We are approaching critical mass on a number of technologies that we will see increasingly this year. This wave will start at CES, where we will see an impressive number of attempts at personal robots and AI-powered digital assistants. Most will fail. However, both the failures and the few successes will set the stage for the first true mobile personal robots that will arrive in the following years.

The 5G rollout will enable desktop cloud computing, and the Microsoft Virtual Desktop will become real for millions of us shortly thereafter. Ironically, many of us will access it with Chromebooks.

If you are located in a city center, you’ll increasingly see both electric car charging stations (largely thanks to VW) and autonomous cars. There has been an increase in violent activity toward the latter, as well as passive demonstrations against the former, which just seems weird.

With the split U.S. government, I expect a huge ramp-up in truth apps, so that people more readily can disprove any fake news being promoted by the rival political party. However, I expect many of those apps to be discredited by year end due to information corruption.

1. Personal Robotics

2. The 5G Revolution

3. The Rebirth of the Automobile

4. Real AI

5. Wrapping Up