1. Stand-Alone Wearable Technology
Wearable technology looks to be making yet another series of technological leaps in 2017 with new smartwatch models coming out from both Samsung and Apple. Apple’s new wearable models will be 100% waterproof, able to recognize four different types of swim strokes, and able to use an onboard GPS without a phone being present—a huge benefits for distance athletes. The Samsung Gear 3 will likewise be able to operate more independently of smartphones with built-in cellular voice and data. While wearables are still a young technology with a somewhat niche appeal, these features and the increasingly stand-alone alone nature of wearables may be enough to bring the average American on-board.
2. Augmented Reality
Virtual Reality may be a hot topic in gaming and technology at the moment, but in the next year we expect to see even larger moves in the Augmented Reality sector. Remember Pokémon Go? That game, and it’s international impact, proved that smartphones and data can turn the real world into a virtual playground. While VR machines like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Sony’s PlayStation VR can transport owners to far away immersive worlds while they stay at home. Augmented Reality (also known simply as AR,) lets people go out and interact with virtual landscapes nested inside real places around them, and the barriers to entry are far lower. AR is expected to be a major consideration in current smartphone and app development and will be more and more prominent in the coming months of 2017.
3. Smart Cars are Getting Smarter
Self-driving cars won’t be on the market for mainstream use until at least 2022, but they will be entering more and more into the general consciousness as models hit the road and the news cycle mentions pick up in 2017. Meanwhile, software like CarPlay, Android Auto, Navdy, and other data-centric systems are making current gen cars smarter and more connected all the time.
4. Virtual Desktops For Virtually Everyone
Already nearly every organization is working, at least in part, from the cloud, and in 2017 that part will become much more a whole. Virtual desktop use is growing at an annual rate of over 10%, a rate that will only continue to rise in 2017. Virtual desktops give workers a portal to their data, allowing them to work from their own personal files and applications while on any device, in any location, with data access and security handled in the cloud. This set-up favors BOYD policies, virtual offices, and distributed work-forces.
5. More High Profile Security Breaches
Security in technology is a huge and tremendously important topic, and in 2017 we can expect more of the major, high-profile data breaches that captivated the news cycles in 2016. Breaches like those perpetrated against the Democratic National Committee, Yahoo, Dropbox, LinkedIn and Verizon as well as countless thousands of smaller intrusions perpetrated against smaller businesses—most of whom remain unaware of the attacks. With threats now coming from nation-state actors, criminal organizations, hacker collectives, market competitors, and others, it is increasingly important that business of any size take the time to audit their security, put the proper measures in place, and train employees to recognize threats and avoid them in their daily activities.
For information on data security and other technical support services, please contact the Grundig IT Team at grundigit.com/contact/
