As the end of the year is just days away, it’s time to look towards the future and mull over the next big thing in technology. The same as the year before, 2017 would bring its own issues and solutions, shaping the way people think and use technology.
THE RAPID GROWTH OF TECHNOLOGY
Information and communication technology has grown in leaps and bounds in the past decade. Nevertheless, experts claim that 2017 would bring more changes than history could boast of.
THE TRENDS THAT IS SET TO GROW IN 2017
1. Virtual Reality. With forecasts that predict the VR growth into a $30 billion market by 2020, a lot has been said regarding the bright future of virtual reality. While it remained on the verge of mainstream culture all throughout most of the year 2015, finally things started to pick up over the last twelve months. Furthermore, it seems that this time around virtual reality could legitimately reach the masses by 2017. Virtual reality has come a long way ever since Google thrust it closer to popular culture with the Cardboard release in 2014, both in terms of availability and performance. In just a window of one years, several leading manufacturers launched their headsets, pushing the technology steadily towards mainstream adoption. While Oculus, a Facebook-owned system kicked off the relay with the Oculus Rift release in late March, HTC followed quickly with the launch of the Vive headset in April. Samsung in august dropped the revamped Gear VR headset, together with the now-discontinued Galaxy Note 7, keeping the momentum going until the long-awaited PlayStation VR companion from Sony was delivered. Closing the cycle, Google unveiled its pimped up Cardboard successor Daydream View in November. Aside from that, Nintendo, Microsoft and Qualcomm have expressed ambition to pursue the development of the VR hardware. However, the timelines and details remain hazy. With the great volume of headset manufacturers as well as content creators, it is not surprising that VR finally is starting to catch the attention of consumers and mainstream media and this trend will definitely grow even further in 2017.
2. Autonomous driving. Although it would have been a frightful sight a few years back, chances are that there would be more vehicle without drivers next year. As technology continues evolving, industry giants are slowly venturing towards autonomous vehicles. As a matter of fact, the competition in the self-driving market is growing at exponential rates and the good results are not falling behind. Since introducing the ‘Autopilot’ back in 2015, Tesla has steadily been touching up the autonomous capabilities of its vehicles, demonstrating the huge potential that self-driving technologies hold for the future. The car maker plans to cram more self-driving hardware into its future models with the hopes of facilitating rides that are entirely hands-free. Google too has been running trials with its own autonomous vehicles in Austin, Mountain View, Kirkland and Phoenix. While some driving sessions have been less successful compared to others, its cars in the meantime have clocked over two million miles. Uber, the ride-sharing giant is also on the action, recently acquiring self-driving hardware developer Otto and since has successfully put its first fleet of self-driving trucks on the road. And while it was not the first one to do it, the company also ran several real world self-driving tests with cabs in Pittsburgh. Aside from that, BMW and Apple are also said to be planning their first forays towards self-driving technologies in the future.
3. Augmented reality. Augmented reality is also making progress and the amazing success of Pokemon Go proves that the technology has huge potential to influence consumers in meaningful and engaging ways. In line with business analysts, Tim Cook, the Apple CEO has voiced his belief consistently that augmented reality has the potential to become bigger than virtual reality and it seems that the iPhone maker is hell-bent on having a piece of the action. In 2015, Cupertino acquired AR developer Metaio. However, although the company since has kept quiet on its AR initiatives, some reports started surfacing on the web over the last year. In early November, Apple as rumored to be working on their own augmented reality glasses in the Google Glass style. At about the same time, news outlets speculated that the company is preparing an iOS update that would brush up iPhone 7 with enhanced camera capabilities as well as introduce a heap of AR features.
4. Drone deliveries. Once a viral publicity stunt, drone delivery may finally be a thing next year. Amazon, Google and Domino’s all have been messing around with the technology in the past year, doing a series of field tests in different locations, such as the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the meantime, UPS and Walmart have been gearing as well to start delivering packets over their air for a while now. However, it still remains to be seen which company will manage to take the technology to a big scale. In any case, drones dropping pizzas no longer seems such an outlandish idea.
5. More interactive and functional homes. Homes may get more interactive and functional in 2017. Following the less than anticipated Amazon Echo success earlier this year, Google unveiled its own Google Home smart speaker to rival the e-Commerce giant. Rumors suggest that Samsung and Apple could be considering. Taking into consideration that Google and Amazon both leverage their respective Alexa and Assistant artificial intelligence system for powering smart speakers, the speculation does not seem far off. Recently, Apple opened up Siri to third party applications and the next logical step is to integrate it into other devices. Also, Samsung has been developing its own voice-assistant services with plans of integrating it into future home appliances as well as wearables.
The year 2017 will definitely be a year where more technology trends would emerge.
THE RAPID GROWTH OF TECHNOLOGY
Information and communication technology has grown in leaps and bounds in the past decade. Nevertheless, experts claim that 2017 would bring more changes than history could boast of.
THE TRENDS THAT IS SET TO GROW IN 2017
1. Virtual Reality. With forecasts that predict the VR growth into a $30 billion market by 2020, a lot has been said regarding the bright future of virtual reality. While it remained on the verge of mainstream culture all throughout most of the year 2015, finally things started to pick up over the last twelve months. Furthermore, it seems that this time around virtual reality could legitimately reach the masses by 2017. Virtual reality has come a long way ever since Google thrust it closer to popular culture with the Cardboard release in 2014, both in terms of availability and performance. In just a window of one years, several leading manufacturers launched their headsets, pushing the technology steadily towards mainstream adoption. While Oculus, a Facebook-owned system kicked off the relay with the Oculus Rift release in late March, HTC followed quickly with the launch of the Vive headset in April. Samsung in august dropped the revamped Gear VR headset, together with the now-discontinued Galaxy Note 7, keeping the momentum going until the long-awaited PlayStation VR companion from Sony was delivered. Closing the cycle, Google unveiled its pimped up Cardboard successor Daydream View in November. Aside from that, Nintendo, Microsoft and Qualcomm have expressed ambition to pursue the development of the VR hardware. However, the timelines and details remain hazy. With the great volume of headset manufacturers as well as content creators, it is not surprising that VR finally is starting to catch the attention of consumers and mainstream media and this trend will definitely grow even further in 2017.
2. Autonomous driving. Although it would have been a frightful sight a few years back, chances are that there would be more vehicle without drivers next year. As technology continues evolving, industry giants are slowly venturing towards autonomous vehicles. As a matter of fact, the competition in the self-driving market is growing at exponential rates and the good results are not falling behind. Since introducing the ‘Autopilot’ back in 2015, Tesla has steadily been touching up the autonomous capabilities of its vehicles, demonstrating the huge potential that self-driving technologies hold for the future. The car maker plans to cram more self-driving hardware into its future models with the hopes of facilitating rides that are entirely hands-free. Google too has been running trials with its own autonomous vehicles in Austin, Mountain View, Kirkland and Phoenix. While some driving sessions have been less successful compared to others, its cars in the meantime have clocked over two million miles. Uber, the ride-sharing giant is also on the action, recently acquiring self-driving hardware developer Otto and since has successfully put its first fleet of self-driving trucks on the road. And while it was not the first one to do it, the company also ran several real world self-driving tests with cabs in Pittsburgh. Aside from that, BMW and Apple are also said to be planning their first forays towards self-driving technologies in the future.
3. Augmented reality. Augmented reality is also making progress and the amazing success of Pokemon Go proves that the technology has huge potential to influence consumers in meaningful and engaging ways. In line with business analysts, Tim Cook, the Apple CEO has voiced his belief consistently that augmented reality has the potential to become bigger than virtual reality and it seems that the iPhone maker is hell-bent on having a piece of the action. In 2015, Cupertino acquired AR developer Metaio. However, although the company since has kept quiet on its AR initiatives, some reports started surfacing on the web over the last year. In early November, Apple as rumored to be working on their own augmented reality glasses in the Google Glass style. At about the same time, news outlets speculated that the company is preparing an iOS update that would brush up iPhone 7 with enhanced camera capabilities as well as introduce a heap of AR features.
4. Drone deliveries. Once a viral publicity stunt, drone delivery may finally be a thing next year. Amazon, Google and Domino’s all have been messing around with the technology in the past year, doing a series of field tests in different locations, such as the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the meantime, UPS and Walmart have been gearing as well to start delivering packets over their air for a while now. However, it still remains to be seen which company will manage to take the technology to a big scale. In any case, drones dropping pizzas no longer seems such an outlandish idea.
5. More interactive and functional homes. Homes may get more interactive and functional in 2017. Following the less than anticipated Amazon Echo success earlier this year, Google unveiled its own Google Home smart speaker to rival the e-Commerce giant. Rumors suggest that Samsung and Apple could be considering. Taking into consideration that Google and Amazon both leverage their respective Alexa and Assistant artificial intelligence system for powering smart speakers, the speculation does not seem far off. Recently, Apple opened up Siri to third party applications and the next logical step is to integrate it into other devices. Also, Samsung has been developing its own voice-assistant services with plans of integrating it into future home appliances as well as wearables.
The year 2017 will definitely be a year where more technology trends would emerge.
No comments:
Post a Comment