facilitate cooperation of robots and humans.