These are 5 tech trends that we are going to see more of this year

2019 has only just begun, it is high time to take stock. Technical development is very fast and everything around us is getting smarter and smarter. But what technological developments are really relevant this year? We’ve set up a top five.

Trend 1: the arrival of 5G

4G needs to be replaced and its successor 5G will be faster, more reliable, more stable and able to handle a higher data volume per area. The development of today’s smartphones is no longer going as fast as, say, three years ago, which means that the phones are becoming cheaper and cheaper. Take as an example the new Huawei P20 Lite at Telfort. With the development of the new 5G network it is possible that the development of the phones gets new impulses. There has been talk for a long time about the rise of 5G, but as yet it is unknown when we can use 5G in the Netherlands. However, manufacturers, including HTC, LG, Huawei and Nokia, are expected to introduce the first 5G phones next year. There are even rumours about foldable specimens.

Trend 2: chatbots get better

More and more people have Google Home At home and with a recent update, the speech assistant also supports the Dutch language. Progress will also be made in the area of chatbots, which may result in the loss of certain jobs. Order your fast food, apply for a loan or hire staff. The possibilities are endless. It is expected that 40% of the large companies will support chatbots by 2019.

Trend 3: augmented reality instead of virtual reality

The number of applications for virtual reality is increasing, but the technology has not yet been fully developed. It’s a cool technology now, but that’s all it is. The slightly less attractive brother augmented reality, in which a digital layer is laid over reality, will probably continue to develop in 2019.

Will the development of virtual reality come to a standstill next year? We certainly don’t expect that. A great deal of work is being done to ensure that, for example, the current VR glasses from interesting updates including an eye tracker. The glasses will not only register your head movements, but also the movements of your eyes. This makes virtual reality even more realistic and possibly more widely deployable, for example in education or healthcare. An exciting tech trend in 2019.

Trend 4: Next phase of wireless charging

You can now use your smartphone wireless chargingbut this is not yet a widely accepted phenomenon. It is likely that next year more users will be able to charge their phones wirelessly, but the technology behind it will also improve considerably. How about charging your electric car wirelessly? There are also companies that are already experimenting with radio waves, with which you can charge all kinds of devices within a radius of a few meters. Everything can be charged as long as the device has a radio station.

Trend 5: cyber security

2018 has been a very interesting year because of the General Data Protection Regulation, but we are not there yet. Viruses are becoming more and more persistent, so even better security systems are needed. An interesting trend for 2019 in the field of cyber security is therefore Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). Without using difficult terminology, EDR means that it detects unwanted activities that are usually not detected by your virus scanner. Not necessarily to prevent an attack, as your virus scanners do, but to respond as quickly as possible to a digital intrusion. A more targeted search for suspicious processes or new malware can be carried out.