Top 10 Most Advanced Technology Coming In 2018 - Gear Up^

From self-driving cars and rescue drones to advanced A.I. and blockchain, there are many emerging technologies worth getting excited about. Hey everyone, welcome to Gear Up, the WatchMojo series that looks at the latest in gadgets, gear and games. I’m Marc Saltzman, and in this video, I’ll tell you 10 of the most advanced tech making its debut in 2018, or shortly thereafter. Not listed in any order… 1. Truly smart homes Millions of smart home devices are flying off store shelves these days – like Wi-Fi thermostats and smart lighting to video doorbells and remote cameras – and builders are now starting to add this tech while designing and building new homes. That is, aftermarket DIY products will continue to grow – including ones voice-controlled through Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri – but new builds in 2018 includes Bluetooth-enabled deadbolts, smart appliances, room occupancy sensors and much more. The second groundbreaking technology in 2018 so far… 2. CG that looks real Unveiled at the recent Game Developers Conference, or GDC, “Siren” is a digital woman who looks so real you can no longer tell the difference between a human and a computer-generated model. What makes this even more remarkable is the fact Siren was created in real-time using motion capture technology, where an actress in a special suit is doing all the heavy lifting but live-streamed onto screens and appearing as Siren. Epic Games, along with partners like Vicon and Cubic Motion, suggest this isn’t just for video games but we could have virtual celebrities staring in films. 3. Standalone VR headsets On a related note, 2018 has seen the introduction of the first standalone virtual reality headsets. Instead of cables coming out of the back of the VR headset and plugged into a PC or PlayStation, a standalone or self-contained VR headset, like the new Oculus Go or upcoming Lenovo Mirage Solo doesn’t need a computer, video game console or smartphone snapped into the front. Instead, download content over Wi-Fi to the local storage to experience VR – untethered. Expect this technology to only get better and better over time. 4. Advancements in 3-D printing While 3-D printing has been around for a while, they’re getting much faster, with more colours and support for more materials. So forget about hobbyists spending an hour to create a chess piece made out of ABS plastic, like Lego, but in 2018 there are metal 3-D printers that can, for example, print car parts. Or larger printers that build homes or machines that build bridges over rivers and ponds. “Rapid Liquid Printing” is also a new take on 3-D printing as instead of being limited to building layers of material, these new printers draws objects in a kind of gel, and is then removed. Number 5 most advanced technology in 2018? 5. Smarter robots! Whether you’re talking about dog-like surveillance robots from Boston Dynamics – that can even find its way out of a room – as it will protect businesses by roaming the premises – or human-looking robots like Sophia from Hanson Robotics that have realistic facial reactions, a natural voice and artificial intelligence, 2018 is also off to a great start. And then there’s Sony’s digital pet, Aibo, now available in Japan, and advanced surgical robots making a foray into the medical industry that are designed to perform high-end surgical procedures with precision. Keep your eye on robotics as this is going to be a very big deal in no time. 6. Space tourism While it might sound like science fiction, a few big companies are working on space tourism – that is, privatized trips to space – as early as late 2018. Companies like Virgin Galactic from Sir Richard Branson, Space X from Elon Musk, and Blue Origin from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, are all determined to bring space tourism to those who want to experience true weightlessness and a breathtaking view of our planet at roughly 70 miles above the Earth. We’re not talking about trips to the International Space Station (ISS) or the moon or Mars anytime soon, but seeing our world’s curvature could very well be on your bucket list. Prices and timelines vary by company, but expect to pay a few hundred thousand for this thrill ride. You know, pocket change. 7. Babelfish earbuds Anyone ever read the book or see the cult classic film, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? You may recall you can slide a yellow Babel fish into your ear to get language translations in an instant. In 2018 though, one of the more underrated technologies – which is similar to Babelfish – is Google’s Pixel Buds. These earbuds work with its Pixel smartphones and Google Translate app to produce practically real-time translation. One person wears the earbuds, while the other holds a phone. The earbud wearer speaks in his or her language—English is the default—and the app translates the talking and plays it aloud on the phone. The person holding the phone responds; this response is translated and played through the earbuds. Super cool. 8. Blockchain An overused yet often misunderstood term, blockchain is a type of “distributed ledger,” in which value exchange transactions – a la Bitcoin or other digital tokens -- are sequentially grouped into blocks; as the name suggests, each block is chained to the previous block, and distributed across a network, using a trusted cryptographic mechanism. This disruptive technology may be hyped most by the financial services industry looking for a more efficient global digital economy, but promises to transform many other industries including health care, commerce, digital entertainment distribution, communications, personal identity verification, and more. 9. Autonomous vehicles We’ve been reading about this tech for many years and seen some examples of it, like Tesla’s Auto Pilot or Cadillac’s Super Cruise, but it’s poised to take off in a big way. Also referred to as “driverless cars” or “self-driving cars,” these autonomous vehicles can sense their environment and navigate around obstacles, obey traffic laws and reach a preselected destination – all thanks to cameras, sensors, lidar, radar, GPS, and more. All the big car companies are testing autonomous cars, and with many tech journalists like yours truly, sitting behind the wheel of them in 2018, as a taste of what’s the come once the technology is perfected and the laws are in place. And the no. 10 awesome tech to be excited about in 2018…Internet of Things or IoT: 10. Simply exploding in 2018, IoT devices are everywhere. We’re talking millions and soon, billions, of devices, big and small, that all talk together in some way, shape or form. Connected IoT devices do not run as separate entities, but rather they’re a diverse group of interconnected “things” that transmit and/or receive information from other devices over some kind of wireless technology. All of these devices “on the grid” can communicate without human input – that is, handled via M2M (or “machine-to-machine”) connectivity -- like your smart home automatically opening the garage for you when it senses you’re pulling onto the street. Alternatively, a person can initiate the connection, such as manually adjusting the temperature of your home via your car’s dashboard. Everything will be connected, and that’s IoT. Hey, thanks for watching Gear Up; I'm Marc Saltzman. Let us know in the comments section what you’d like to see more of going forward on Gear Up. And for more tech-tastic lists, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com. Ciao for now.