With the beginning of every new year, newer and more robust technologies surface for us to look forward towards. Here are a few technology products that are in our wish list and we are anticipating their release by 2019.
- Self-driving Automobiles
Numerous companies have been experimenting with self-driving cars for the last few years. We can say firms from Google to Tesla all are dipping their toes in experimenting with this technology, and a lot of automobile brands announced their work on autonomous cars including Tesla who was amongst the first to produce vehicles with an autopilot function, but its use remains limited. The challenges with self-driving vehicles are that they depend on virtual maps for directions and uses sensors for correct driving. As both these technologies are accessible and are continually being enhanced, there is high anticipation of seeing self-driving cars to be launched in this coming year for end consumers.
- OLED Touch Screen to become a Substitute for Keyboards
Although a majority of desktop, laptop, and flexible tablet users still like the sound and feel of the standard keyboard, mouse or trackpad. However, looking into the fact that everyone now uses a touchscreen smartphone to do their daily chores, a similar change is on the cards as we can see Apple has already floated the MacBook Pro with an OLED touch bar. Likewise, Asus built and launched the Zenbook with OLED touchscreen trackpad. Another market leader, Lenovo has also launched a laptop with a touch screen base to be used as a keyboard. This new year we can expect more brands renew keyboards and trackpads with touchscreen OLED displays.
- Laptop Chargers to become Wireless
As smartphones get wireless chargers, we can only wish that our heavy laptop charges are replaced with wireless ones. There have been various organizations who have been doing there research and development the challenge that has been presented in front of the companies is the incapability or less power of wireless charges to charge the laptop battery.
- Modular devices
One can say that modular smartphones were a big hoopla a couple of years ago. We also know that Google worked on the concept but after a few years of follow-up, they shut down the project. But other smartphone manufacturers are trying to get modular devices out for consumers, for example, Fairphone is available for someone who is interested, and Moto gives a touch of modularity to its smartphones with the Moto Mods. However, with the ushering of 2018, Red launched their Hydrogen One phone that came with assistance for modular accessory add-ons. In the case of TVs, Xiaomi introduced a modular TV in 2017 in which the components were incorporated in a soundbar that could be detached from the display screen and changed with an upgraded unit. This meant the user could upgrade their TV with each passing year without having to shell out on the price of a new TV. When we look at the gaming consoles, Nintendo Switch is the best example of a modular gaming console. It can be used and transformed into a stand-alone or docked into a station to work with a TV. Besides, it also has modular controllers that can be incorporated with the main body of the consoles or be used wirelessly for motion control.
5. Enhancing the Chatbots
Although the year 2018 has not been very productive in case of implementing chatbots, the coming year is undoubtedly going to bring in massive changes. Huge steps are being taken towards developing the natural language processing and sentiment analytics—so many, in fact, that some believe NLP will stir up the entire service industry in ways that people have not imagined. NLP will allow firms to gather insights and augment their service based on them.
