Software development is a fast-paced field of study where there are continuous innovations. Most developers are more concerned about trends that affect multiple industries and stick around for a long time, adding to the quality of life, than trends that come and go. The following trends however are here to stay and are the areas in which we can expect a boom in innovation in 2018.

Augmented Realities

Augmented Reality is one of the biggest reason behind the success of Pokémon go. Since its release in July 6 2016, it has more than 752 million downloads. There are still millions of active players interacting with the digital Pokémon’s in the real world.

Soon after, IKEA released an app, IKEA Place, where with the help of Augmented Reality people can take pictures of their room and “place” a furniture in the room. This feature helps them decide exactly what furniture would look best in the space they have.

With these and all other apps like Ink Hunter (which lets you place realistic tattoos on your body to see what a certain tattoo would look like) and Holo (which lets you put characters in your surrounding and manipulate them how you want to), we can expect a lot more of Augmented Reality integrated into mobile apps.

BlockChain

Along with bitcoins, the BlockChain technology has taken the world by storm. A BlockChain is a public transaction ledger that is digital and decentralized. This has Opened possibilities of transparency and information storage like never before. People from across the world will have access to information that cannot be altered without everyone seeing the changes being made. From hospitals to businesses to schools, everyone is talking about BlockChains.

With it doctors could have access to information about a patient across the globe with similar conditions to the one they are treating right now. They would have a clear idea on what medication may work for a patient, an information that may save lives. With all of this at stake, it is only fair to assume that there will be a lot more development in this sector.

Smart Health

Almost 75% people these days have a smart sensor tied around their wristband. It helps them track their heart rate, the number of steps they take and how active they have been throughout the day. This kind of data is important as it lets you know what you are doing right and what you may be doing wrong, and provides valuable insight to medical practitioners.

Medical chat bots have begun answering your health-related questions. Machine learning is being used to look at pictures and identify and diagnose a range of diseases. It is also being used to predict the outcome of diseases with the help of large datasets of pre-labeled images.

Automated machines

Companies like Uber and Lyft have already begun offering automatic car services in some cities in America. These self-driving cars are fitted with a GPS unit, have laser rangefinders among other sensors, radar and video feed to help it navigate through busy streets. Companies are racing to be the first to build and mass distribute self-driving cars, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has said they will have it in the markets in 3 years, Nissan announced it would have the cars by 2020 whereas Google says it will have it out this year (2018).

Amazon on the other hand, has been trying to push its auto-workforce even further by adding robot delivery to their existing machine heavy lifters and drone deliveries. This would lead to machine and robotic assistants a part of our lives.

Internet of Things

Internet of Things is a network of physical devices that can connect to each other and exchange information and data. As an industry, it is expected to grow up to 14% this year. A survey conducted by Business Insider predicts that by 2025, there will be more than 55 billion IoT devices. One of the most used technology that falls in this category is voice assistants like Amazon echo.

However, it isn’t just limited to that. Your smart fridge, electronics, thermostat that senses the environment and adjusts itself, automatic vacuums, fridges and ovens that can be controlled remotely via Wi-Fi all fall under Internet of Things.

Cloud computing

Most of the services that predict our next move and make our lives easier includes storing huge amount of data about our preferences. With more of us integrating technology into various parts of our lives, the amount of data that needs to be stored, processed and distributed will be high in volume.

It isn’t however just us that will contribute to an increase on cloud computing. Artificial Intelligence depends on masses of data in order to make a correct prediction too. All these factors will lead to an increase in demand for cloud computing.