Moore’s Law seems to be more applicable to the world of technology than ever before. Developments are happening at an astonishing rate – where once we thought that clamshell-style communicators and laser technology was the stuff of Star Trek, now it’s real, it’s here and it’s developing at a far faster speed than Gene Roddenberry could have ever imagined. So what future tech trends are about to change our worlds once more? Here’s five of the best:
No-Touch Interfaces
Just as we get the hang of poking, prodding and swishing, along comes the next generation of interface tech – no-touch. This involves pattern or movement recognition technology (pioneered in the domestic market by the gaming manufacturers with the X-Box, for example) that allows us to interact with our computers without laying a finger on a screen or keyboard. This pattern recognition technology includes better voice recognition (Apple’s ‘Siri’ is a prime example) and the augmented reality tech of Google Glass, where a user simply looks at a target and the tech fills in all the gaps with some interesting factoids. No-touch interfaces are set to be a key component in the next-gen wave of technology.
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Flexible displays
This revolutionary idea has been bubbling under for a while now, but is really starting to make serious strides forward. Like no-touch interfaces, the Cloud and other major developments, flexible displays could have a revolutionary impact on how we interact with our technology, and in particular our use of wearable tech. Research and development companies such as Plastic Logic have been at the leading edge of flexible display technology for years, and are now partnering up with major manufacturers to push it forward into the retail market. Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic, recently commented: “I am delighted that Plastic Logic can now demonstrate the far-reaching potential of the underlying technology. Our ability to create flexible, transmissive backplanes has led us not only to co-develop a flexible image sensor, but is also key to flexible OLED displays as well as unbreakable LCDs.”
