It’s that time of year again to look back at last year’s projections and what we see on the horizon for 2017.
Evolution in wearables
Last year, we anticipated a shakeout in the startups pursuing wearable consumer products. Indeed, the market in the consumer and amateur sports world is consolidating, and the expected major players in the space seem to have reduced the opportunities for innovative startups. In 2016, we saw the arrival of incrementally improved — but not groundbreaking — new products from expected, traditional players like Garmin, Fitbit, Apple, Samsung, and Polar.
We see two trends emerging in 2017. The first is higher-accuracy monitoring systems targeted at the medical and professional sports segments. The second is the integration of numerous body-mounted sensors that enable more-accurate monitoring at optimized sensor points, not just on the wrist. These systems are not just providing direct feedback to the wearer but also to other “advisors” in the users’ networks. In the case of sports, it is real-time feedback to coaches and trainers. In the healthcare fields, it is to data to help medical professionals and paraprofessionals get in front of dangerous medical conditions.
In 2017 and beyond, look for the analytics to enable anticipation of dangerous healthcare conditions or predictive information for driving enhanced sports performance and injury avoidance. At the risk of throwing around buzzwords, this is a front end to artificial intelligence.
Rapid expansion of New York City as tech startup hub
Indeed in 2016, the growth of New York City as a vibrant tech hub continued. Talent flowed into New York City but is rapidly being absorbed into startups and established tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Demand for talent remains very high. New tech company incubators continue to sprout, including a very interesting new facility opened in the Brooklyn Navy Yard called New Lab. Check them out.
In 2017, we expect the tech business segment to continue growing in New York. However, difficulty finding and retaining talent will remain an issue and could stall growth. New York City is one of the most expensive places in the world to live, and this is a challenge for both young and experienced technologists. All this being said, the buzz continues and, for the right opportunities, there is equity investment available. Surprisingly for New York, both state and local government actually seem to be helping support and foster growth in the tech segment.
IoT proliferation
As anticipated last year, IoT is proliferating in the consumer markets. There has been some fallout in products where the value proposition has not proven sufficient to entice large-scale consumer backing. Innovation will continue into 2017 and beyond but, as with any product, value to the consumer needs to be proven to move beyond the early adopters and techie fans.
In 2017 and beyond, expect to see IoT reaching out more broadly than the consumer space. It is having a major impact on numerous commercial markets including healthcare, infrastructure management, and management of major plants and equipment.
Shakeout in drone tech
One sign of the anticipated shakeout in drone technology for consumers is the commoditization of such products. A quick search on Amazon will yield hundreds of results of inexpensive and functional consumer-oriented products. The legal challenges in the consumer space do not seem to have throttled growth (i.e. spying on neighbors, infringing in airport air space, etc.), but the novelty does seem to be wearing off. It remains to be seen whether or not the consumer use of drones is sustainable or just an interesting novelty whose interest will fade.
In 2016 and continuing into 2017, the commercial and military uses of drones is substantial and will continue to grow. While the use of drones in any widespread way for package delivery will remain just a vision, drones are being used in many more application-specific uses. Drones are being deployed and developed with a wider array of task-specific sensors, not just cameras. Expect this trend to continue.
Expansion of smart systems
As expected, the proliferation of sensing technology into our general environment continues. While it is well-known that camera data is being used to track individuals for security purposes, it is moving into spaces of commercial usage. A recent embodiment is the announcement of Amazon Stores. Through cell phone check-ins and widely deployed sensors in stores, Amazon is able to have the consumer simply select the items they want to buy and leave the store. The sensors provide the data to backend intelligence (i.e. artificial intelligence), which automatically knows what the consumer has taken, and customers’ accounts are billed for the merchandise.
For 2017, expect to see more experiments along the lines of Amazon’s trial. Additionally, expect to see similar smart systems applying early stage AI to enable new applications based on your location, where you look, and what you touch.
IoT security
In 2016, a hot news story was the hacking of IoT camera devices as a vehicle to for a Domain Name System cyber attack that caused issues for all kinds of internet sites. The hack flooded DNS provider Dyn with video data. In 2017, it is obvious that countermeasures will need to be deployed into IoT appliances. Expect to see the integration of security layers and encryption into IoT devices to make “back-door” entry into networks or data corruption from proliferating on the internet. Now, if we could only find a way to insure fictional news is screened from the internet, that would be something.
Not unexpectedly, the future promises a plethora of new and exciting technologies. Some of these are going to improve our engagement with brands and products. Others, like those enhancing our health monitoring combined with artificial intelligence, promise to improve and extend our lives.
