Tech Trends to Look Forward to in 2016

Laying the foundation for whats to come.
As 2015 winds down, let’s take a look forward at the technology trends we can expect to see in 2016. In many ways, 2015 didn’t see many groundbreaking innovations but companies are laying the foundation of what’s to come.
Here are the tech trends you can look forward to seeing in 2016.

Mobile payments will finally take off

Mobile payments finally began taking off in 2015 and we’ll likely see much wider adoption in 2016. Beyond the convenience of paying for purchases with your phone, mobile payments add a layer of security with tokenization. In short, tokenization replaces your actual credit card number with a throwaway number that can’t be reused. This mean even if hackers got ahold of that token, it’ll be useless to them.
But mobile payments will continue to have growing pains as businesses will have to replace their old terminals with new ones. For many businesses, this will be prohibitively expensive. Samsung Pay has a clever technology to work around this called Magnetic Secure Transmission, which allows the company’s newer phones to make mobile payments on older terminals. It sends out a magnetic field with a tokenized credit card number to an old checkout terminal, which treats it as a regular card swipe.
Expect to see Samsung Pay expand to new devices like the upcoming Galaxy S7 and Galaxy Note6 phones. Also expect more stores to begin accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and newcomers to the mobile payments space.

The Internet of Things will become less fragmented

2015 was a mess for the Internet of Things (IoT). The idea of having an intelligent home is more compelling than ever, but fragmentation has kept the Internet of Things from maturing. Let’s hope 2016 is a better year for this emerging technology with companies rallying behind a common standard. Apple and Google both have their own software platforms for home automation but both companies haven’t taken the IoT seriously yet.
Beyond controlling your thermostat from your smartphone, expect your electronics to begin talking to one another to learn your habits and automate things around the house for you. As novel as it is to schedule your lights to come on at a certain time, your lights should learn your habits and adapt on its own. Expect to see home accessories to get smarter, if companies can rally behind a standard.

Smarter wearables

In many ways, 2015 was the year of the wearable with smartwatches taking off. Apple entered the smartwatch race this year with its first ever Apple Watch. While slick, it doesn’t really do anything other smartwatches can’t do and many of its features felt like gimmicks. Expect to see a new Apple Watch in 2016 (possibly March).
One of the biggest problems with wearables, like smartwatches, is that they’re not smart enough. For example, your smartwatch can’t tell when you’re in an important meeting and will give you notifications for unimportant things, like an email about a sale on soaps. Smartwatches will have to learn our habits and adapt before they become truly useful. While it’s hard to say if this will happen in 2016, wearables will be smarter than they’ve ever been before.

We find out if virtual reality will be a hit

The Oculus Rift is one of the most anticipated releases for 2016 and for good reason. Its head and hand tracking with the use of the Oculus Touch controllers is insanely accurate. I’ve been blessed enough to have hands on time with the Oculus Rift’s many variations over the years and have always left wanting one.

Consumers got a taste of virtual reality this year with the launch of the Samsung Gear VR. It’s not nearly as sophisticated as the VR headsets coming out in 2016 but for $99, it’s a killer deal (if you have a supported Samsung phone). Everyone I showed the Gear VR was blown away by it, and I can only imagine how they’d react to the Oculus Rift.
2016 will bring many different types of virtual reality and augmented reality, from the Rift to PlayStation VR to the Microsoft Hololens. It’s still an infant product but we’ll see if consumers find it compelling enough to use as another computing and entertainment platform.

Smarter Artificial Intelligence

How many times have you been frustrated when Siri or Cortana didn’t understand one of your commands or questions? That’ll change in 2016 as artificial intelligence gets smarter. Google has been constantly improving its machine learning algorithms to make Google Now smarter. This year, the search giant introduced Now On Tap, which scans anything on your phone’s screen and provides relevant information about what it detects. It’s far from perfect but it’s only a matter of time before it becomes indispensable.
These virtual assistants will not only get smarter on our phones, but on on wrists as well. Since smartwatches are powered by our phones, the smarter our phones get, the smarter our watches get too. Look forward to speaking to your phone like an actual human being and having it understand. AI won’t be perfected in 2016, but it’ll get a lot smarter.
Beyond the phone, artificial intelligence will slowly make its way into our cars, coinciding with the development of autonomous cars.

Better batteries

One of the biggest problems plaguing technology right now is battery life. Phones have gotten slimmer and slimmer, sacrificing battery life for thinness. Some companies like Samsung and LG have adopted quick charging, but it’s really a band-aid on a bigger problem: battery technology.
One company, StoreDot, claims to have solved the problem with a concept smartphone battery that can be fully charged in 30 seconds. While that’s undoubtedly convenient, I’d like to see more power-dense batteries that can last several days inside a phone, instead of quick charging batteries that still require you to lug around a charger when you’re out of juice.
Hopefully 2016 is the year someone solves the battery life problem for tech.

4K screens become the norm

2015 saw the proliferation of 4K televisions. In 2016, 4K screens will take over as the new standard, supplanting 1080p (aka Full HD). There are already tons of 4K TVs and computer monitors, but we’ll see more 4K screens on our phones as well. Sony already has a 4K screen on its Xperia Z5 Premium, but we’ll see a lot more manufacturers jump on the 4K wagon.
Although phone screens are already boasting high dots per inch (DPI) screens, having a 4K screen makes supported content look even crisper and will make virtual reality more immersive. Samsung’s phones already have high resolution screens but you can still see the individual pixels while using the Gear VR headset. With 4K, VR will be crisper than ever.

We lay the groundwork for autonomous cars

Google has been testing its autonomous vehicles for years now, but we might actually see them in use in 2016. Ford and Google are working on a driverless car and has already gained permission for testing in California.
Cars have gotten more and more autonomous technologies over the years with pre-collision mitigation and lane departure assists. As of right now, these autonomous features are optional extras when purchasing a car, but will become standard soon.
2015 saw the Tesla Model S get its autonomous driving feature activated via a software update, but results were mixed. Some owners expected a hands-off experience with the Model S, but videos of close calls show that autonomous driving tech isn’t 100% ready yet.

2016 will be a big year for self-driving cars, and we may see Google’s cute koala-looking autonomous cars driving around soon.