If only HG Wells was alive today he could have warned us about Donald Trump, fidget spinners and braided eyebrows.
Sadly, the Victorian sci-fi writer died in 1946, leaving behind novels that had instead predicted phones, emails, TV, genetic engineering, lasers and nuclear bombs.
And so it’s up to s1jobs to accept the challenge and provide tech predictions for the year ahead.
We may not have invented them but at least we can tell you they’re about to get big.
Double or quits
Being able to digitally recreate a version of a real-world object heralds the new age of Digital Twins.
Using data generated by the real thing allows programmers to create accurate digital reproductions and use them to predict behaviour.
Boeing has been a pioneer here, using data from its aircraft engines to create twins, which are used to predict breakdowns. This gives engineers time to pre-empt and fix issues.
Now, thanks to the Internet of Things, in 2018 companies of all sizes will be using Digital Twins to design, test and maintain products.
A reality check
Even s1jobs got caught up in the huge global buzz surrounding Augmented Reality (AR). Sadly, despite the 2016 success of Pokémon Go, the smartphone game that used AR for hunting imaginary critters, few took the technology much further in 2017, preferring to keep it real.
The big news is this is about to change in 2018.
Major players such as Snap, Amazon and Microsoft are investing in AR applications, while developer kits on iOS and Android will allow software engineers to include AR capabilities in their apps.
At long last, this will be the year to augment your reality.
How can we help?
The hilarious video clip of two Scotsmen trying to persuade a voice-activated lift to take them to “11!” went viral last year. In 2018, accents permitting, it looks like the turn of digital assistants to take over the world. (But in a good way. We hope.)
Not only is using our voices an easier, safer and more natural way to interact with and direct technology, the rise in ever smarter smart speakers, has paved the way for assistants to be placed everywhere from cars to shower cubicles.
Your next job in IT could well be programming a way to decipher “Shampoo please!”.
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