Looking Forward to 2015

Looking Forward to 2015

Happy New Year all! Fresh starts, renewed resolutions, a aim towards a better future all come to mind as we ring in a New Year. 2015 promises to be another exciting year and geeks have quite a lot to look forward to in the new year. There’s plenty to look forward to, which will kick off next week with CES 2015. 2014 saw me upgrading my phone to a G Pro 2, switching to life in the cloud with a Chromebox, tracking my daily walks and sleeps with a Mi Band, and more. Here’s some of the more exciting things lined up for 2015.

Smarter Wearables

2014 was the watershed year for smart watches with the introduction of the first batch of Android Wear watches as well as watches with a bit more stylish flair to them. Kudos to Motorola and LG by pushing the boundaries with a round face watch. I’m definitely looking forward to improved watches in 2015. One definitely to keep a look out is the Moto 360 V2, which is rumoured to launch in early 2015, as Motorola looks to improve on the internals of the Moto 360, having gotten the external design right first time round.

apple-watch

Also, Q1 2015 will see the launch of the Apple Watch. That’s excellent news for smart watches in general. Today, smart watches are becoming more common but still reside in the category as gadgets for technology enthusiasts. Apple is excellent at generating hype in technology (look at what they did for the tablet with the iPad), and I believe the launch of the Apple Watch would bring the consumer focus to smart watches and that can’t be bad for the whole market.

Will Phones Get Bigger?

Apple success with the iPhone 6 Plus showed that big is better. We would definitely expect to see bigger flagship phones from the usual manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC, etc. But how big would sizes go? We have bee surprised with bigger phones each year but I think 2015 will see phone sizes top up at around the 6.4″ mark. The phones are also getting slimmer, which compensates for the size by making it easier to hold somewhat. For those with small hands (and small pockets), there should be more manufacturers offering similar flagship phones with a smaller screen configuration after the popularity of the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.

Hackers will Rule

The end of 2014 was a chilling reminder of cyber security, with the whole Sony / the Interview debacle and hackers DDOS attacks on the Playstation and Xbox gaming network. The extent of the Sony attack demonstrated that cybercriminals are extremely advanced in their methods and capabilities, and extremely capable of large coordinated attacks.

We ourselves are at risk. Use different passwords for different websites. Same passwords are risky as once one site is compromised, your other personal data is at risk too.

Virtual Reality should make it’s Long Awaited Entrance

Occulus Rift cost Facebook $2B. I don’t think they would want it to stay in R&D for long. Google Cardboard sort of introduced virtual reality to the world with their cheap DIY-able VR Kit and with news that Samsung is also readying up their own VR headset, 2015 could be the year when VR makes it grand entrance to the consumer stage.

Star Wars: The Force Awaken

18 Dec 2015. Add it to your calendars if you haven’t. The 7th instalment of the Star Wars series would be released next year. The trailer so far looks decent. It’s unfortunate that they had decided to do away with the entire Expanded Universe but that gives J.J. Abrams freedom in coming up with an all new story line. Hopefully, they don’t screw it up like the prequel trilogy.