4 consumer technologies to watch closely in 2017

Now that we have left 2016 behind us and have entered 2017 many might wonder “What technologies do I need to watch out for?” In Las Vegas at CES 2017, some of the leading innovations in consumer technologies were presented and discussed. Please find below the most exciting ones.

Self driving cars

According to Popular Science, the US government has been working on legislation for the benefit or integrating autonomous driving into society. With Uber recently in the news for their self-driving car fleet in Pittsburgh, developments have been catching steam. The service will be the same as original Uber but then done by self-driving cars, currently the service is free. Ford also showcased its prototype autonomous car at CES 2017. Other initiatives were described by my colleague Rowan in his recent article.

Drones

Traditionally drones are being seen as nothing more than a fun tool to experiment with, but recently they are being used more and more in area like delivery services such as UPS. In the meanwhile the US government is now establishing better safety rules for drones. With Amazon’s’ Prime Air first customer delivery in december last year, 2017 could have much more in store for us such as military applications or remote pipeline monitoring.

VR

These “reality” altering technologies will transform the way we interact with the environment around us. While 2016 was the year of fleshing out VR concepts and hardware, 2017 will mark the year when the technology will begin its transition from a curiosity into a mass-market product usable by the average consumer. Currently VR is still too expensive for most consumers to be economically viable.

AI and Chatbots

If you are following our Knowledge Base, you might have read our articles about chatbots, artificial intelligence and machine learning. With Facebook adding bots to its messengers and Microsoft’s’ Cortana and Google Now investing in their chatbots, it looked like 2016 was going to be a very eventful year for the chatbot. However, just like VR it seemed that 2016 was a year for a steady foundation to be build up, and 2017 will be the year AI will become mature. Perhaps D-Wave, a quantum computer developer, will successfully develop a marketable quantum computer that will vastly increase the capabilities of the ordinary computer. Currently, their models cost $ 15 million.