Technology will invade our lives in 2022
By Brian X. Chen, The New York Times Company
Each year, I review what’s new in consumer technology to guide you through what you can expect to buy — and what will most likely go out of style.
Many of the same “trends” appear over and over again because, to put it simply, technology takes a long time to mature before most of us actually want to buy it. That also applies this year. Some of the trends for 2022 that tech companies are driving are ones you’ve heard of.
A prime example is virtual reality, a technology that involves putting on a goofy-looking headdress and spinning around a controller to play a 3D game. That is expected to return to the center this year, dubbed the “metaverse” by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other tech experts.
Another vibrant category would be the so-called smart home, the technology of controlling home appliances by giving voice commands to a speaker or tapping a button on a smartphone. The truth is, the tech industry has been trying to push this kind of technology into our homes for over a decade. This year, these products may finally start to feel practical to own.
Another repeating technology on this list is a digital health device that tracks our physical activity and helps us diagnose possible diseases. And automakers, which have long talked about electric cars, are beginning to accelerate their plans to meet a nationwide goal of phasing out production of gas-powered cars nationwide by 2020. 2030.
Here are four technology trends that will invade our lives this year.
1. Welcome to the metaverse.
For more than a decade, technologists have dreamed of an era where our virtual lives play as important a role as our physical reality. In theory, we would spend a lot of time interacting with our friends and colleagues in cyberspace, and as a result we would also spend money there to buy costumes and things for our technical avatars. our digital.
“We are in a world where people are sending out a few times a day an image that reflects themselves,” said Matthew Ball, a venture capitalist who has written extensively on the metaverse. “The next stage takes that representation of the image and resizes it. You go into an environment and express yourself through the avatar”.
That sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. But during Year 2 of the pandemic, a series of key elements came together to make the metaverse more realistic, Ball said.
For one, technology has gotten better. Last year, Facebook announced that it was changing its name to Meta after shipping 10 million units of its virtual reality headset, the Quest 2, which is an important milestone.
For another, many of us are willing to splurge on our digital selves. A group of investors purchased NFTs, or unusable tokens, which are unique digital objects purchased with cryptocurrency. Eminem and other celebrities have even invested in virtual yachts hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Much more to come this year. Apple plans to unveil a version of its virtual reality headset, which looks like a pair of ski goggles and, for computing power, relies on a separate computing device worn elsewhere on the body. body. Apple declined to comment.
Google has also been developing virtual reality products for years, and Microsoft has provided virtual reality headsets to businesses and government agencies.
Metaverse can still become a fad, depending on what products emerge and who buys them. Carolina Milanesi, a consumer technology analyst with consulting firm Creative Strategies, said she worries it could become a reflection of a privileged few who can afford to treat themselves carefully. their digital.
“The boating market is dominated by middle-aged white upper-class men,” she said. “Should we move all of that into the metaverse?”
2. Smart home.
Over the past few years, smart home products like internet-connected thermostats, door locks, and robotic vacuums have made great strides. Devices become affordable and work reliably with digital assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri.
However, much of the smart home remains chaotic. Many smart home products don’t work well with other technology. For example, some door locks only work with Apple phones, not Android; some thermostats are controlled by talking to the Google Assistant, not Siri.
The lack of compatibility created lasting problems. Apple-compatible keys are not useful for family members or future renters who are Android-compatible. It would be more convenient one day if the appliances in our homes could actually talk to each other, like a washing machine telling a dryer that a large volume is ready to be dried.
This year, the tech industry’s biggest rivals – Apple, Samsung, Google and Amazon – are playing well to make the smart home more practical. They plan to release and update home technology to work with Matter, a new standard that allows smart devices in the home to talk to each other, regardless of virtual assistant or phone brand. More than 100 smart home products are expected to follow this standard.
“We all speak a common language built on proven technologies,” said Samantha Osborne, vice president of marketing for SmartThings, the home automation company owned by Samsung.
This means that later this year, when you buy a product like an automatic door lock, look for a label that says the device is Matter compatible. Then, in the future, your smart alarm clock could command your smart lights to turn on when you wake up.
3. Connected health.
Fitness gadgets like the Apple Watch and Fitbit, which help us track our movements and heart rate, continue to become more popular. So tech companies are experimenting this year with smaller wearables to collect more insightful data about our health.
Oura, a health technology company, recently introduced a new model of its Oura Ring, which has built-in sensors that monitor metrics including body temperature to accurately predict menstrual cycles. This week, at CES, a technology trade show in Las Vegas, Movano, another health tech startup, unveiled a similar bracelet that combines heart rate, temperature, and other data. Another means of informing wearers of potential chronic illnesses.
Medical experts have long warned about the potential consequences of medical technology. Without the right context, data can be used to misdiagnose diseases and turn people into hypocrites. But if widely available rapid COVID test kits are any measure, many of us seem poised to proactively monitor our health.
4. Electric vehicle.
Last year, President Joe Biden announced an ambitious goal: Half of all cars sold in the US will be electric rather than gas powered by 2030.
In response, major automakers are hyping their electric cars, including at CES this week. On Tuesday, Ford announced plans to ramp up production of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. This weekend, General Motors plans to unveil a battery-powered version of its Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. Other automakers, like Mercedes-Benz, have shared their plans to release electric cars in the coming years.
“Despite a lot of hype about electric cars, those of us looking for battery-powered vehicles this year will likely still grab Tesla’s attention,” Milanesi said. That’s because we have yet to see widespread deployment of solar power and charging stations for electric cars, especially in rural areas. Tesla is off to a good start because it’s been rolling out charging stations for years, she said.
“From an infrastructure perspective there is a lot that needs to happen,” she said. “So it’s a lot of talk, but I don’t know how much is real.”
This article originally appeared in New York Times.
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/01/14/the-tech-that-will-invade-our-lives-in-2022/ Technology will invade our lives in 2022
