Mal Fletcher reports on the technologies you & your organisation can't afford to ignore.

Mal Fletcher

If you were a school teacher grading the performance of some of the most promising technologies of 2015, you'd have to mark an 'unsatisfactory' beside some very big players.

One year ago, augmented reality was expected to emerge near the top of the class for the year ahead. It failed miserably. You can pick up Google Glass, or any of its derivatives, for a song on eBay.

In short, this was because few people felt any emotional connection with these devices and saw no unique value-add with the technology itself.

We're still too emotionally invested in our smartphones and their constantly evolving world of apps. There were not enough things AR wearables could do that a smartphone could not.

Much the same could be said for wearables generally. Even the mighty Apple brand wasn't enough to lend street-cred to wearable devices such as hyper-watches. Again, a smartphone can do all the things an iWatch can. Why buy another expensive piece of kit?

Other failing students in this year's best-of-tech classroom included ambient computing - the technology that allows you, through voice commands, to control a smart office or home.

Amazon's Echo device is a remarkable piece of technology. Yet potential customers asked why they'd want a black column sitting ominously in their offices when their tablets can control heating and lighting and they use a smartphone to access entertainment.

Of course, the most unexpected failure might be 3D-printing - or additive manufacturing. Some pundits predicted, at the end of 2014, that we'd see 3D printed meals in restaurants before the end of the forthcoming year.

The 3D market has remained static. Yes, it has seen inroads in areas of design; furniture, buildings, cars and airplanes are all designed and tested now using 3D-printed prototypes, as are medical prosthetics.

There were also developments in industry, particularly within manufacturing. This is where 3D-printing probably offers the greatest benefits long-term.

Once again, however, as an everyday consumer or business product the technology offered no unique value add. Consumers asked: why would I want to print a pair of shoes when I can buy three or four pairs for the price of the printer, materials and software?

These were the fail-graders. We can now turn our attention to the members of the tech class that developed well in 2015 and, more importantly, have set a platform of bigger things in 2016.

Virtual Reality

From Facebook's Occulus Rift to Google's entry-level (and cheap) offering, Cardboard, the competition for the new generation of VR devices is really heating up.