2016 will be the year of the 2 letter initialisms*. From the nerd-screen to the mainstream.
VR (Virtual Reality) will be everywhere late March, early April. Aside from the cardboard/DIY versions that use mobile phones, Sony, Oculus and HTC Vive (that name will change) will be the headline leaders.
Sony will be locked to the PS4 and be an adequate experience. The headset will no doubt be hacked by the maker community but aside from directly using it on the PS4 for game it is not on my own radar.
Oculus has broken too many promises to the people that backed it to be trusted anymore. Although their headset will be phenominal, it will cost in the region of $600 US ($300 was the promise) and work only with PCs. And that PC will cost you upwards of $2000.
Originally the Oculus was cheaper and set to run on Mac, Linux, PC and possibly mobile. They have actually partnered with Samsung to produce the latter but it's still a toy. Oculus were happy to take the money of all developers, including myself but announced just a few months ago that us Mac users were being dropped, the hardware needed would be intense and the promise of a non-vomitous experience is still over the horizon.
So my money will be on the HTC 'insert name here'. Everyone who has tried it has said the experience is far better than the Rift, not stomach churning, clearer and features a much more maker friendly, all encompassing target. It will be cheaper, better and run on nearly everything to some degree.
Expect the HTC and Oculus to promise they will deliver some time in March and then fight over each other to get something released in April.
Once VR is truly out of the box, and it will be this year, digital experiences will start to become as memorably as reality. And of course education will have to adapt fast.
On a side note, KAIS will be well prepared. We will be able to make our own pieces, buy them, or a mixture of both. Almost as fast to make as something like the Taskmaster Rocket game, adding a VR helmet is not a big job.
I imagine we will have 2 or 3 helmets this year and, more likely than not, one for every student in 2017.
Oh, both of those sets will have extra bits like devices to stop you running into real walls and hand held tools that can become anything
This following example caught my attention and imagination more than most:
AR (Augmented Reality) will most likely rear its head and hardware closer to the end of the year. There will be many more apps for phones, some of which will hit the mainstream like Angry Birds did for games but the one I'm keeping my eye on is not Google Glass or it's dying children but the Microsoft projects.
Both the HoloLens and the HTC Vive take the users surroundings into account but the way that the former does it is truly amazing. Half reality/half digital; walls become windows (not the OS), tables become playgrounds or factories.
Magic Leap are extremely good at playing the press game and that makes me a little suspicious but as I actually know one of the team members I am hoping they will deliver on their promises. Similar to the Microsoft project in many ways but with a lot more cleverness and attention to the experience thrown in.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) though is what has me most excited this year. It will be everywhere. Technically, it already is with traffic control, bank transactions etc. but 2016 will be the year it truly starts to become disruptive and generally IN YOUR FACE.
First, helpers like Siri and Cortana will be a lot more helpful. Google searching by year end will more that likely be closer to a conversation than a search for words. Personal photographs and videos can be automatically categorised and then searched for by an intelligent agent and truly virtual friends will start to appear.
What has me most intrigued is the simple fact that researching and teaching (sorry!) will start to become automated. That is, an AI will, on request, present you with an original report, chart or even essay on whatever you want it to. This won't be just boring information but a well rounded, seemingly well thought out and thoroughly researched piece. The result can be altered on spoken request. This will happen this year.
Virtual teachers are also an intriguing possibility. At first they will not replace teachers but I cannot speak for the next few years. For now they will be personalised helpers that a child or student can turn to and as for assistance unembarrassed. Explaining complex concepts will start to become automated with a back and forth conversation that will, without losing patience, explain while learning about the student's strengths and weaknesses.
Articles have already been written for established magazines that are totally machine created. Watson and the Chinese AIs are learning at an exponential rate. In 2016 most of this technology has been opened to developers and it's almost impossible to imagine the results, let alone the possibilities.
This year, the fields of law, medicine, education, higher physics and many more will be changed forever. AI will start to make headlines that cannot be avoided, no longer hidden in tech blogs and fun 'end of the news' stories.
And as a local example here in Japan, and one prediction that you can watch happen : that slightly annoying child of a robot PEPPER will change from a baby to a helpful genius. Fully able to understand what you are saying to it, in multiple languages, and do things we couldn't have imagined only a year ago. Any Peppers I've met so far I just wanted to kick, but I'll likely call a truce by year's end and shake its hand.
Within the next few years creating games, stories, animations, product design and so on will be so automated that we will become more like directors. We will supply the ideas and critique and the computer will produce the rest.
And in no time at all, we won't even have to supply the ideas!
These are the main 3 that I'm personally watching this year and don't even get me started on 3D printing, nootropics, anti-ageing, TDCS, wearables, cancer cures, drones, graphene, self driving vehicles, solar, abundance, de-materialisation, convergence....
*Pedantic bit : Acronyms can be pronounced like a word, like NASA. Initialisms cannot, like CIA
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