The Top 7 Technology Trends That Will Dominate 2014

1. Consumers will come to expect Smart TV capabilities
With Smart TV shipments expected to reach 123 million in 2014 – up from about 84 million in 2012 – we are poised to see explosive growth in this industry.

In the midst of this growth, we will continue to see fierce competition between major players like Samsung, Panasonic, and LG. Prices will need to continue to drop, as more consumers crave, and even expect, the ability to use Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video and their web browser via their TV.

Of course, the development we’re all waiting for in 2014 is the release of Apple’s much anticipated iTV. It appears the iTV is now in the early development stage, and that Apple may be in the process of making a deal with Time Warner to facilitate programming on Apple devices.

The device is rumoured to include iCloud sync, the ability to control your iPhone, and ultra HD LCD panels. Keep an eye out for this release as early as summer 2014.

2. Smart watches will become ‘smarter’

Rather than having to pull out your smartphone or tablet for frequent email, text and social media updates, you’ll glance at your watch.

2014 is the year to keep an eye out for the Google watch. Rumor has it the device will integrate withGoogle Now, which aims to seamlessly provide relevant information when and where you want it (and before you’d asked for it).

We’ll see smart watches become even smarter, learning what news and updates are important to us, when we want to receive them, and responding more accurately to voice controls.

For smart watches to succeed, they’ll need to offer us something that our smart phone can’t; whether this means more intuitive notifications, or the ability to learn from our daily activities and behaviours (for instance, heart rate monitoring), it will be interesting to see.

3. Google Glass will still be in “wait and see” mode

While Google Glass hasn’t yet been released to the general public, we’ve heard enough about it to know it’s still very early days for this technology. With an estimated 60,000 units expected to sell in 2013, and a predicted several million in 2014, it’s still a long way from becoming a common household technology.

These augmented reality glasses allow you to access information like email and texts, take hands-free pictures and videos, effortlessly translate your voice, and even receive overlaid walking, cycling or driving directions, right within your field of vision.

It’s predicted that both Google Glass 2.0, and its companion, the Glass App Store, should be released to the general public sometime in 2014.

Be on the lookout for competition in this market, particularly from major players like Samsung. I predict we’ll see much of this competition aimed at niche markets like sports and healthcare.

4. Other applications and uses for Apple’s TouchID will emerge

The release of the iPhone 5S has, for the first time, made on-the-go fingerprint security a reality. The potential for Touch ID technology to really take off is, I believe, an inevitable reality. Touch ID, which uses a high-resolution camera to scan your fingerprint, allows convenient ultra-security for your iPhone.

Currently, the technology is limited; the only real uses are unlocking your iPhone, and making purchases in the App store. I predict that we’ll see this technology incorporated into other Apple products soon. I think we’ll even see TouchId integrated into MacBook products later this year or next.

I also predict TouchID, though not quite bug-free, will be used for other purposes, such as to securely integrate with home security systems, access password software, and even pay for groceries (more on that in an upcoming article).

5. Xbox One and PS4 will blur the lines between entertainment and video gaming

The new gaming consoles (Xbox One and PS4) will increasingly integrate social media-like connectivity between players. Players could have followers, work together to achieve in-game goals, and new technology will allow for equally-skilled players to compete.

The PS4, slated to be released November 15th, will track both the controller and the player’s face and movements for more intuitive play.

Apart from great gaming, these systems will allow for a far more integrative entertainment experience. For instance, rather than switching between TV, gaming, music and sports, you’ll be able to do two or even three activities side-by-side, or by easily switching back and forth.

6. 3D Printing will begin to revolutionize production

We’ve seen a huge rise in the popularity of 3D printing this year, coupled with a dramatic fall in pricing. The ability to easily create multi-layered products that are actually usable – well, that’s pretty amazing.

I’ll be watching for a movement towards simple products being produced close to home, and to greater customization given the ease of manufacturing. I think it’s inevitable that manufacturing in countries such as China will become less appealing and lucrative for businesses given the high costs of shipping and managing overseas contracts.

I don’t expect these changes to reach their full effect in 2014, however I believe businesses will be starting to consider how this will affect their production plans for 2015 and beyond.

7. The movement towards natural language search will make search more accurate and intuitive

There was a time when we used terms like “personal digital assistant” to describe a hand-held calendar. Oh, how times have changed.

With the emergence of intelligent personal assistants like Google Now and Apple’s Siri, the goal is to have information intuitively delivered to you, often before you even ask for it. The shift seems to be away from having to actively request data, and instead to have it passively delivered to your device.

Natural language search will continue to overtake keyword-based search, as seen by Google’s move towards longer, more natural searches in its recent release of Hummingbird, Google’s largest algorithm update thus far.

Quest for pollution-free fusion energy takes major step

The decades-long quest to develop a pollution-free energy source via nuclear fusion — the power source of the sun and other stars — has taken what scientists say is a major step forward.

For the first time, a study Wednesday reports, a laboratory experiment got more energy out of fusion than was put into the fuel that sparked the reaction. It fell short, though, of what's considered the holy grail of fusion: "ignition" — the point at which more energy is produced than was used throughout the process.

"We're closer than anyone's gotten before," says Omar Hurricane, a physicist at the federally funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and lead author of the study that appears in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. "It does show there's promise."

Hurricane says he doesn't know how long it will take to make fusion a viable energy source.. "Picture yourself halfway up a mountain, but the mountain is covered in clouds," he told reporters, adding the climber doesn't know what's behind him and the peak.

"This isn't like building a bridge," he says in an interview. "This is an exceedingly hard problem. You're basically trying to produce a star, on a small scale, here on Earth." Nuclear fusion, a process that heats the sun, produces energy when atomic nuclei fuse and form a heavier atom. It's different from nuclear fission, which derives heat used at today's nuclear power plants by splitting atoms.

Scientists have long pursued fusion energy, because it does not emit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming or leave behind radioactive waste that needs to be stored. Since the late 1940s, researchers have used magnetic fields to contain super-heated hydrogen fuel, and in the 1970s, they began experimenting with powerful lasers.

Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility, which opened in March 2009, has 192 laser beams housed in a 10-story building the size of three football fields. The beams can focus extreme amounts of energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses on a minuscule target.

Hurricane's team used these 192 lasers to heat and compress a small pellet of fuel, contained in a plastic capsule, to a point that fusion reactions occurred. Some of the energy created went back into the remaining fuel in a "bootstrapping" process that can boost output.

Hurricane says the energy produced was twice the amount that was put into the capsule's fuel but only about 1% of that delivered by the lasers to the target to get the process started.

Co-author Debbie Callahan says the capsule had to be compressed 35 times to trigger a reaction — akin to compressing a basketball to the size of a pea. Other study co-authors include 19 additional Livermore physicists (four of whom are women) and John Kline of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"These results are still a long way from ignition, but they represent a significant step forward in fusion research," says Mark Herrmann of the Sandia National Laboratories' Pulsed Power Sciences Center in an accompanying Nature article. "Achieving pressures this large, even for vanishingly short times, is no easy task."

Steve Cowley, who's working with magnets as director of the United Kingdom's Culham Center for Fusion Energy, said the paper is "truly excellent" for addressing the core problem of instability. "By pushing (the lasers) in a softer manner ... they get a nearly stable compression," he says.

"We have waited 60 years to get close to controlled fusion," he says, adding scientists are "now close" with both magnets and lasers. "We must keep at it."

The First Mind-Controlled Bionic Leg Steps Into Reality

A team of scientists are getting closer to the holy grail of brain-powered prosthetics by developing the first advanced-movement prosthetic leg that communicates with the wearer’s mind.

Zac Vawter, 31, lost his leg just above the knee in a 2009 motorcycle accident. But today he’s the “test pilot” for the first bionic leg that can complete tasks like going up stairs or down slopes, all controlled by Vawter’s mind. A study announcing the progress of the limb is published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The leg is the brainchild of a collaborative group of engineers, neuroscientists, surgeons, and prosthetists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, funded with a $8-million grant from the Army. Similar technology has been used in the past for arm prosthetics, but this is the first prosthetic leg to communicate with the wearer’s mind. All Vawter has to do is imagine his toes curling or the gait of walking down the stairs, and the leg puts his thoughts into motion.

The prosthetic limb uses sensors that rely on what are called reinnervated nerves, which are nerves that were formerly used to control Vawter’s leg muscles, but are surgically rewired to control his limb. The prosthetic reads the contractions from the muscles and nerves and makes the necessary movements in the knee and ankle joints that are part of the leg.

Vawter told Bloomberg in an interview, “In my mind, it’s still the same thing in terms of moving my ankle down or up, or extending my leg forward or back. It’s just walk like I would normally walk. It’s not special training or buttons or tricks. That’s a big piece of what I think is groundbreaking and phenomenal about this work.”

Innovation in prosthetics is growing. Prosthetic limbs are no longer simply walking sticks that provide balance. There are more and more robotic limbs that move in ways that feel and look natural to wearers. For instance, Dr. Hugh Herr, Director of Biomechatronics at MIT and Founder and Chief Technology Officer of the prosthetic brand iWalk, has perfected the robotics in his company’s prosthetic limbs to replicate the calf muscles and Achilles tendon, which provide a push-off that helps propel the user and normalize their gait.

But don’t expect this new leg to be efore the new limb can be made available for people who need it, researchers say it still needs to be refined. Currently, Vawter only wears the leg for one week every couple of months when he visits the researchers in Chicago. California company Freedom Innovations LLC is also working to make the machine quieter and smaller.

10 Futurist Predictions in the World of Technology

Futurists can dish out some exciting and downright scary visions for the future of machines and science that either enhance or replace activities and products near and dear to us. Being beamed from one location to another by teleportation was supposed to be right around the corner/in our lifetime/just decades away, but it hasn't become possible yet. Inventions like the VCR that were once high tech -- and now aren't -- proved challenging for some: The VCR became obsolete before many of us learned how to program one. And who knew that working with atoms and molecules would become the future of technology? The futurists, of course. Forecasting the future of technology is for dreamers who hope to innovate better tools -- and for the mainstream people who hope to benefit from the new and improved. Many inventions are born in the lab and never make it into the consumer market, while others evolve beyond the pace of putting good regulations on their use. Next, we'll take a look at some sound-loving atoms, tiny tools for molecules, huge bunches of data and some disgruntled bands of people who may want to set all of this innovation back with the stroke of a keyboard.