Tech I Believe In

Typically, I take a sceptical look at tech and the trends of the day, but there are several areas I feel very optimistic about. While the modern tech industry deserves all the scepticism it receives (and likely more), there are a lot of areas companies are pursuing that truly have the potential to change our lives. They may not all be driving crazy valuations right now, but tech that could be actually useful is more interesting to me than numbers in the stock market.

So here are a few segments in the tech industry I believe are genuinely useful and poised to have an impact on our lives soon.

Augmented Reality

I've written about smart glasses here and my belief that it's on track to be a device category to rival tablets and smart watches. But I think AR as a whole can be more than just smart glasses. There are the obvious professional use cases for a heads-up display that have been explored before but I think AR can extend to other forms like larger non-wearable transparent displays.

The value prop of AR is adding digital content to the real world, and there are tons of use cases for that. All that's been missing is the hardware but there's been huge progress in projector displays for eyewear and transparent displays.

I think the time is right for an explosion of AR tech in the next 5 years starting with smart glasses.

Foldables

Foldable devices feel like they are a year or two away from becoming mainstream. Today you'll see the occasional foldable while commuting, but it still feels rare. It feels like the perfect time for Apple to swoop in and make some usability improvements that take the category to the next level.

And the foldable displays here still have room to expand to other device categories. Tri-folds feel like potential tablet killers. And expandable laptop screens feel like they could be promising when the hardware improves enough.

Cryptocurrency

Wait, hear me out! This one I'm not super confident in, but I think there is still some potential in cryptocurrency to be useful. Maybe it's more hopeful than based on any evidence, but I think ethereum or some currency built on it has the potential to become a new reserve currency to rival the USD.

As the political status quo of the world changes, it seems likely the status of the USD as the global reserve currency will change as well. Countries have seen how unreliable the US can be, and while some think China could replace the USD with their own currency, I think that's unlikely too. The lesson learnt here should be that no single country should have that much control over global finances. So then you need a replacement that's decentralised.

That's where ethereum comes in.

Is it likely? No, but it's one possibility I'm excited about.

Biotech

I think the next big frontier in tech will be drastically different from the last. We've only just begun to explore biology through a technological lens, but there's so much potential here. We're yet to see the full applications of technologies like CRISPR and mRNA.

Beyond vaccines, these have the potential to create treatments for many diseases we've struggled to treat in the past. So there's immediate value but as these technologies become more accessible, is there room for it to become a new haven for hackers? There will be a lot of ethical concerns, but I think it's always exciting when a new technology is put into the hands of regular people and not just companies. That's how so much of our current tech was created.

What else?

There are a lot of other things in tech I'm hopeful for, but don't feel strongly that they'll succeed. I'd love to see the distributed internet continue to grow and replace some aspects of centralised services like social media, ridesharing, accommodation booking, etc. Maybe I'll write my thoughts on the possibilities I see there next.

I'd love to see a global shift by governments towards open source software as a way to maintain their digital sovereignty. I'm hopeful the EU can lead the way on this, but it's something I fear can get lost in the shuffle or be poorly executed.

I believe wearables will continue to grow, but I'm unsure if there's much more to it than what we have now. I'd love to see some of the fabric based tech that Google once shared be reused. Quantum computers feel like they're nearing a breakthrough but I'm unsure when they'll have real life impact.

Overall, there's a lot to be excited about in the tech industry if you look beyond the latest obsessions. AI has stolen all the attention in the tech space, but I don't believe it will deliver on the promise of AGI that's been touted. The excessive hype following the past trains for cryptocurrency and the metaverse makes it easy to feel like everything will disappoint.

But there's so much to be excited for that isn't taking up every bit of our attention right now that can have real impact on our lives.