Dr Siddhartha Chatterjee, Chief Technology Officer at Persistent Systems, believes that machine learning will be the dominant technology trend in the coming year, even as he is cautious about the future of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins. Of the 2017 technology trends that you predicted at the beginning of the year, which one in your opinion, was the most widely adopted? All of the trends that we predicted have generally been adopted widely over the course of the year. Based on our experience with clients and projects in 2017, I would say that machine intelligence (Machine Learning and Deep Learning) has been adopted into mainstream projects at a more accelerated pace than initially anticipated. On the consumer front, we saw widespread adoption of voice-enabled smart devices like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Pod etc.

In the not so distant future, we will have machines capable not only of storing data, but of thinking, feeling, and being as intelligent as the human being. Following the new trends in the information technology market, such as tracking digital transformation, is a key factor for organizations seeking to remain competitive with the great competition in the market. With increasingly advanced and sophisticated resources, technological innovations have computer machines that promise to facilitate the routine of companies, where intelligent machines can perform their activities in an optimized way. We are talking about the trend of the future, a revolutionary technology – Artificial Intelligence (AI). Artificial Intelligence is already part of our everyday life, but many times we do not even notice it.

Emergence of work Robo advisors If you're not Rumpelstiltskin, you've no doubt noticed the prolific rise of the talking speaker. There seems little to technically hold this back and from a cost optimization and process automation perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. Augmented Reality meets GoToMeeting A little play off #1, but if you mash what's going on with AR with the prohibitive cost of dedicated telepresence rooms, you get a budget busting way to see a screen with you and your colleagues sitting at the same table and interacting. You'll probably also be able to attend meetings in virtual person through a physically present android of some semblance (R2D2 style or perhaps like that annoying holographic person in the airports). Self-driving electric car innovations convergence hit a feverish pitch Chunky four German auto armies (Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW) release competing vehicles resulting in Telsa stock being challenged over their stretched diversification strategy and the need to refocus on the immediate autonomous competitive onslaught.

Big Data started with algorithms helpfully scouring vast amounts of data to find patterns. These days it feels a bit like Big Brother. Using machine learning and AI to tweak algorithms, companies are now able to deliver profound insights from datasets once considered impossible to compile. This collection and analysis has expanded so rapidly, it's pushing data holders off any existing ethical framework or map. Facing very little scrutiny, companies have been left on their own to establish right and wrong in this space.

Magic Leap today revealed a mixed reality headset that it believes reinvents the way people will interact with computers and reality. Unlike the opaque diver's masks of virtual reality – which replace the real world with a virtual one – Magic Leap's device, called Lightwear, resembles goggles, which you can see through as if you're wearing a special pair of glasses. The goggles are tethered to a powerful pocket-sized computer, called the Lightpack, and can inject life-like moving and reactive people, robots, spaceships – anything – into a person's view of the real world. "There's something about hanging out with comics and being able to experience them at your own pace that is very hypnotic," Ben Wolstenholme says Magic Leap, founded in 2011, remains a bit of a mystery, confounding tech writers and analysts with its ability to pull in seemingly endless amounts of investment from major companies and interest from bright minds. While the secretive augmented-reality startup has released a few high-level concept videos that show what it hopes to achieve by injecting virtual creations into the real world, it hasn't shown off a single piece of working technology to the public. It's been so long that some publications have even publicly wondered if the entire thing is a sort of scheme. That, despite the company's ever-increasing valuation – last listed at $6 billion. The whole company rides on the back of founder Rony Abovitz, a bombastic bioengineer who helped design the surgery-assisting robot arms of Mako Surgical Corp. The sale of that company for $1.65 billion funded nearly the first four years of Magic Leap. The last time the company spoke publicly in any great detail was about a year ago, when it invited Wired magazine to its South Florida headquarters to see the tech in action, but not to write about what the hardware looked like. Earlier this month, Glixel received a similar invitation. Abovitz invited me down to visit the company headquarters in Fort Lauderdale to write about the science of the technology and to finally detail how the first consumer headgear works and what it looks and feels like. This revelation – the first real look at what the secretive, multi-billion dollar company has been working on all these years – is the first step toward the 2018 release of the company's first consumer product. It also adds some insight into why major companies like Google and Alibaba have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Magic Leap, and why some researchers believe the creation could be as significant as the birth of the Internet. Technology like this "is moving us toward a new medium of human-computing interaction," said David Nelson, creative director of the MxR Lab at USC Institute for Creative Technologies.

A generation of today's children will live in the world of AI. They will have Personal AIs just like we had personal computers, and AI assistants will be their main interface to tech. A child talks with the playful robot to make calls, send messages, follow a schedule, watch videos & more.

For last-minute shoppers, tech toys hold a special appeal. Stapling on internet connectivity also might make these flashy kids gadgets sound all the more appealing; it's not just a teddy bear, it's a machine learning teddy bear. This is not a screed against technology generally, or even tech as it relates to kids; there are plenty of responsible, safe ways for children to navigate and benefit from the internet. Instead, it's an important reminder that toys with an online connection are at their core just another IoT device, often replete with the same ills and vulnerabilities. Plus, they have the added horror of occasionally pointing a microphone or camera at your child.

As Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said, "the only one constant in life is change". This is certainly true for anyone working in areas related to or based upon technology (and few don't these days). The pace of technological innovation is such that even the most fantastic of imagined futures seem like they could easily become reality. As existing technologies reach maturity, unforeseen developments arrive ever more quickly, and innovations make the leap from consumer applications to business (and vice versa) it's imperative that we constantly seek to find those that have the potential to add value to our own business and those of our customers. As we look ahead to 2018, I've been working with my colleagues to identify some trends that we think will have an impact on our business and industry.

The cruise industry is rapidly evolving to integrate the Internet of Things -- with sensors, connected devices, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing -- into the experience passengers will have, both on and off the mammoth, state-of-the-art, billion-dollar ships. It's created a veritable wearable wars that spans companies like Carnival, MSC, and Royal Caribbean, which have all implemented new technology to change the way guests interact while onboard. The initial wave in this sea change of tech can actually be traced to the indoor water park company, Great Wolf Lodge, which debuted RFID-based smart wristbands that provide visitors electronic access control and cashless payments to its resort and waterpark guests, in 2005. The technology has made its way through various parts of hospitality and travel, from theme parks to hotels, and now, cruise companies see it as one key in offering personalized service to the thousands of passengers onboard and more efficient operations for their staff. But it was the land-locked city of Orlando, Florida, home to the Walt Disney World Resort, that's had the biggest impact on what's currently happening at sea.

Artificial Intelligence (better known now as AI) and machine learning are trendy terms these days – but few people agree on what the terms really mean. AI is tossed about by Elon Musk, mentioned in the movies, and is attached to a growing number of personal, business, and government products. Artificial intelligence is when a computer uses advanced algorithms to mimic traditional human abilities such as problem-solving and learning from its experiences. Machine learning – a significant element in AI – is when computers take a lot of data, learn from it, and make decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so. AI already enables personal assistants such as Alexa and Cortana, to listen for your requests and, based on your preferences and those with similar tastes, pick out a playlist of your favorite songs.