Yahoo: Top 10 tech predictions for 2018
Yahoo recently announced the 2017 Year in Review (YIR) for India. YIR is a look at the top newsmakers and happenings which caught the interest of Internet users in India, and were trending in 2017. Over the last decade, YIR has chronicled the all-consuming passions and shifting preferences of India’s exploding Internet audience.
This year has been a roller coaster ride in terms of technological advancements. But it is likely that 2018 will surpass it in innovations. Here’s a glimpse of what the next year may offer to the users in terms of tech marvels and what is likely to be trending in 2018.
1. Next Generation iPhone
Apple celebrated ten years of iPhone by launching iPhone X. It’s a super-premium and certainly expensive device. However, Apple has confirmed that this phone lays the foundation for next 10 years of the iPhone series and we expect that the 2018 version of it will take a lot from iPhone X.
We are not sure what the next generation iPhone will be called, but we believe that they will move back to aluminium from stainless steel to bring the price down, while retaining the features of iPhone X.
2. Samsung Galaxy S9 & S9+
The South Korean giant doesn’t stop and it hasn’t been long since the launch of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ that we have started discussing Samsung’s future plans. The Samsung Galaxy S9 is believed to come in two sizes and will stick to the same Infinity Display. With the debut of Samsung’s dual camera on the Note 8, you can expect zoom skills coming to the S9 too.
Rumours are a little calm right now, but there’s already gossips that it will be running Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and we’d be expect it to launch around April 2018.
3. Samsung Galaxy Note 9
Samsung recently started selling Note 8, and they are already planning on Note 9. The development team has confirmed that they have moved straight into planning the next Note model, including working on improving signature features, like the S Pen.
So there’s no exact details, but we hope Samsung will announce the device with improved S Pen in August next year.
4. Block chain and distributed trust systems
The technology behind the disrupting currency Bitcoin has been buzzing around and going by the current trends, this chain based technology is going to be commercialized in 2018. Gartner mentions that if organisations need to excel in the technology and explore it further, they would need a trusted architecture and necessary capabilities and implementation skills. This technology is definitely going to transform industries like financial services.
5. 5G
The amount of data necessitated by the Internet of Things will push data to the edge, it will also force mobile providers to move faster than ever — toward 5G. The level of hyper-connectivity expected by users today leaves little to no room to remain stagnant on the technological advancement, but don’t get too excited. Don’t expect to be using 5G technology anytime soon as the technology is believed to be polished in 2018. This year we are seeing Gigabit LTE (the stepping stone between current LTE and 5G) making leaps with devices from Samsung and Sony leading the way. Today much of the Gigabit LTE movement is being powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon technology, but others will certainly seek to become involved in this rapid growth market for mobile.
6. Artificial Intelligence to go mainstream
“Yeah, yeah, I know — artificial intelligence”. That’s likely a response you’ll get when talking about AI in 2018. With everyone from toddlers to grown-ups using Alexa, Siri, and customer service chat bots, it’s no wonder AI may soon begin to feel like old news—at least to mainstream users. From business point of view, be it customer service, data analysis and marketing, AI is leading in a lot of fields. Companies will keep on utilizing AI to amaze, link, and interface with their clients in ways they may not even recognize. Convenient automation of everything from emails and content generation to industrial manufacturing is on the way. Every software companies has introduced AI in their systems. This is a sign of what is to come.
7. Tesla Model 3 and Increased Mileage per charge
The Model 3 with improved battery is supposed to be Tesla’s first mass centric car and will be priced at about $35,000 and will have a range of more than 200 miles per charge, Musk said in March when he revealed the car.
Tesla plans to begin production of the Model 3 in late 2017, with deliveries beginning in 2018.
8. Tesla Solar Roof
The solar roofs portrays Elon Musk’s efforts to redefine solar panels by seamlessly infusing them with the ordinary roof tiles. You can place order for the roofs, but production would sufficiently increase for customer installations to begin in earnest by 2018. At least, we hope for.
9. 8K TV
8K redefines TVs not only in terms picture clarity but it also expands the purview of big TVs. It’s got fourfold the picture clarity than 4K with 7680×4320 display resolution. For a better understating, pixels on a 65-inch 8K screen will be so small that you won’t be able to make out the pixel structure. However, this resolution is significant on large screens only, so you can expect 150 inch TVs in near future.
10. Virtual Reality
2018 will likely mark another important step towards Virtual reality. Facebook recently announced standalone VR, Oculus Go, gave a small insight of what developers and consumers are going to get.
Un-tethering VR headsets is a huge advancement for Facebook and when it’s launched sometime in 2018 as it will make VR much more attractive to consumers. But it’s just the first step to VR that’s advanced enough to wow consumers.
For gaming, we think untethered headsets need to be able to be multi-player, ideally with up to four players. Gaming by yourself is fine, but experiencing a virtual world with your friends would take the experience to the next level.
Facebook is also trying to make VR a social experience with users entering the same virtual world without being in the same room, which will take a platform to manage lakhs of users with high-speed bandwidth. If VR companies can make VR social it could open up a world of possibilities for the technology.
