From digital pollution to online civility, these are the top tech predictions for 2020

We asked the experts the tech trends to look out for in 2020 
JJ Ying / Unsplash
Amelia Heathman29 December 2019

And with that, 2019 is almost over. We started the year with high hopes about sleep tech and the potential of augmented reality and ended it discussing folding phones and TikTok challenges.

So, what's in store for 2020? How will AI and 5G continue to change how we interact and communicate as humans? How will concerns over the environment and sustainability affect how we use tech?

Here are the tech developments we’re looking forward to this coming year.

Electric wheels

Mobility is a much-discussed part of tech at the moment, from e-scooters to on-demand transport. Of all the trends that are going to make an impact in 2020, Deloitte is betting on e-bikes.

Cycling to work is picking up as a transport trend, around five per cent of journeys in London are taken by bike, and the ease of using an e-bike is part of why Deloitte thinks consumers are going to start purchasing more of the vehicles -- the firm is predicting that more than 130 million e-bikes will be sold globally between 2020 and 2023.

Paul Lee, global head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte, said: “The first patent for electrifying a bike was filed in the nineteenth century, however, 2020 will be the year that e-bikes pick up pace. Improvements in lithium-ion battery technology, pricing, and power have led to a significant surge in interest globally. The number of e-bikes on the roads will easily outpace other e-vehicles by the end of next year.”

Full stream ahead

People have been streaming TV and films for years from the likes of Amazon Prime and Netflix but with new entrants like BritBox and Disney+ entering the mix, the scale of streaming content is going to grow and grow. According to app analytics company App Annie, android customers only are expected to spend 674 billion hours in the Entertainment and Video Player categories on apps in 2020, thanks to platforms including Netflix and YouTube.

Gaming is another area where streaming is set to start making an impact. Google launched Stadia in November and though it’s off to a rocky start -- the platform has been accused of lags in gameplay and sub-4K image quality -- it’s expected to improve, particularly as it adds more games to its library. According to the annual tech trends report from advisory and investment firm GP Bullhound, Google Stadia is only the start of the gaming streaming wars.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the launch of Google Stadia earlier this year
JOSH EDELSON / Contributor / Getty

“Consumers are shifting to subscription services over outright game ownership, traditional methods of game delivery are under threat, and developers now have to consider these new platforms and the implications of changing consumption. We will soon see gaming exposed to the masses through streaming, people will increasingly subscribe to libraries of games, and developers will look to newer more comprehensive development platforms and tools for efficiencies and monetization,” said the report.

Online manners

Trolling and abuse on social media are just two of the major issues that the big networks have to contend with. Instagram has turned to AI to prevent bullying on the platform as a way to make the app a more “supportive place.”

Laura Higgins, director of community safety and digital civility at Roblox, the online entertainment platform for children and teenagers, thinks there will be a bigger push by big tech companies to showcase they’re policing user behaviour more.

Instagram is using AI in its new Caption Warning feature to prevent bullying on the platform (Instagram )
Instagram

“2020 is going to be a huge year for online safety with a focus on the Online Harms White Paper and the potential introduction of a new regulator,” she said. “I think a big focal point will continue to be the protection of children, tackling the spread of fake news and the removal of hate content.”

As well as the tech giants trying to make online spaces more civil, Higgins believes education will play a part in this. “It is likely we’ll see better attention to online safety and digital literacy in schools, which should cover the important topics of wellbeing and civility. We teach kids about civility from the day they are born, and the online environment should be no different.”

Your digital pollution footprint

Sustainability is becoming more of a conversation in tech with the big giants employing recyclable materials and carbon-free supply chains in gadget production. But there’s a lot more to it.

Edouard Nattée, CEO and co-founder of inbox cleaner Cleanfox, thinks digital pollution is going to become a hot topic in the next year. Digital pollution refers to the negative outcomes of tools related to the tech industry which comes in two forms - the devices and the energy needed to power the devices and store our data. Cleanfox focuses on email pollution.

On average, a British Cleanfox user receives 2,850 promotional emails every year- equivalent to 28.5 kilos of Co2, enough energy to power a lightbulb for 137 days. Cleanfox gets rid of those junk and promotional emails to reduce your carbon footprint - and incidentally, save you money.

“80 per cent of British people do not know that email storage causes pollution and 70 per cent have never heard of Digital Pollution, according to a YouGov survey we commissioned,” said Nattée. “We predict that becoming eco-active will be a priority for eco-warriors. These people will actively look for free tools to help them reduce their carbon footprint and help fight digital pollution.”

Understanding AI

Artificial intelligence is top of the tech trends list every year, whether it's how AI is improving smartphone photography to the way it can speed up enterprise processes. As the technology becomes more ingrained in our lives though, Samsung’s UK and Ireland director of connected living, Ted Dosanjh, thinks people are going to start demanding more knowledge about the tech and how it works. According to a survey by Samsung earlier this year, 90 per cent of people feel AI is too complex to understand.

“In 2020 we’re going to see increased public demand for the demystification and democratisation of AI. There is a growing level of interest and people are quite rightly not happy to sit back and accept that a robot or programme makes the decisions it does ‘because it does’ or that it’s simply too complicated,” said Dosanjh. “They want to understand how varying AI works in principle, they want to have more of a role in determining how AI should engage in their lives so that they don’t feel powerless in the face of this new technology.”

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