Five 2021 technology predictions

I was looking for any decent reports on the big tech trends for 2021 and first of all  stumbled upon an interesting report from 2017. This was for the World Economic Forum, who surveyed 800 experts on their views of the key technologies for the future, and found seven major areas to focus upon:

1. Robots
2. Artificial Intelligence
3. Sensors
4. MedTech
5. The Internet becomes a basic human right
6. Phones will be implanted under our skin, allowing us to communicate using our brain waves
7. Car-sharing becomes bigger than car-owning

7 amazing technologies we'll see by 2030 pic.twitter.com/NtQ4eH4aqj

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) February 26, 2017

No big surprises here in the long-term, but what about Quantum Computing, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and teleportation? And what about in 2021? What are the big tech items this year?

Well, here are five from The Free Press Journal starting with 5G, of course. The other four are:

1. e-learning takes off big time (duh? of course!)
2. data security is key (as always)
3. AI and machine learning will make payments security better (yawn)
4. working from home is the new normal (zzzz)

How boring is this?

I even found another article predicting the big things in cloud computing in 2021, and that was also dull as dishwater.

So, rather than Googling for more esoteric and dull ideas, here are my big five tech ideas for 2021:

1. People are bored with phones, so foldable and rollable consumer technologies will become more widespread – we have a foldable phone, but how about a rollable phone that’s more like a translucent paper?
2. People are bored with phones … we want more games! A 5G massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) will be big news in 2021 to relieve the boredom of lockdown
3. People are also bored with Zoom (already?!), but videocalls are not going away … but we will start to construct new ways of calling and talking and I believe there’s still room for a Zoom alternative … maybe a videocall based MMORPG?
4. Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies will take a leap in 2021 as consumers want more escapism via technology … maybe a videocall based MMORPG in an alternative reality?
5. Everything will be in the cloud – it’s not just data and voice services, but everything that needs access everywhere by everyone … anytime, anywhere, anyplace ... even a videocall based MMORPG in an alternative reality will be fully cloud-native!

The question then is how can banks roll their services into the superapps MMORPG before some bright company like Stripe beats them to it …

Ah, Happy Techie 21!