Predicting the future is more fine art than scientific discipline, yet information technology'southward e'er an interesting practise to engage in equally a new year comes upon us. So with the shut of what was a difficult, though interesting year in the technology business, here's a look at my predictions for the superlative 10 tech developments of 2017.

Prediction 1: Device Categories Start to Disappear

I of the key metrics for the relative health of the tech industry has always been the measurement of unit of measurement shipments and/or revenues for various categories of hardware-based tech devices. From PCs, tablets and smartphones, through smartwatches, smart TVs and caput-mounted displays, there's been a decades-long obsession with counting the numbers and cartoon conclusions from how the results end up. The problem is, the lines between these categories have been getting murkier and more hard to distinguish for years, making what once seemed like well-defined groupings get increasingly arbitrary.

In 2017, I expect the lines betwixt product categories to become even blurrier. If, for instance, vendors build mitt-held devices running desktop operating systems that tin can also snap into or serve as the principal interface for a connected auto and/or a smart domicile system, what would you call that and how would you count it? With increasing options for high-speed wireless connectivity to accessories and other computing devices, combined with OS-independent tech services, bots, and other new types of software interaction models, everything is irresolute.

Even what first appear as fairly traditional devices are going to start being used and thought of in very different means. The net result is that the possibility for completely blowing upward traditional categorizations will become existent in the new year. Because of that, it's going to exist time to start having conversations on redefining how the industry thinks virtually measuring, sizing, and assessing its wellness moving forward.

Prediction 2: VR/AR Hardware Surpasses Wearables

Though it's nevertheless early days for head-mounted virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products, the interest and excitement well-nigh these types of devices is palpable. Yes, the technologies need to amend, prices demand to decrease, and the range of software options needs to widen, but people who accept had the opportunity to spend some time with a quality system from the likes of HTC, Oculus, or Sony are nearly universally convinced that they've witnessed and partaken in the future. From kids playing games to older adults exploring the globe, the range of experiences is growing, and the level of interest is starting to chimera upwardly by enthusiasts into the mainstream.

Wearables, on the other hand, go along to face up lackluster need from most consumers, even afterwards years of mainstream exposure. Sure, there are some vivid spots and 2017 is spring to bring some interesting new wearable options, particularly effectually smart, connected earbuds (or "hearables" as some have dubbed them). Overall, though, the universal entreatment for wearables just isn't there. In fact, it increasingly looks similar smartwatches and other widely hyped wearables are already on the decline.

As a outcome, I wait revenues for virtual reality and augmented reality-based hardware devices (and accessories) volition surpass revenues for the wearables market in 2017. While a clear accounting is certainly challenging (run across Prediction 1), nosotros can expect near $4 billion worldwide for AR/VR hardware versus $3 billion for wearables. Because of lower prices per unit for fitness-focused wearables, the unit shipments for wearables volition still be higher, but from a business perspective, it'south clear that AR/VR volition steal the spotlight from wearables in 2017.

Prediction 3: Mobile App Installs Will Decline as Tech Services Grow

The incredible growth enabler and platform commuter that mobile applications have proven to be over most of the last decade makes it hard to imagine a time when they won't be that relevant, only I believe 2017 will marking the first of that unfathomable era. The reasons are many: worldwide smartphone growth has stalled, app stores have become bloated and difficult to navigate, and, most importantly, the general excitement level virtually mobile applications has dropped to nearly zero. Study afterward report has shown that the vast majority of apps that get downloaded rarely, if ever, get used, and nigh people consistently rely on a tiny handful of apps.

Against that depressing backdrop, let's also not forget that the platform wars are over and lots of people won, which means, really, that nobody won. It'southward much more than important for companies who previously focused on applications to offering a service that can be used across multiple platforms and multiple devices. Sure, they may all the same make applications, but those applications are only forepart-ends and entry points for the real focus of their business organisation: a cloud-based service.

Popular subscription-based tech services such as Netflix and Spotify are certainly both groovy instance and beneficiaries of this kind of movement, simply I expect to run across many unlike flavors of services grow stronger in 2017. From new types of bot-based software to "invisible" vox-driven interaction models, the types services that we spend a lot of our 2017 calculating fourth dimension on will be much different than in the mobile apps era.

Prediction 4: Democratic Drive Slows, But Assisted Driving Soars

There'south no question that autonomous driving is going to be a critical trend for tech industry and automotive players in 2017, just as the reality of the technical, regulatory, and standards-based challenges of creating truly autonomous cars becomes more obvious in the new year, at that place's besides no question that timelines for these kinds of automobiles will exist extended in 2017. Already, some of the early predictions for the cease of the decade or 2020 take been moved into 2021, and I predict we'll see several more of these delays in the new year.

This doesn't mean a lot of companies—both mainstream and startup—won't be working on getting these cars out sooner. They certainly volition, and nosotros should hear an avalanche of new announcements in the autonomous driving field throughout the yr from component makers, Tier 1 suppliers, traditional tech companies, auto makers and more. Even so, this is very hard stuff (both technically and legally) and technology that potentially places people'south lives at stake is a lot different than what'southward required to generate a new gadget. Information technology cannot, nor should it be, released at the same footstep that we've come to expect from other consumer devices. If, God forbid, we come across some additional fatalities in the new year that stem from faulty autonomous driving features, the delays in deployment could get much worse, peculiarly if they happen via a ridesharing service or other situation where ultimate liability isn't very clear.

In spite of these concerns, withal, I am convinced that we volition see some critical new advancements in the slightly less sexy, but still incredibly of import field of assisted driving technologies. Automatic breaking, car-assisted crash avoidance and other practical assisted driving benefits that can leverage the same kind of hardware and artificial intelligence (AI)-based software that'south beingness touted for fully autonomous driving volition probable have a much more realistic impact in 2017. Truth exist told, findings from a TECHnalysis Research study bear witness that almost consumers are more than interested in these incremental enhancements anyway, so this could (and should) be a example where the current technologies actually lucifer the market's existent needs.

Prediction 5: Smart Home Products Consolidate

Nearly of the early discussions around the smart dwelling house market has been for standalone products, designed to do a specific function and meant to be installed by the homeowner or tenant. The Nest thermostat, Baronial smart lock, and diverse security photographic camera systems are classic examples of this. Individually, many of these products piece of work just fine, but as interested consumers start to piece together different elements into a more complete smart dwelling house system, problems chop-chop get apparent. The bewildering array of different technical standards, platforms, connectivity requirements and more oft turn what should be a fun, productive experience into a nightmare. Unfortunately, the consequence shows few signs of getting ameliorate for most people (though Prediction vi offers one potential solution.)

Despite these concerns, there is growing interest in several areas related to smart homes including distributed audio systems (a la Sonos), WiFi extenders and other mesh networking products, and smart speakers, such as Amazon's Echo. Again, connecting all these products can exist an effect, only and so are more basic concerns such as physical space, additional ability adapters/outlets, and all the other aspects of owning lots of individual devices.

Because of these issues, I predict we'll start to see new "converged" versions of these products that combine a lot of functionality in 2017. Imagine a device, for example, that is a high-quality connected audio speaker, WiFi extender and smart speaker all in 1. Not only volition these ease the setup and reduce the physical requirements of multiple smart home products, they should provide the kind of boosted capabilities that the smart home category needs to first appealing to a wider audition.

Some other possibility (and something that'due south likely to occur simultaneously anyway), is that the DIY marketplace for smart dwelling house products stalls out and whatsoever potential growth gets shifted over to service providers like AT&T, Comcast, Vivint and others who offer completely integrated smart habitation systems. Non but do these services now incorporate several of the most popular individual smart home items, they've been tested to work together and give consumers a single identify to go for support.

Prediction 6: Amazon Repeat Becomes De Facto Gateway for Smart Homes

Every bit mentioned in Prediction v, one of the biggest challenges facing the smart home market is the incredibly confusing set of different standards, platforms, and protocols that need to be dealt with in society to brand multiple smart dwelling house products work together. Since information technology's extremely unlikely that any of these battles will exist resolved by companies giving upward on their own efforts and working with others (as logical and user-friendly every bit that would be), the simply realistic scenario is if 1 device becomes a de facto standard.

Every bit luck would have it, the Amazon Echo seems to have earned itself that de facto linchpin role in the modern smart home. Though the Echo and its siblings are expected to see a neat deal of competition in 2017, the device's overall capabilities, in conjunction with the open up-ended Skills platform that Amazon created for it, are proving a winning combination. Most importantly, the Echo's Smart Home Skill API is condign the center point through which many other smart domicile devices tin can piece of work together. In essence, this is turning the Echo into the key gateway device in the abode, allowing it to essentially "interpret" between devices that might non otherwise exist able to hands work together.

While other devices and dedicated gateways take tried to offer these capabilities, the ongoing success and involvement in the Repeat (and whatever ensuing variants) will likely make it the critical component in smart homes for 2017.

Prediction seven: Big Scale IoT Projects Deadening, But Small Projects Explode

The Internet of Things (IoT) is all the buzz in large businesses today, with lots of companies spending a cracking deal of time and money to attempt to cash in on the hot new trend. Equally a number of companies take started to discover, however, the reality of IoT isn't about equally glamorous as the hype. Non only practice many IoT projects crave bringing together disparate parts of an organization that don't e'er like, or trust, each other (notably, IT and operations), but measuring the "success" of these projects can be even harder than the projection itself.

On meridian of that, many IoT projects are seen as a disquisitional office of larger business transformations, a designation that nearly guarantees their failure. Even if they aren't part of a major transformation, they nevertheless confront the difficulty of making sense of the enormous amount of data that instrumenting the physical earth (a fancy fashion of maxim collecting lots of sensor information) entails. They may generate big data, simply that certainly doesn't always interpret to big value. Even though analytics tools are improving, sometimes it'southward just the uncomplicated findings that make the biggest difference.

For this reason, the potential for IoT amongst small or fifty-fifty tiny businesses is even larger. While data scientists may be required for big projects at big companies, only a piddling common sense in conjunction with only a few of the correct data points can make an enormous divergence with these minor companies. Given this opportunity, I expect a broad range of elementary IoT solutions focused on traditional business organisation similar agronomics and small-scale-scale manufacturing to make a big touch in 2017.

Prediction 8: AI-Based Bots Move to the Mainstream

It's certainly piece of cake to predict that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning will accept a major impact on the tech market in 2017, but it's non necessarily easy to know exactly where the biggest benefits from these technologies will occur. The clear early on leaders are applications involving image recognition and processing (often chosen machine vision), which includes everything from populating names onto photos posted to social media, to assisted and democratic driving features in continued cars.

Another area of major evolution is with natural language processing, which is used to analyze audio and recognize and answer to spoken words. Exciting, applied applications of deep learning practical to sound and language include automated, real-time translation services which can allow people who speak different languages to communicate with each other using their own, familiar native tongue.

Natural language processing algorithms are too essential elements for chatbots and other types of automated assistance systems that are bound to get significantly more pop in 2017, specially in the U.s.a. (which is a scrap behind Red china in this area). From customer assistance and technical back up agents, through more intelligent personal administration that motion with yous from device to device, expect to have a lot more interactions with AI-driven bots in 2017.

Prediction nine: Non-Gaming Applications for AR and VR Grow Faster than Gaming

Though much of the early attending in the AR/VR market has rightfully been focused on gaming, one of the master reasons I look to run into a healthy AR/VR hardware environment in the new yr is because of the not-gaming applications I believe will exist released in 2017. The Google Globe feel for the HTC Vive gave us an early clue of the possibilities, merely it's clear that educational, training, travel and experiential applications for these devices offer potential for widespread appeal beyond the strong, but nevertheless limited, hard-core gaming market.

Development tools for non-gaming AR and VR applications are still in their infancy, and so this prediction might take 2 years to completely play itself out. Notwithstanding, I'm convinced that just every bit gaming plays a critical but not overwhelming role in the usage of smartphones, PCs and other computing devices, and then as well volition it play an important merely not master office for AR and VR devices. Also, in the near term, the non-gaming portion of AR and VR applications is quite pocket-sized, so from a growth perspective, information technology should exist relatively piece of cake for these types of both consumer and business organisation-focused applications to grow at a faster pace than gaming apps this year.

Prediction 10: Tech Firms Place More Emphasis on Non-Tech Fields

While many in the tech industry have not bad trepidation most working under a Trump administration for the adjacent several years, the incoming president's impact could lead to some surprisingly unlike means of thinking and focus in the tech manufacture. Near importantly, if the early chatter about improvements to infrastructure and enhancements to average citizen's day-to-day lives come up to laissez passer, I predict we will come across more tech companies making focused efforts on applying their technologies to non-tech fields, including agriculture, fishing, construction, manufacturing, and many more than.

While the projects may not exist as big, as sexy or as exciting every bit building the coolest new gadgets, the collective potential benefits could prove to exist much greater over time. Whether information technology'southward through simple IoT-based initiatives or other kinds of clever applications of existing or new technologies, the opportunity for the tech industry to help bulldoze the greater adept is very existent. It's also something I hope they accept seriously. Practical technologies that could improve the ingather yields past merely a few percent of not just a few of the richest farms, but of all the smallest farms in the Usa, for example, could have an enormously positive impact on the US economic system, equally well as the general population'south view of the tech manufacture.

Some of these types of efforts are already underway with smaller agro tech firms, but I expect more partnerships or endeavors from bigger firms in 2017.

Bob O'Donnell is the founder and master analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a engineering consulting and market enquiry firm. You tin can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech. This article was originally published on Tech.pinions.