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Loading ...As the editor of a tech enthusiast website, I have the privilege of hearing the buzz on what’s hot in the “6 to 12 months ahead” department. Through analysis of tech news, contact with industry representatives, and a vast community of readers, it’s easy to get excited about what’s on the horizon for geeks and gadget lovers.
These are some of the trends I’m looking forward to at CES 2010 and Last Gadget Standing:
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality is going to be the hot stuff for 2010. Applications such as Wikitude and SekaiCamera are already available for iPhone and Android, and a recent video from BMW showing an augmented reality mechanic’s application made waves on the internet. The term “airtagging” is already in the vernacular. If that doesn’t say something, we don’t know what does.
Video Game Motion Control
As usual, Nintendo blazed a trail with their Wiimote controller; the fact that they codenamed it “Revolution” should say something. Sony was quick to tag along with their “me too!” attempt at tacked-on motion control in the SixAxis controller, but recently made a more mature attempt with their PS3 Wand demos. Microsoft, however, is going to take the cake this year with Project Natal. Forgoing any attempt at awkward peripherals, they are eschewing all handheld doohickeys with a camera-based, full body control system that seems to not suck.
Cloud Computing
More and more, important aspects of our lives are moving into “the cloud”; the nebulous network of servers, applications, and services that we almost take for granted. Applications like Google’s Gmail, Valve’s Steam, and Dropbox serve to remind us that computing is taking place less and less on our desktops and more and more “out there, somewhere” in the dataverse. Cloud computing is big stuff, and the idea that our digital lives can be accessed anywhere, at any time, on a multitude of devices is extremely compelling. Your music library in your car? Your video games on a mini screen while you’re on a flight? We’re excited to see what 2010 is going to usher in.
Storage Revolution
SSD (Solid State Drives) have been perpetually “coming soon”, but we feel that 2010 is going to be the breakout year for this hot tech. Mechanical hard drives are noisy, hot, prone to wear and tear, and complicated. Solid State Drive technology is finally ready for prime time. With prices dropping rapidly, reliability going way up, and performance rapidly outpacing even the fastest mechanical hard drives, it seems as if 2010 will be the year that the death knell for mechanical drives rang out.
Trends such as miniaturization, connectivity, high fidelity, and high definition were big in the first decade of the 2000s. We like to see all of those things as “growing pains” leading to the second decade of the 21st century. Things are finally coming together. All the elements are in place to make fantastic, futuristic, wondrous things happen in technology–things that will be available for actual consumers, not just seen in laboratories.
We’re looking forward to pitting them against each other live, on-stage at CES.
