You are digitalized! This statement is self-sufficient to prove itself. With every coming year, new overwhelming technologies are born. Technological advancements are innovating and digitalizing every aspect of your life. 2018 is considered a prosperous year for new technological revelations. Here we will give you an overview of some mind-blowing technologies and innovations that you will see emerging in 2018.

1. Touchless interface – The rise of Digital Assistants

The user interface is the most significant thing while experiencing a tech gadget. Touch interfaces have seen a very rapid boost in the past 10 years. Several fascinating features were merged into touch interfaces like gesture recognition. But 2018 is going to wipe out these traditional experiences, and digital assistants will take over your smart gadgets. Previously, Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant have given an intuition on how they would likely change the user experience. In the future, your digital assistants will shop for you and even attend meetings on your behalf. You can also imagine picking up a bottle of juice and ordering Alexa to order it for you, and it will be at your doorstep–welcoming you to the world of smart homes and machine learning!

 2. 5G Technology

5G is the hot topic since last year as the tech giants are already testing it. A download speed of 150 Mbps with 4G and 300Mbps with 4G LTE already seems astonishing but 5G is not a matter of Mega Bytes! 5G will boost your internet speed up to 1-10Gbps. It will pack inside 20Gbps peak download rate, 10Gbps peak upload rate, 30bps/Hz peak spectral efficiency downlink, 15bps/Hz peak spectral efficiency uplink, 100Mbps user experienced download rate, 50Mbps user experienced upload rate, and latency will be next to nil. Tech giants will be investing billions in 5G in 2018. It is expected that 5G will be commercially launched in 2020 and South Asian countries will be crowned for its initial launch. Kudos to 5G because downloading a full HD movie will become a matter of a few seconds.

3. Apple’s first Augmented Reality (AR) Headset

Apple always maintains its class by keeping its products unique from other tech giants. Maybe the autonomous car project diverted Apple’s attention to keep AR in its major interests. Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said, “We expect Apple to generate preliminary results for AR in the next 1-2 years at the earliest and working with iPhone may be the first step.” Apple CEO, Tim Cook, is confident that AR will be more popular than VR. The operating system for AR headsets is dubbed as rOS, reality Operating System. Apple is of the view that this technology will float in late 2018 or early 2019. While Oculus, Samsung, Sony, and Google are busy with advancing their VR sets, Apple’s move to launch AR sets will be a feather in its cap.

4. Noise-cancelling headphones

Google has already introduced real-time translation in its Pixel Buds. 2018’s earphones will feature noise-cancellation feature. So your headphones will learn that which voices have to be passed to the ear and which ones are to be rejected. This is again another achievement in machine learning that will give users a soothing and hustle-free sound experience. Bjorn, from Ericson, says that maybe wearing a headphone while sleeping blocks the noise of snorting of your partner. Sweet dreams!

5. IoT becomes BIoT (blockchain IoT)

The blockchain is a P2P distributed technology that keeps a record of transactions, contracts, sales, etc. Blockchain was launched to support cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but now, it has embedded its roots into the tech world with the realization of BIoT. It coupled with IoT will make the sensors more powerful. Blockchain will keep the digital record making computers safe, eliminating the risk of hacking. Dan Harple, CEO of Context Labs said,

With blockchain we see an ability to track the connections between people, places, and things, allowing all of them to come together within blockchain, almost like a spinal column.

A combination of blockchain and IoT will take smart controlling to another level in 2018. Collecting data from sensors will be as simple as accessing a website from your computer. Connected energy systems will incorporate BIoT to enhance energy harvesting. While BIoT supported traffic signals will manage the traffic efficiently.

6. Facial Recognition: The Ultimate ID

The launch of iPhone X was one of the mind-blowing innovations of 2017. Apple triggered the idea of face recognition in iPhone X for unlocking the device rather than conventional touch ID. According to Apple’s commentator Ming-Chi Kuo, all iPhones/ iPads launched in 2018 will have Face ID. He writes,

TrueDepth camera could create many innovative applications, Face ID being the most important of them. If Face ID is well received by consumers after the launch of iPhone X, we believe it is more likely that 2018 all-new models will adopt TrueDepth camera and support Face ID.

Apple’s move has also urged Android developers to enhance Face ID encryption in Android OS.

7. AMP: Fasten your seatbelts!

For newbies, who are unfamiliar with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)–it’s an open-source project that focuses instant rendering of mobile web pages. Backed by tech giants like Google, Bing, Baidu, Twitter, and Pinterest, AMP provides 2X faster page loading as compared to an average webpage. In 2018, AMP is being enhanced to provide a better user experience to mobile users. As smartphones have almost replaced your laptops/computers, now companies are making their mobile web pages more user-friendly to provide a better user experience. AMP supported with 5G technology will take mobile browsing to the next level. The next time you Google, look for the lightning icon in the search results and experience the blazing fast loading of the page!

8. PayPal’s forthcoming NFC wallet experience

PayPal is going to roll out its tap-to-pay purchasing experience in 2018. Previously, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay have already conquered a big part of the market, but PayPal’s purchasing app will give these competitors a run for their money. And even though the introduction of e-wallets is nothing new, with this new feature, PayPal’s users will be able to shop directly now rather than using other services. PayPal’s mobile purchasing app may enhance the e-commerce and contribute a lot to developing a cashless society.

Read also: This is how Asia is building a Cashless Society

9. Under-display Fingerprint Sensors

Synaptics, the company behind the touch inputs to millions of laptops and smartphones, has recently revealed that it has started production of in-display fingerprint sensors. Synaptics is calling it Clear ID that will work the same way Samsung’s Galaxy and Apple iPhone’s home button fingerprint sensors do. But the difference will lie in the authentication area. Now you need to touch the actual screen where the fingerprint sensor will lie under the screen rather than residing in the home button. Vivo and OnePlus are set to launch flagship products featuring under-screen print ID in March.

10. Electrovibration: Feel it!

Electrovibration is one of the most awaited technologies of 2018. MIT Technology Review has also included it in its Intelligent Machines section. The idea is to develop a prototype that gives tactile feedback that is far ahead mechanical buzzing: imagine you are shopping a zipper online and the screen gives you a real feel of the texture and stuff of that zipper. The technology is also being dubbed as “Feel Screen” technology. Researchers at TeslaTouch and EPFL are exploring cell-constructed screens to give a real feel for the texture you touch.

One last word…

2018 will give a boom to the mobile tech industry. These mesmerizing innovations will overcome the deficiencies that tech industry faced in 2017. Now it’s up to the tech giants to prove their claims and meet the expectations of the users. Comment below and let us know what your expectations are for 2018’s technologies?