In the year 2015, we have seen the true potential of digital revolution unleashed that would impact the whole next decade. We did witness frenzied markets created by a spurt of digital aggregator platforms in businesses such as taxi, shopping, restaurants, retail, etc. On the other hand, we saw the impact of smartphones becoming the centrifugal platform for businesses, with data collection becoming ubiquitous in every walk of life.
Driven by the benefits of personalization, access and analytics, businesses in 2015 were pushed to redefine their strategies from an extended mobile approach to “Mobile First” approach and even in some cases “Mobile Only” approach. In the semiconductor front, low geometry, higher performance and lower power consumption has driven the market in the last few years. Here, we look at the technology trends (also see Top 10 Technology Trends 2015) that we believe will drive the product engineering market in 2016.
We have picked the below trends for 2016 by understanding the broad technology roadmap of our clients across different industries and our insights derived through a deep partnership with leading industry technology companies and disruptive product companies.

1) Rise of Smart Devices and Machines:

The internet of things (IoT) is both an industry vertical and a horizontal enabler. The IoT ecosystem is perfectly poised to accelerate in 2016 and the years ahead. Smart City and Smart Healthcare solutions are already getting a huge push from governments, global. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) powered by Industrial robots will champion the cause of operational efficiencies in factories. The drive for standardization / consolidation of IoT platforms will increase in this year.
Related Topic: Robotics: the New Way Ahead for Healthcare

2) Not Autonomous but Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS):

While autonomous / driverless cars are still the carrot for the tech giants, in coming years ahead we are going to see more advancements in sensor driven driver assistance systems, playing a key role in driver safety and ease of driving. ADAS systems will power a virtual 3D model of the environment and provide real-time assistance to drivers from the dashboard. Smartphone and dashboard connected solutions will enable innovations in the automotive segment by connecting car sensors with owners and OEMs for near real-time diagnostics.
Related Topic: Will Car Sensors Replace Human Drivers Completely?

3) Real-time Precision and Accuracy to propel the Aviation flight safety:

Untoward incidents like flights missing from the radar and the recent surge in attacks have pushed the Aviation industry to make navigation more real-time. The focus towards multi-constellation/multi-frequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) solutions will increase in 2016. GNSS would now display precise results with vehicle positioning maps, 3D navigation etc.
Related Topic: Bringing Intelligence to the Next Gen Navigation/Communications System

4) Reduced gap between E-commerce and In-store Retail customer analytics:

Customer analytics will move beyond e-Commerce channels. Insights driven by customer behavior, customer profiling, instore and personal e-commerce shopping patterns will entwine to build a unified and personalized experience for the customers. We will also see more of in-store analytics, similar to Retail Site intelligence, getting deployed in wider circles in this year.
Related Website: Retail Site intelligence

5) Image Based Search will drive E-commerce platforms:

With mobile shopping enhancing the reach of the E-commerce market, we will see more companies deploying Image based product search features as a standard functionality in their Apps. A customer can quickly search and buy a product by just clicking on a picture in the surroundings. Though there are a few existing deployments by some big E-commerce companies, the platforms still lack accuracy. In 2016, we will see the algorithms getting refined and companies increasing adopting Image based search on their app platforms.

Related Casework: Image Based Search for E-commerce

6) Drones with High Resolution Cameras:

With the advancement in computing capabilities and reduced form factors, drones are set to become even more powerful and pervasive. FAA predicts that drones will spawn a $90 billion industry within a decade. While the consumer business giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. are still testing the business cases for drones, these developments in news clearly shadows the real progress made in the drone industry. The ability to capture high resolution imagery using technologies ranging from regular cameras to 4K cameras to laser cameras empowers Drones to be used in mission critical surveillance, disaster monitoring and relief programs. We are going to see more of governments and military using drones for surveillance, riot controls and in natural calamities.
Related Topic: Fly a Drone!

7) Localized and Distributed Intelligence for Sensor Environments:

Sensors and actuators built across different devices are going to generate a tremendous amount of data from end devices and gateway networks to the cloud. The magnitude is set to grow even more exponentially with growth of connected devices. To enable faster access of relevant data and to reduce the bandwidth occupied in data transmission and storage, we will see more of localized and distributed intelligence built across the gateways and end devices.
Related Topic: IoT Implementation in e-Commerce

8) Contextual Intelligence to Power our Daily Life:

The growth of embedded intelligence and analytics will power businesses to provide alerts, recommendations and analysis in response to the context or surroundings. Analytics will continue crunching the data in the background to provide real-time assistance and feedbacks. We are already witnessing it with improvements in the virtual personal assistance like Google Now, Siri, and Cortana etc. We will see devices behaving more responsive to the environmental situations.
Related Topic: Medical Wearables: Translating Big Data into Product Design Information

9) Cloud Computing Everywhere:

The nexus of mobile computing with cloud computing will increase the deployment of centrally coordinated applications that can be delivered anytime, anywhere and at any devices. We will see more devices connecting to cloud and SaaS based business models to become even more prominent in 2016. Companies will look for ways to improve inter-device communication through cross-platform integrations.
Related Topic: Bridging the Gap between Business and IT with SOA

10) User Experience will be the Key Business Driver:

With an increase in connected devices and focus towards providing contextual information, user experience will take a prominence in technology adoption. With wearable technologies set to become even more prevalent in 2016, the focus will now shift towards mobilizing the data and synchronizing the experience. User experience will push for invisible analytics with unified, fluid, contextual and personalized experience across smartphones, wearables and other connected devices.
Related Topic: 5 Key Gadgets for your Smart Homes
The above list is only an indication of some interesting trends that are likely to happen in 2016. Please comment your thoughts on what you think will drive the product engineering market in this year. If you have any innovative product idea and need support in engineering it to the market, please write it to us at marketing@einfochips.com.