Predictions: 10 Things That Will Rock the Tech Market in 2015

(Thinkstock)

2014 is essentially over, which means one thing: It’s time to start predicting what will happen in 2015. Will the Apple Watch win the wearables war? Will smart homes ever be smart enough? Is an army of robot drones going to take over the planet and enslave us?

We asked experts to predict what’s likely to happen in the world of tech next year. Here’s what they had to say.

1. Cheap, powerful Chinese phones will flood the United States.
2015 will be the year Chinese smartphone makers move beyond cheap prepaid Android phones for U.S. consumers and become suppliers of high-end handsets, says Avi Greengart, a research director for Current Analysis specializing in consumer devices. Having bought Motorola Mobility from Google, Lenovo is likely to make a big push into the domestic mobile market on the strength of that beloved brand. It will be joined by companies with names like Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, and ZTE that make phones just as functional as their better-known counterparts for about half the price.

The OnePlus One.

Samsung and LG will be forced to up their game, lower their prices, or both, Greengart says. And that’s good news for anyone who doesn’t have his heart set on an Apple phone.

2. Fitness wearables will be everywhere.
And they’ll be dirt cheap. We’ll see a slew of step counters, heart-rate monitors, and sleep trackers that run for six months on a charge and cost less than $50, says tech legend Philippe Kahn, co-founder and CEO of Fullpower, a startup that builds technology platforms for wearable devices.

“Wearables is the hot category for 2015,” he says. “That’s where the explosive growth and excitement are going to be, starting with New Year’s resolutions.”

Read: 2014: The Year in Tech

With razor-thin margins and tons of competition, though, a lot of wearable startups will end up as roadkill before the year is out, Greengart warns. Fitness trackers are likely to follow the path of Bluetooth headsets, where a handful of top brands stand out in a sea of me-too options. The exception: vendors who target pricey fitness trackers at fans of luxury sports like skiing or scuba.

3. The Apple Watch will rule your wrist.
Pricier wearables will be dominated by you-know-who, once its smartwatch appears next spring. That’s in part because of the Apple name, and partly because the Apple Watch is more focused on being a platform for third-party apps than Google Wear devices or Samsung’s Gear watches, says Greengart.

Apple Watch.

That honeymoon won’t last for long, though. In 2015, people will buy the Apple Watch as a status symbol, similar to their first iPhone or iPad. In 2016, smartwatches will need to prove they can do more than count your heartbeats, buzz when you get a text, or tell time, he says.

4. Smart homes will be slightly smarter.
In 2015 our homes will get smarter, just not all at once, says Ross Rubin, chief analyst for Reticle Research. Instead of installing whole-home systems that cost thousands of dollars just so we can turn our lights on and off via the Internet, we’re more likely to adopt single-purpose solutions that do one thing well and work directly with smartphone apps.

More smart devices will adopt low-power Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication protocols, Rubin adds, which should make setup easier on the newer smart house gadgets.

5. Reality will be increasingly virtual.
If we’re going to be strapping geeky eyewear to our faces in 2015, it’s more likely to be a virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift or Sony Morpheus than Google Glass, says Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review. The reason? Virtual reality is a more natural interface for games and other immersive entertainment.

Oculus Rift. (Photo courtesy of Tested)

“No one wanted Google Glass to succeed as a consumer product except for Google itself, the Glass Explorers, and a handful of futurists,” says Pontin. “But there’s a huge gaming community that wants a more natural way to engage with computers and digital entertainment. In 2015, Oculus Rift and Magic Leap will begin to redefine what we mean by computer interfaces. [Flat] screens will be the way we interact with the digital domain when we’re working or reading.”

6. Hackers will go after the little guys.
To say that our increasingly connected lives will get even less secure next year is probably the safest bet you could make. In 2015, hackers will be targeting even more individuals with ransomware attacks — where they take your data hostage and will release it only for a fee, says Robert Siciliano, online security expert for McAfee. We’ll also see more spearfishing, where criminals send fake login requests to specific people in order to gain access to their bank accounts and corporate networks.

As the Internet of Things continues to grow, cyber-crooks will also begin probing these devices for vulnerabilities.

“Connecting more devices means there will be more ways to access a network,” Siciliano says. “We have yet to identify a significant breach as a result of the Internet of Things, but it’s coming.”

7. But there will also be more huge Sony-style hack attacks.
Some security experts have long prophesied a “digital Pearl Harbor,” even while others sneer at the notion. But after the success of the Sony hack, there’s a lot less sneering. A massive attack on our nation’s cyber infrastructure now seems not only possible but inevitable, Pontin says.

(Ed Araquel/Columbia Pictures)

“We know such Pearl Harbor incidents are possible, because the West did it to Iran’s nuclear program with the Stuxnet virus,” he says. “And the Sony hack has now demonstrated there are real benefits to such an attack. You can derail a product release; if you’re an anarchist, you can embarrass an organization. Of course people are going to try to do more of this.”

Or, as McAfee’s Siciliano says, “There will be blood.”

8. Tablets will be cheap and inescapable.
In 2014 we saw a number of tablets targeted at specific audiences, like the Kurio tablets for elementary school kids or the AARP’s RealPad for the elderly set. As the price of touchscreens drops even further, we can expect to find tablets deployed all over our homes, says Rob Enderle, founder of The Enderle Group.

“Using a tablet for a light controller, thermostat, remote control, or other single function will become much more viable,” he says. “They’ll become universal displays that do completely different things, depending on our needs. That will change many of the devices we touch each day.”

9. Armies of robots will descend upon us.
We’ve already seen an explosion in the use of drones; 2015 is likely to see an increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, despite what the Federal Aviation Administration has to say about it. In fact we may be on the cusp of a robotic revolution that rivals the personal revolution of 30 years ago, Enderle says. The result: More machines doing work we puny humans used to do in our homes, in our cars, and on the factory floor.

(Thinkstock)

“I think we are seeing another PC-like event that could obsolete how we interface with computers,” Enderle says. “I also think people will be shocked when they realize how many jobs could be made obsolete by these systems. The real social impact of this wave won’t happen until after the end of the decade, but we will likely see the potential for this starting next year.”

10. The tech bubble will burst … or not.
“This is the year the bubble will pop,” asserts Dan Lyons, newly minted editor of Valleywag. Lyons adds that he’s also predicted the tech bubble will burst in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Eventually, though, he has to be right.

Venture capitalist Dave McClure, partner at 500 Startups, disagrees — at least in terms of the location of said bubble.

“I don’t think anything in Silicon Valley is going to pop — at least not from tech-related events,” McClure says. “Who knows what the hell happens after North Korean hackers go to war on movie comedies. If there is a bubble going on anywhere, it’s probably in China. Right now Alibaba is making China tech investors party like it’s 1999. That music will eventually stop and folks will have to find a chair, probably some time in the next 12 to 24 months.”

Send holiday greetings and spiked eggnog to Dan Tynan at ModFamily1@yahoo.com.