Consumer Electronics Trends to Watch for in 2018

The last week of December is a great time to reflect on the year that was, and to look ahead to the new year. As the calendar turns, new technologies and innovations are among our favorite things to watch for. So, we talked with a few of our technical experts about which trends in consumer electronics they see coming up on the horizon in 2018.

Products that are increasingly talkative.

IEEE Member George K. Thiruvathukal, Professor of Computer Science at Loyola University Chicago: “I expect to see a continued uptick in the use of natural language processing. The technology is really coming of age. Not only are we getting better at recognizing language, but speech synthesis has made substantial inroads.”

Thus far, phones and speakers have been the flagship applications of natural language processing. But that same advanced technology will start to crop up in lots of products, from cars and TVs to appliances and healthcare devices.

Devices that more fully integrate with our daily lives.

According to IEEE Senior Member Artur Ziviani, Professional Senior Technologist, “In the next few years we will see an increasing number of applications and devices based on data analytics and machine learning that should also work in a more integrated form to ease many of our daily tasks.”

Smart applications and devices are generating an increasing amount of personal data related to our tastes, preferences, habits, and behavior. This will allow them to operate in less intrusive yet more effective ways.