2016 Will Be About Big Data, NFV, Containers, VR, Security: IEEE

From 5G to NFV, the IEEE Computer Society predicts nine top tech trends to watch in 2016.

Standards and protocols for 5G aren’t expected until 2020, but trials and development of the wireless technology are under way from a range of companies, such as Verizon and Samsung. According to the IEEE, 5G promises speeds as fast as 7.5G bps, enabling such trends as connected, the industrial IoT and even faster gaming.

This year will be a big one for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). With VR—which replaces the actual physical world—everyone from movie studios to news organizations are partnering with vendors, and more development is on the way that will alter the physical interface between humans and machines. With AR—a live view of the real-world environment that is augmented by computer-generated sensory input—information about the real world can become interactive and manipulated.

As the world becomes more connected, people will need to access more memory, and nonvolatile memory, which can retrieve data even after being turned off and on, will be the answer. It will enable people to store more data at a lower cost and use significantly less power than volatile memory, which will mean smaller devices being able to store more data and larger systems able to storage massive amounts of information.

IEEE officials define cyber-physical systems (CPS) as “also used as the Internet of things.” They’re smart systems with cyber technologies—hardware and software—that are embedded in and interact with physical components. “These systems have to operate with high levels of reliability, safety, security, and usability since they must meet the rapidly growing demand for applications such as the smart grid, the next generation air transportation system, intelligent transportation systems, smart medical technologies, smart buildings, and smart manufacturing,” they said.

The sexiest job in technology continues to be data scientist, whose job essentially is to extract meaning from big data and determine trends, buying insights, patterns and other information businesses can use. This becomes increasingly important as the amount of data being generated continues to skyrocket. Anyone looking for assured employment in the tech field should look into becoming a data scientist, according to the IEEE.

It’s no secret that in an increasingly connected and mobile world, finding ways to better secure data has become crucial. One avenue that should get more traction in 2016 is hardware capability-based security, which IEEE officials say can provide finer grain protection and defend against many attacks that today are successful.

Advanced machine learning—essentially giving systems the ability to make decisions and learn from their experiences—will increasingly impact everything from gaming to medicine to online advertising, and it’s being pursued by many tech vendors, such as IBM, Facebook, Google and Nvidia. Advancements in the field are happening fast and will continue in 2016.

NFV and its cousin software-defined networking (SDN) have been talked about for several years. In a world that increasingly depends on cloud servers, NFV is becoming more important as the tool for creating the needed virtualized infrastructure.

Containers are the best tool for companies that want to move their applications to the cloud, IEEE officials say. They make developing and delivering applications faster and more efficient. Right now, containers are hampered by issues around security, but that should be solved and containers should become enterprise-ready in 2016.