5 Tech Trends Outlook in 2021
Technology and its innovation are here to ease our life. This premise is more proven during the pandemic that hit us hard in 2020. It restricts our mobility more than ever. All activities are move online, which highly relying on information and communication technology. Platforms such as messaging, video conferences, to project management soared its popularity more than ever, with no sign of going down. Instead, productivity apps are on their continuous development to build a seamless online experience to erase the barrier between online and offline activity.
Based on our ‘small’ research, in this article, we have summarized the prediction for cutting edge technology that would be massive in 2021.
Motion sensing
Pandemic has made us more aware of the cleanliness and being more sensitive to our surroundings. Experts suggest being more careful with hygiene, including preventing touching any surface and washing or sanitizing our hands as often as possible.
In this case, motion-sensing technology helped us lessen physical interaction with goods while minimizing the chance of virus transmission. Motion sensing has been here for quite a long time and applied to hardware such as soap dispensers, water tap, to hand dryer in the bathroom. However, as it is found to be truly helpful, it is expected to be applied extensively, especially to digital/electronic devices, which are very close to our daily life. Mention sensing features would enable us to operate digital devices without touching them, only using hand gestures.
VR / AR
As our virtual interaction gets more intense, we demand more features to enhance our virtual experience getting closer to physical experience. The technology of virtual and augmented reality would play a massive role in this vision. VR/AR has also been here for a long time, yet it shows its latest development each year.
Virtual reality (VR) is a tech feature that enables us to be in a virtual world, which is the inverse of the physical world. VR is famous in electronic games to create a great gaming experience, which involves head and body movements during playing games. Utilizing VR’s glasses, earphones, and handgrip gives us the sensation as we’re playing in the real arena. However, today, VR companies have expanded their application in the education field. It helps to enhance the immersive training experience. Also, to simulate complex figures which used to need props.
Meanwhile, augmented reality (AR) is a feature that adds virtual reality above the existing physical reality. This feature is so familiar in our daily life. Starting from the filters in Instagram/Snapchat/TikTok, Pokemon Go, Zoom’s background, to the “try before you buy” feature that project how the goods you want to buy would look in you.
In the meantime, VR/AR is projected to help improve the online meeting or school and remote working experience. It would erase the distance barrier and facilitate us to ‘meet,’ ‘interact,’ and ‘gather’ in a virtual room as we’re in school or office’s room.
Voice-enabled interface
Technological advancement has always come with the narrative of inclusivity. People demanded technology to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, including those who are visually disabled. The answer to this demand is through a voice-enabled or voice user interface (VUI). The virtual assistant’s emergence, such as Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, has kickstarted VUI’s extensive application.
Unfortunately, even though electronic devices embedded with virtual assistants, not all applications/software are integrated with them. Hence, people expectation is still high towards the mainstreaming of VUI in every digital product to be enjoyed by all humankind with no exception.
On top of that, our companionship with digital/electronic devices has significantly increased as we’re interacting with them 24/7. Therefore, being hands-free or giving voice commands as we’re talking with them would be more fun than typing or using our finger.
Foldables
Minimalism is a millennial’s way of life. We are getting more conscious of the simplicity in our belongings, including electronic devices. We found wireless innovation as life-changing as we do not need to bother tangled wire. Today, another shift in tech has come to support our minimalist lifestyle, which is foldable devices.
2020 has marked the release of foldable smartphones, which turn out cherished by many. It is projected to be the next hype soon. Foldables allow us to enjoy a big screen in a compact device, which sized only half of the screen. Thanks to the development of a flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED). The latter incorporates a flexible plastic substrate on which the organic electroluminescent semiconductor is located, making the screen bendable.
5G
Ever since its first introduction in 2019, 5G will finally (really) start its massive deployment in 2021. Countries have done preparing their infrastructure for this latest generation of broadband cellular networks. Unlike its limited market in 2020 — where it only available on high-end class smartphones, 5G would be available at a larger scale and lower price. After the first adoption by Samsung S10,
the technology is now available on the latest lineup of Apple’s iPhone 12. The following smartphone lineup in 2021 would follow the game. Besides, this innovation is quite essential as we are getting more dependent on technology. 5G’s latency is much faster than the 4G provided. Thus, it would take the online experience to the next level and enabling things that we could never do before, such as remote surgery, as we’ll be doing the activity almost instantaneously.
Those are our outlook of the technological advancement we will have soon. We’ll keep you updated if there are any more updates and make you our research-based fortune teller agents! 😉 ✨
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Contributor: Rachmadita Kusumastiti
