With 2018 under wraps, it’s time to reflect on the past and look forward to the bright future ahead. We aren’t just talking about personal growth and goals going into the new year…this is something way more enticing than that new diet you were planning on starting for 2019!
Innovation in the tech industry is nothing new. New innovations are constantly rolling out and 2018 gave us a taste of this. 2019 looks to be the year we see all the hyped technology become a reality. Tech experts at Vantage Agora are unveiling what they believe to be the Top 7 Tech Trends that will take off in 2019:
BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
Blockchain was all the rave at the end of 2018, but looking ahead we can expect a separation between hype and reality. Real-world applications and broader-scale adoption of the technology will emerge as more businesses begin to enter the realm of blockchain. According to Gartner, “These [Blockchain-Inspired Archetype] offerings allow enterprises to proceed with blockchain while avoiding the expensive change in business model and process. However, they can inhibit enterprises from taking advantage of true blockchain disruption and may increase vendor lock-in. Enterprises choosing this option should understand their limitations and be prepared to move to blockchain-complete solutions over time.”
DIGITAL TWINS OF AN ORGANIZATION
Again, not a new concept but rather one that is foreseen to take flight in 2019. Digital twins of an Organization (DTO) are merely digital replicas of physical objects. They work by drawing real-time data from various sources to help companies understand their world and become proactive versus reactive. With the recent explosion of the IoT, DTOs are prepared to improve decision making and provide valuable insight into product performance this year.
AUTONOMOUS THINGS
Self-driving cars, robots possessing human-like capabilities/features and drones are slowly becoming a reality and will soon be the norm. The recent boom in AI technology has helped bring these autonomous things to life, and we can look to incorporate these “things” into our society in an organic way come 2019.
VIRTUAL REALITY
Especially for gaming, educational and engineering purposes, virtual reality has become a hot topic and the trend looks to carry on into 2019. We can expect an increase in the number of VR applications, lower costing devices and an increased quality and resolution of VR headsets.
AI TAKEOVER
Alexa and Google Home introduced AI technology into the homes of many and will continue to be a growing market in 2019 - especially in areas outside of the tech and software companies. Gartner even predicts that, “AI-enabled decision support/augmentation will be the largest contributor to business value creation, overshadowing AI process automation throughout the entire forecast period. The number of jobs affected by AI will vary by industry, with healthcare, public sector and education benefiting from growing job demand, while the manufacturing sector will experience the biggest impact from AI-enabled processes.”
5G IS COMING!
Improve your download speed, experience higher quality video streaming and instant cloud access due to extremely low latency connectivity - time between data request and delivery. A number of companies are already hinting at debuting smartphones and devices with 5G capabilities that are expected to drop in 2019!
EDGE COMPUTING
The cloud computing era has slowly begun to simmer down as we already have access to a number of centralized services and devices. Moving forward, edge computing has become and will remain a trending topic in 2019. By allowing data to be computed at or near the source instead of relying solely on the cloud, latency is significantly reduced and real-time data can be provided at lightning fast speeds.
Make one of your 2019 New Year’s resolutions to get digital and stay on top of these techy trends! It’s not so much out with the old and in with the new, but rather improve upon existing technology and bring to life all of the tech hypes from 2018.
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Gartner: Understanding the Gartner Blockchain Spectrum and the Evolution Technology Solutions, David Furlonger, Rajesh Kandaswamy, 26 October 2018.
Gartner: Forecast: The Business Value of Artificial Intelligence, Worldwide, 2017-2025, John-David Lovelock, Susan Tan, Jim Hare, Alys Woodward, Alan Priestley, 12 March 2018.
