The only constant in this industry is change, and every day we get up the world changes quicker and quicker, 2015 whisked away so quickly and it is already 2016. For sure in the new year we will get a lot more things thrown at us, new content, new cloud initiatives and this will be on our doorstep whether we like it or not. The year 2016 will definitely see cloud and cloud providers playing increasing roles in business to business activities and increasing the traction into the consumer markets. Using Dropbox and OneDrive for storage of data and other data sharing solutions has become a norm and this will increase significantly as more providers will find solutions in the cloud to make life easier for us to get access to the information.
I also predict that we will have a significant traction and adoption of wearable technologies, more smart cars, smart home technologies, better and easier to use Drones and without a doubt Robotics will get more advanced.
However one of the biggest predictions of 2016 is the way we access data, the use of the Internet and Cloud will become very political as governments try and attempt the impossible task of controlling the data that we transmit and as a consequence, encryption will begin to become more standard for us to use. There will be more encryption solutions to help protect our privacy and these will become easier for us as individuals to use.
Cyber security will for sure be one of the biggest concerns and challenges for the industry ahead. It will become critical in every aspect of our personal and business life in 2016. 2015 has seen some significant breaches, some public and a hell of a lot that we do not even hear about! So get ready because in 2016 the hackers are just getting cleverer and the industry is lagging behind in keeping up with the speed at which they move and compromise systems.
Virtual Reality
It has now been around for gaming for a while. But it is the real life applications like training, education, healthcare, industrial maintenance and personal use like virtual tours of your next holiday or virtual tours of hotels and beaches that will really take off in a big way. Today we seek reviews from TripAdvisor and other review sites, in 2016 and ahead we will use VR technology to get walk through of our next beach hotel experiencing an added dimension of realism. 2016 and 2017 is the birth of this era with lots of experimentation to see what works and what does not.
Drones
There is an estimation that over 700K drones were sold this Christmas alone and my god it’s fun! Drones are being used in so many different applications (not only military) – Infrastructure monitoring, emergency services (fire brigade use them to analyse situations), farmers and of course a new revolution of videography that has just produced some amazing results. There are so many more applications of drone technology that even I do not know off and we will see more and more in the skies. The fact is there will be more drones in the sky and no doubt some form of legislation to control how they are used and the spaces they are allowed to fly. In fact it would not come as a surprise that an official licence may be required to own/fly a drone in the air in the future. I am sure in 2016 we will have hundreds of near misses and backyard spying as well as mid-air collisions that will not only cause some injury but also damage property and off course lead to an increase in legal issues.
Smartphones even smarter
Some people are saying there is a downturn of smartphones’ sales for the next few years, however it’s the big players that breaking record sales every quarter as they release new devices and a massive fashion culture has developed to have the latest phones. So I see an increase of the rate at which we change our mobile phones as we are eager to get more memory, better cameras and faster processors to handle better apps.
Mobile payments will be massive in 2016 as we move to digital money and the wallet becomes more and more redundant. I do not know about you, but if I have misplaced my phone it is a major issue and my focus goes on seeking where it is. So my mobile has higher importance than my wallet! More and more of us purchase online using our handy devices and this trend is increasing every day. We will also see more technology on our devices that enters our personal lives. In fact there is now technology being developed that will analyse all your photos and calculate the type of person you are based on metadata and then create predictions for manufacturers and retailers so that they can create targeted marketing for you.
Just think about it, today this device we carry in our hands every day knows where we have been (GPS), knows how we communicate, it stores the pictures of our moments, of family, pets, places and all that information when analysed can create an incredible view of you as a person, your characteristics and behaviour. I have seen this technology in person and this will be embedded into apps and operating systems very soon. Will your privacy be breached? No, hopefully not but for sure a lot of data will be gathered with no link to you as a person that will form the next generation of predictive analysis which is the new buzz word in the retail sector.
Internet of Things (IOT)
You may not know this but this technology has grown massively in 2015 and predicted to grow even more in 2016. Your smartphone will be connected to a ton of new wearables for health, welfare or fun, and the fact that these devices can connect to the world means the options are endless. Do not forget the data collected from these devices is not stored locally, it is being moved to the cloud somewhere and guess what everyone is interested in that data, retailers, manufacturers, your doctor, insurance companies, the police and a lot more communities you had not even thought about.
With all this information leaving your personal space and entering into the cloud, it not a case of will you lose personal information to the hackers and people determined to get access to it, it is just a case of when and how much of your data will be stolen.
Sonny Sehgal
Chief Executive Officer, Transputec
