With the Internet becoming the mainstream media of our time, picking the best tech tool to watch out for can prove to be a little challenging at times. You see, there are so many great new tech tools coming out every week. Thus, it makes it hard to know where or how to begin. Well, we are here to help you solve that problem and make things easier for you. Let us take a look at some of these six next big things to watch out for in technology this year and what it means.

Personal Robots

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in technology especially on this website. Many believe that we are slowly moving towards a world where robots will become our new companions. We’ve all seen the Terminator series and read about the Singularity, so it’s probably no surprise that we are a bit wary of personal robots. However, as AI becomes more advanced, also robotics. The goal of personal robots will be to make our lives easier, not to harm us. So far, personal robots have mostly been used for entertainment, but soon they will take over tasks.

Connected Cars

Connected cars are going to be big this year, and in the future. They’re going to have a similar impact on our lives as smartphones did when they first came out. While some new car models already have built-in Internet connectivity, there are still many older cars that will be able to connect to the Internet via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi hotspots. Once connected, your car will be able to do all kinds of things, such as report car trouble automatically before you’re stranded somewhere. It will also give you information about traffic and alternative routes.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) has been around for a long time, but it’s been making headlines recently because of the astonishingly rapid advances in the technology and the widespread industry push to commercialize. The early VR systems were clunky, cumbersome and often nauseating, with poor graphics and very limited capabilities. Now VR is a completely different story. With today’s immersive headsets, we can now go places that were once only accessible through our imagination; we can be part of things that would otherwise be impossible. We can see things as if we were there in person.

Quantum Computers

Quantum computers expects to take over many tasks the current computers are not able to do. These computers will be based on the quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in a more than one state at any given time. A regular computer bit can only exist as 0 or 1. A qubit can also exist as 1 and 0, and every combination in between. This means that instead of a single value as an output, it could have multiple values atonce. Therefore, a computer can take 32 steps to solve a problem.

Driverless Cars

This one’s been on the talk for a while. In fact, there’s already a Tesla Model S with an autopilot mode. However, we’re talking about here is a car that does all the driving, and you don’t even need to be in it. This year will see the launch of Google’s driverless vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. It will be tested on public roads in California from the end of this month. But where this really gets interesting is when cars start communicating with each other online and build up a shared map.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality and augmented reality are already here, with Microsoft’s HoloLens, Facebook’s Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive and Sony’s PlayStation VR all on the market. This year could see a new generation of those devices, as well as the arrival of some unprecedented devices. Microsoft has a new version of the HoloLens coming up, one that will be less expensive and won’t require a cumbersome cord to connect it to a computer. With all of these advances, we can expect AR and VR to become more mainstream. We expect more companies to explore the space.

We’re big believers in the power of technology to make our lives easier and more efficient, but the truth is that progress never moves in a straight line. There are bound to be bumps along the road. It can be difficult to predict exactly how things will evolve on a large scale. Still, there are some trends that are likely to shape our world in the coming year. Consider these predictions, and see which ones you think will play a role in the evolution of technology as we know it. You never know the future.