As we prepare to ring in the New Year, we begin to think of the future and what new
technologies and knowledge it might bring. Will it bring hover boards or robot butlers? Will we ever get past touch screens and invent Star Wars-esque holograms? Or will 2013 bring us some new and exciting technologies we have never dreamed of before?
Here are our top five predictions for the future:
- Cars Won’t Hover…but They’ll Drive Themselves. Design Mind Creative Director Katie Dill recites the prediction that “in 2017, Google’s self-driving car will be available for everyone.” While a self-driving car may sound wild, many vehicles can already parallel park without the help of their driver, and with cameras and sensors blind spots and other dangers are becoming things of the past.
- Apps for Healthy Living. With apps and new technologies like the FitBit tracking our movements and sleeping patterns, people will be more motivated to get active. The more technology takes us outside our homes and cuts ties with cords, the more people will get into the sunlight, track their exercise and meal plans and compare them to their online community.
- Goodbye Credit Cards, Hello M-commerce. That’s right, mobilized payments; Inc.com predicts that smart phones will displace credit cards “the way plastic once toppled cash.” Entrepreneurs are creating apps and networks like Square, the credit card reader for mobile devices and Dwolla an online and mobile digital-cash network that could undercut payroll processes with one MassPay feature.
- Blue Skies No More, Cloud Coverage Ahead. The cloud will grow and grow and grow. More and more people are participating in cloud technology. We will begin using it to sync data over devices, manage content and keep our personal preferences consistent on every device we use. Public, private and hybrid clouds will become more useful and more widely used while the use of virtual private network methods will decline.
- Objects and Machines will Communicate.The internet of things will expand. A term Forbes describes as “a set of technologies that will connect the real and digital worlds by embedding sensors in everyday objects and establishing real-time communications between objects and machines,” sounds more realistic than ever. With the expansion of mobile technology and sensors, technologies that can learn, and the multitude of apps available will be large contributors to this futuristic trend.
We can’t possibly predict all the new year will hold and we know there are some life-changing technologies that haven’t been revealed to consumers yet and are sure to blow our minds. So for now we’ll just sit back, relax, and keep waiting for either our predictions to come true or for that robot butler to freshen our drinks, one of them has to happen eventually, right?