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2017 In Tech – 5 Tech Trends & Gadgets To Expect by Techazuri: 1:41pm On Jan 04, 2017
The just ended year 2016 was not so pleasant. It was a year many people would rather forget, with never ending streams of bad news, multiple celebrity deaths (2016 saw us lose a beloved actress of Star Wars fame, Carrie Fisher) and a brutal US election that saw Donald Trump get elected much to the chagrin of majority of US citizens. Heck, even in the world of tech, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 saw to it that 2016 was a bad year across all aspects of life, with frequent reports of Note 7s exploding worldwide, the first incident of its kind from a major tech giant (to the best of my knowledge). Nevertheless, 2016 also had its share of technological breakthroughs that changed how we live, work and play. Particularly, Virtual Reality made a big comeback after Google’s failed attempt with Google Glass back in 2013, and it is sure to get even better this year. Virtual Assistants also became popular, moving out of our smartphones and into standalone devices (Amazon Echo and Google Home). In fact, 2016 appeared to be the year smart home technologies managed to break through the mainstream after years of trying.

So what do we hope to see this year in the tech world? There is a myriad of tech trends and gadgets coming out this year that is going to change the world once again. Here are 5 of the most anticipated tech trends and tech coming out this year.

1. Nintendo Switch
With a release date scheduled for March 2017, Nintendo’s Switch is one of the most antcipated tech of 2017. This will be the first hybrid console from Nintendo, or any major gaming company for that matter. Nintendo demonstrated that the Switch can play its games on TV like a regular games console, as well as a tablet-style handheld with its own controls. It can also be played while standing up on its own kickstand, with detachable controls. Perhaps what is going to be its main selling point is how it doubles as a portable handheld as well as a home gaming console. Nintendo has an event scheduled for January to unveil more details about the console. No price has been announced yet.


2. Project Scorpio
Microsoft’s rival to Sony’s PS4 Pro is set for a Fall 2017 release. Project Scorpio, as it has been dubbed, is said to be the most powerful console ever to be released, or going to be released, with 6 teraflops of computing power, compared to the PS4 Pro’s 4.2 Teraflops. The console has been described in a whole manner of colorful ways, with developers calling it a “monster” and Microsoft affirming it will deliver the “best resolution, best framerates, no compromises”. Microsoft has stated that Project Scorpio will render games in native 4K. Seeing as most of the PS4 Pro’s enhanced games are actually 1080p upscaled to 1440p (4K), Project Scorpio is undoubtedly the console that will usher in the new era of 4K gaming.



3. Apple iPhone 8
The iPhone 7 is easily one of the best smartphones of 2016. It delivers seamless performance, more storage capacity than its predecessors, water resistance, exceptional cameras, perhaps the best battery yet in an iPhone, amongst many other terrific features. Despite these accolades, it was more of an evolutionary step rather than a revolutionary leap. In fact, the omission of the headphone jack meant that the iPhone 7 left out a crucial feature that almost everyone could not live without. Still, these are just small breezes compared to the early rumors pointing to this year’s iPhone, the one marking the 10th anniversary of the very first iPhone. This year’s iPhone 7S or 8, or whatever they decide to call it, is seen by most as the revolutionary, no-holds-barred smartphone that will once again push the boundaries of what your phone can do. For years, Apple have stuck to a fairly regular schedule, releasing iPhones with major design changes for even-numbered years and lesser “S” models with negligible features for odd-numbered years. From this trend, it would be expected that this year’s iPhone would be a “7S” with a few spec bumps here and there. However, if the last few years mean anything, its that Apple have scrapped this trend of theirs, with the release of two iPhone models in 2013 (5S and 5C), two variants of the iPhone 6, 6S and 7 (a standard 4.7” iPhone and a bigger 5.5” iPhone Plus) as well as an iPhone SE released in early 2016. Expect the big reveal in the Fall of 2017 (if Apple sticks to its regular schedule). Until then, we’ll keep track of the rumors.

4. Artificial Intelligence and Automation
Automation isn’t anything new, at least on the business side of things. Point-Of-Sales machines and ATMs have been in existence for the past 48 years. Perhaps our main experiences with automated technologies come in the form of those customer service systems we’re forced to call on when we need help. But it’s only going to get more commonplace in other aspects of our lives this year. Online customer sevrvice will be automated this year, thanks to better AI and chatbots that understand context much better than before. Flashback to March 2016 when Microsoft released Tay, an AI chatbot that was designed to mimic the language patterns of a teenage American girl, and to learn from interacting with human users of twitter. Within hours of its release, Tay was corrupted by twitter users who detected a vulnerability in its language patterns and deliberately tricked it into tweeting racist slurs and other inflammatory tweets. Hopefully, Artificial Intelligence would have gotten much better after the events of Tay.

5. The Internet Of Things
The Internet of Things has been a major subject matter over the past decade. So one may wonder why it still hasn’t caught on. The issue lies in interoperability. In theory, the Internet of Things is expected to connect all our devices together, making them operate in a glorious technological harmony. The uncoated truth is, we’re not at that point yet — at least in a usable manner. We’ll use the smart home as an example here. Much of the work in the past several years has revolved around the idea of a “smart hub,” in layman’s terms a souped-up wireless router with extra communications technologies built in. But inquire from any smart home system owner, and they’ll tell you it’s not a perfect solution.

A barrage of wireless technologies now exist to serve your smart home needs — Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and more. And there’s more smart home platforms to consider than ever before too — Wink, SmartThings, Iris by Lowe’s and even systems from security providers like ADT and big brands like Comcast. While centralization was expected to make things easi
er, it’s made it worse.


Some smart home gadgets won’t work with certain smart home platforms — for example, your Philips Hue lights won’t work with your Iris by Lowe’s system. Plus if your smart hub goes down, your entire system typically goes with it. Expect a renewed focus this year when it comes to smart homes. Wi-Fi is a tested and true wireless networking technology, and routers are serving up ever larger amounts of bandwidth, so there’s plenty of space to handle your connected home. As well, new smart home devices are choosing Wi-Fi to maximize compatibility.

Instead of using a centralized hub, device manufacturers will fixate on interoperability between themselves. This might have the consequence of shrinking the number of directly compatible devices, but it may not matter. Many other technologies can take the place of the hub, and likely do a better job of it.

IFTTT can connect those devices in any way you see fit, and Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home can control them by voice. The hub just isn’t necessary anymore, and that might be a good thing.

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Re: 2017 In Tech – 5 Tech Trends & Gadgets To Expect by pranayZealous: 7:58am On Jan 13, 2017
Thanks for the delightful update. Your post has been an eye-opener. To add further to where you have left off, I believe the following tech trends will rule the technical landscape for SMMEs in Africa:-

Artificial Intelligence

chatbots and digital assistants will dominate customer service in 2017. For example, the Google Digital assistant featured in Google Allo. It can fetch e-mails, make a note, check calendars, pop a joke, and much more. All in a simple IM window. There are 2 ways of deploying a bot:-
-Third Party Service (takes care of the AI)
-Write your own Machine Learning Code

Data Analytics

With BI becoming more common among SMEs, data analytics will be the norm this year. More businesses are moving towards data-based decision making. Be it any management function, data analysis tools like Tableau, R, Minitab etc. can integrate well with any database.For example, Google Analytics. An eCommerce store can measure the various sources of incoming traffic to their website, monitor hits across various product categories, check SKUs, and more. In a nutshell, a running overview of the enterprise available at a click.

Enterprise Mobility

With the growing usage of mobile devices among enterprises, the tasks performed on desktop and laptop computers have reduced. This means the concept of mobility can be used to perform business operations, hence empowering the employees to work from anywhere and anytime. The following examples portray scenarios of enterprise mobility at work:-

-Enabling CEO with a tablet to get real-time statistics and KPIs of the projects
-Empowering a retail sales person with an android device to perform checkouts and payments
-Encouraging the sales team on the field to collaborate through a mobile web app

Virtual and Augmented Reality
We have already seen how AR has opened new avenues for Game developers. The recent success of Pokemon GO is an example. Moreover, the other ways in which AR can help businesses are:

-Retail: Virtual fitting rooms
-Check if furniture matches the surroundings (Ikea already did it)
-Manufacturing: Monitor work progress using AR markers
-GPS: Mobile apps which work with street signs
-Digital walkthroughs
-Augmented outdoor/print Advertising
-AR interactive story books

References:
http://www.zealousys.com/blog/tech-trends-for-entrepreneurs-2017/

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