2013 looks to be a major game changer as far as technology is concerned. Technology will change the way we all work, relax, interact, socialize and connect. Here are some trends in tech that deserve a serious look. (Part II of our series)

OLED Displays and TV screens

Organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs require only a thin layer of special chemicals is to produce a bright, colorful screen. OLED’s consume less power than their older cousins – the currently used LED’s and LCD’s displays and can display better picture quality. Also OLED’s can do what was not possible with any other displays – provide flexible, curving and bendable thin screens.

Recently Samsung came out with their flexible OLED phone display- with a bendable phone screen. The consumer tech giant demonstrated a phone that consists of a matchbox-sized hard enclosure, with a paper-thin, flexible color screen attached to one end. The screen bend into a tube, but was not flexible enough to fold in half like a piece of paper. Samsung uses AMOLED displays for their phones and will start making flexible OLED displays as mainstream, mass produced and affordable offerings from 2013.

Samsung is confident that OLED displays are next technological marvels. Samsung claims that by 2014, almost 50% of cell phones might have AMOLED displays, and by 2015 it could become the most used TV panel technology. These new high-resolution OLED screens with super high resolution and some with flexible screens look greta, but are too expensive for mass consumers. Watch out for OLED large screen TV’s to drop in price and be affordable for all of us, starting from 2013. Watch Samsung presentation/commercial here –

Bigger Flat Panel TV’s and their ability to share content across multiple devices

At the recent CES show in Vegas recently, TV manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Westinghouse showcased giant OLED Flat panel TV’s that can be as big as 110″ diagonally. These dwarf the current generation TV’s that use LCD or LED technologies.  Size alone will not be a trend setter in 2013. Next generation TV’s will connect to the Internet and share content between mobile devices, hand held tablets, set-top boxes and other televisions in your household. Also new trends would include consumers switching from traditional cable providers to on-demand services such as Hulu and Netflix, or buying shows and movies through Amazon or Apple or Google TV services. High-def HD displays will pack  4K resolution with 3820 by 2560 pixel specs!

Affordable Tablets and Smartphone-Tablet-Ultrabook hybrids

The era of cheap, $100 range 7″ Android tablets is already here. Expect tablets to drop in pricing, but also look forward to see high end, loaded and powerful models that will appeal to luxury buyers.

What we can expect in 2013 will be smartphones with Tablet like screens ( 5 -inch) and tablet functionality. In fact tech futurists predict the fusion of tablets into smartphones as the next thing to look for. The standard smartphone spec has been upgraded up for 2013 – features like Android, 5-inch 1080p display, quad-core processor, 13-megapixel camera will be the norm.

Windows 8 : The Tablet market heated up in 2012 with the launch of Windows 8 touch screen OS. This year, new tablet/laptop hybrids running Windows 8 will be on the spotlight. The new Windows operating system is built for touchscreen computers, and most leading manufacturers have adapted it as the next thing. Affordable Windows 8 devices will flood the market from Asus, Lenovo, Acer, HP, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Dell and so on. Check out this new Win 8 tablet from Panasonic.

Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing 

2013 will see more consumers embrace crowdfunding platforms. Quoting from Wikipedia- “Crowd funding or crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity crowdfunding, or hyper funding) describes the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.”  Crowdfunding helps collect money, essential supplies, food, water, rations for disaster relief  health emergency, natural calamities and other notable causes and start ups. The beauty of crowdfunding is the larger pool of small investors with minimal red tape and restrictions.

Already, crowdfunding has been extremely successful for Kickstarter, the US-based site founded in 2009. It has raised 17 projects over $1m !

Crowdsorucing will also take in top honors in 2013 – with the emerging, well connected and educated masses in growing developing nations like Philippines, Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Russian bloc and Latin America. Crowdsourcing can lower costs and bring exposure to a much wider talent pool than a single employee hire. Some Fortune 500 companies have successfully experimented  this platform for contests and projects. A global scale human talent pool lies within the reach of every employer with crowdsourcing.

We all look forward to an exciting and wonderful year ahead in 2013, specially  for advances in affordable consumer technology.