Another new 12 months means another endless volley of prediction articles for the periods ahead. While sidestepping proclamations that Crocs will find their house in high fashion, chocolate will become a breakfast software program and the University of Alabama will win the 2017 college or university playoffs — forecasts that are terrible, delightful and already proven wrong, respectively — we have gathered four trends for technology leaders to keep their eyes on as the year progresses.

Electronic and Augmented Reality

Since in 2016, virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are making appearances on lists across the internet. One popular take this time around is that augmented reality will move from an afterthought to more of a leading role.

Though he do say that it would take AR a while to reach “mass ownership, ” Apple CEO Harry Cook told an audience in September that increased reality will engage more people than virtual actuality because it won’t require users, who are “social people at heart, inch to interact with one another in enclosed headphones.

“I do feel that a significant portion of the citizenry of developed countries, and ultimately all countries, will have AR experience every day, almost like eating 3 meals a day. This will become much a part of you, inch Cook told a -panel audience at the Ut Tech Tour.

“AR via cellular phone will be big in 2017, ” had written Promod Haque and Matt Howard at Fortune. “While we’ll see the first year of quality VR through new hardware like PlayStation VR and Ouverture, the reach and applications will be highly limited. Conversely, AR will see start of widespread usage. There are currently 4. 6 billion mobile mobile phone users worldwide and that number is likely to keep growing. AR-powered cameras on mobile phones will power applications such as image blocking, map making, virtual tours and more. inches

Tim Bajarin, writing for Time, said that, though “VR is the hot tech product at the moment, very well AR is often more important in the near future and predicted that “we will see the first technology of mixed reality consumer glasses that contain both AREAL and VR apps, although AR would be the predominant solution in this generation of consumer devices. “

The Internet of Points

Once again, as last year, the world wide web of Things (IoT) is popping up on technical predictions lists like FitBits on wrists at the gym in 2016. This kind of year, though, the forecasts are mixed, with some fortune tellers seeing the death of IoT in their crystal balls.

Take on John C. Dvorak, writing at PC Magazine, for example, in which this individual told readers that IoT “has been ‘the latest thing’ for the previous few years and may even become the hot ticket for 2017. I sure wish it is, so I actually can discover what good it is. I are unable to see it creeping too much into everyday life because we already have too many ‘things’ that are not compatible. Presently there is no way to create a strategy to integrate legacy toasters, for example. In the world of industry, high-end smart homes plus some other niche market segments, it could have an impact eventually. “

Klint Finley boldly forecasted in Wired’s roundup of staff estimations that “the Internet of Things will die, inch calling IoT a “made-up term” and citing high-quality security incidents involving internet-connects things as heralds of the nascent field’s arriving demise.

“The Internet of Things — or whatever you want to call it — has the probability of save important resources, spot and battle pollution that help people lead healthier, safer lives, ” Finley wrote. “But adding internet remote device to every single product on the marketplace won’t necessarily help us get there. What we need are careful, affordable, durable devices that actually, y’know, make lifestyle better. A new name, and a renewed sense of purpose, could be precisely what the Internet of Things needs. “

Certainly not all tech forecasters are calling the future depressing for the Internet of Things, however. Gartner’s Daryl Plummer, writing for Forbes, predicted that IoT will increase data storage demand by 3 percent by 2020 and “will save consumers and businesses $1 trillion a year in maintenance, services and consumables. “

Artificial Intelligence

Dvorak noted that artificial cleverness is a perennial inhabitant of tech prediction email lists, writing, “One cannot help but add this quasi-technology to this list. That appeared last year, and I think in 2015. Also in 1980, 81 and a slew of years in between. The way My answer is it, artificial intelligence is the technology of the future and will be. “

At Fortune, Shaun John Roberts wrote that “artificial intelligence is the real deal” and contended that AI is one of the rare areas that justifies the never ending hype of the technology industry.

“AI has already been displaying its awesome potential in tools like Google Change or Amazon’s home helper, Alexa, and its electric power is being tapped for many techniques from driverless cars to medical research, ” Roberts wrote. “Look for AJAI to be the main genuine technology story of 2017. inch

Gartner is also bullish on AI, with you’re able to send VP David Cearley calling “intelligent” one of three themes at the basis of the business’s strategic tech trends for the year.

“AI and machine learning reach a critical tipping point and definitely will increasingly augment and expand almost every technology allowed service, thing or software, ” wrote Kasey Panetta at the tech industry analyst’s site. Creating brilliant systems that learn, adjust and potentially act autonomously rather than simply do predefined instructions is main battleground for technology distributors through at least 2020. inches.No fewer than three of the top 10 trends for the year highlighted in that particular forecast include the word “intelligence. “

Pertaining to more insight to the specifics of how AJAI might advance in 2017, visit MIT’s Technology Assessment, where Will Knight has put together a collection of five predictions for the field, from dueling neural networks to the likelihood of China’s breakthrough as a major player