It’s only been two months since the year kicked in and already everything in the tech space is starting to take shape in marvelous and mysterious ways. If you have been keeping up with the latest tech news, then you probably caught a glimpse of at least one of the showcases at this year’s CES. Unlike past CES events which have often been plagued by a slate of product showcases that, for lack of a better term, can only be described as gimmicky, CES 2019 packed a ton of genuinely interesting tech that has the potential for actual real-world applications.
Naturally, such showcases always come with expectations, especially if they prove to be good enough to attract customer attention. Fortunately, this year will not be short on the number of great tech trends that you can look forward to all through the year. While there is no certainty that the products will make it to market within the year, it is still nice to have something worth waiting for. So, here are some of the ones you should keep an eye out for:
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Wireless Charging… on Steroids
From California’s Silicon Valley to other international global tech giants, wireless charging has grown quite significantly over the past decade. However, as much as inductive charging technology has been at the palms of our hands for quite some time, it has never really gone beyond the normal charging mats that we place our smartphones on. Well, wireless charging is about to evolve to even greater heights than ever before.
To begin, Disney has already made strides towards extending the range of wireless charging and they have managed to get some pretty promising results. The company has already prototyped an entire room where devices with wireless charging capabilities can charge by simply being in the room. Now that is impressive.
In addition to Disney’s efforts, Energous, a California-based company is in the process of developing a new and improved wireless charging solution that makes use of a transmitter and tiny receiver to charge wireless devices that are up to 15 feet away from the transmitter. Wireless charging technology deserves a lot of accolades as it is right now but there is certainly a lot of room for improvement and perhaps 2019 is the year when we will finally get the next generation of wireless charging. This is set to revolutionize several other sectors including wearable technology and mobile gaming.
Next Generation VR
It seems like the biggest tech trends of 2019 will primarily be based on significant changes and improvements to already existing technologies. Standalone VR is already a reality thanks to efforts by the companies behind the Oculus Go and Mirage Solo. However, it goes without saying that both of these, though very impressive, were quite feature-light and therefore confined within a certain niche. During CES 2019, Oculus hinted at a significant change with its demo of the Oculus Quest, a much more robust and feature-rich VR headset whose performance and the content library will be at par with that of the Rift.
With Oculus’s heavy investment into the standalone VR space has attracted so much attention, it will not be long before other players in the space including Vive and Google also introduce some form of untethered VR experience with even better features than what was demoed at CES 2019. Google’s version may be one of the most interesting since the company already boasts of a pretty solid resource infrastructure.
What is more exciting is the applications that these new standalone VR technologies will bring to the market, especially in the online gaming space. A possible scenario would be a player being able to experience the thrill of playing online poker in California from anywhere in the world through a VR headset.
5G
Finally, the long-awaited 5G is no longer just a buzzword. We have already seen a couple of high-profile device launches from a number of companies, each showcasing the next generation of mobile devices with high-speed communication capabilities thanks to 5G. Now that it’s finally here, it is time to take advantage of the emerging opportunities and many companies are already hard at work preparing for it.
One of the areas that will significantly benefit from the new standard of communication will be VR which we have already outline its potential above. With 5G, standalone and truly untethered VR will be even better than anticipated since it will not only allow for more data transmission but it will also allow for way better integration with other services.
5G is also going to revolutionize gaming – esports, video games, and online gambling – in so many ways, something that will definitely make the games stream smoother and, of course, way more engaging. For now, only a couple of companies including Apple and Sony have publicly announced their plans for the next generation of game streaming but it is likely that others like Microsoft and Google are working on similar offerings behind closed doors – we should expect reveals soon.
8K
8K Televisions were all the buzz at CES 2019 and this was for good reason – these displays are four times the density of existing 4K displays which can be equated to a 33-megapixel image. Too much? This might not be the case going forward. While there is still close to zero 8K content available, innovations in other sectors are beginning to catch up and soon enough we will be able to enjoy the extremely high-resolution movies on crisp 8K displays. For now, everything remains pretty much the same with the existing 8K displays costing way too much for the average consumer to afford. The future is very bright though. Stay tuned!
Summary
As mentioned earlier, 2019 is seemingly all about iterative improvements as we move towards better services with regard to consumer electronics. There were, of course, many other worthy showcases at the event but these are the ones we could squeeze in here.