Can you believe 2016 is almost here? With a new year comes emerging and improved tech trends just waiting to be utilized and reviewed. It’s no surprise then that the forecasters are already eagerly predicting the hottest tech trends of 2016. Among the heap of realized 2015 trends, we saw a surge in the use of social media, streaming services grew by leaps and bounds, more of us were online shopping, the mobile search ruled the roost, and the bigger the phone and the thinner the TV, the happier we seemed. Find out our picks of the litter for the hottest tech trends of 2016 while you plan your New Year’s Eve party.
Check out the hottest tech trends for 2016!
Upcoming Tech Trends for 2016
Wider Use of Contactless Mobile Payments
In 2015 people started putting their trust in mobile forms of payment. With far more credit cards being compromised, a mobile form of payment offers the promise of a secure transaction. When consumer pays using an NFC-device (Near Field Communication), the tokenization function creates a unique code (token) which is sent from the device to a merchant’s NFC-enabled register. No credit card number is transferred in the process. Just traditional information for the transaction is transmitted should the transaction be revealed. The token is good for a single transaction much to the chagrin of devious fraudsters. With convenience of an easy swipe purchases are quick and virtually foolproof. As businesses update their old terminals with this new technology, expect consumers to use services like Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, LG Pay and more for their payment needs.
Smarter Artificial Intelligence
I can’t help but recall a scene from the British sitcom IT Crowd in which the firm’s head/founder is tricked into believing a voice-activation system has been installed on his computer. He desperately shouts “Hello” at the computer screen with no response, much to the delight of the audience (google “it crowd hello”). How many times have you found yourself in a similar situation with AI companions like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Amazon’s Alexa. Probably more than you’d care to admit! Artificial intelligence is becoming much more powerful and 2016 will see great advancements in this field when it comes to technology. Heck, look how Google Translate has improved since it’s inception in 2010! You can now open an app on your phone, take a picture of a foreign language and it will translate the word or symbol to your language of choice. Before you know it, we will be shouting directions at our autonomous smart cars just like an annoying backseat driver. In 2016 expect more reliable virtual assistants on your phone, your wrist, in your home and more.
Advancement in Battery Life
With the advent of smaller, longer-lasting and durable battery technology, we saw the rise of historical ground-breaking technologies like personal computers, gaming systems, mobile phones, electric cars, etc. While battery technology has become better over the years, there’s still something to be desired. Who hasn’t complained about the battery life of this or that gadget? 2016 tech trends include the promise of a renaissance in the power revolution. Expect the rise of battery technologies like solid-state, silicon-anode, lithium sulphur, sodium ion, lithium capacitor, magnesium, foam, flexible batteries, batteries that than can harness electricity from a person’s skin, over the air charging, and more.
The Rise of 4K Screens
Your current high-definition 1080p TV set can display 1920 pixels in width and 1080 pixels in height. A 4k screen can yield 4 times as many pixels, meaning a whopping a horizontal resolution of 4000 pixels. Woah, Nelly! This technology has already been adapted to computer monitors, but expect to see more of it in our phones in 2016. YouTube and Vimeo have already introduced 4k support for streaming video so you can expect more 4k content will be hitting all our screens as well. Woot!
Do you see yourself getting on board with these hottest tech trends of 2016? Tell us what you think about these trends on Facebook and Twitter. Happy New Year!
NetWise Information Technology Consulting 