Expectations for 2019

V. Altounian/Science

As noted last week, things have settled a bit. It clearly seems the next big thing is going to be Artificial Intelligence (AI). Or maybe it is already and we have just failed to notice? AI has learned to cheat its creators and that is the real proof of the 'I' in AI. But leaving AI aside, here are some more down to Earth expectations that may happen or I wish would happen.

GaN is proliferating into digital power components. The nature of this material is much higher power density it can support. It has already been used in the LED industry by Soraa, founded by Shuji Nakamura, the Nobel laureate. Now we are expecting a new lineup of power bricks, led by the Anker Atom series. Shrinking power conversion components and making them more efficient has a huge impact. Everything does power conversion. So if we make this "everything" a bit more efficient, the impact is huge. And as is the case with GaN, convenience comes bundled: less ballast to carry.

Battery technology may see some incremental improvements in power density. Yeah, I know, it will be consumed anyway by increasingly more power hungry chips, so the phones will still last a day. But what will likely change in 2019 is how rapidly they recharge. Samsung in 2017 announced battery that uses graphene and recharges 5x faster. So it is about time we see this battery in an actual phone. Perhaps at the GSM World Congress, which is less than two months from now. 5x would probably mean 15-30 minutes and would hugely benefit from a GaN power supply.

And I will appreciate an iPad Mini with a USB-C connector and more storage. That would be my replacement ebook-maps-navigation-communication-photo_storage device on hiking trips. Although - to be honest - I would be close to pull a trigger on the iPhone XS Max, provided it had USB-C. Details matter and really there are two features that make iOS devices stand over Android devices on hiking trips. One is Gaia GPS. It works great on iOS and s**ks on Android. The other is photo backup. iOS handles RAW imports flawlessly. Android is way behind in this department.

Speaking of Gaia GPS - they may update their Android app though. I saw them hiring an Android developer almost a year ago. So - fingers crossed - it may be that I will have one less reason to look at Apple phones or tablets.

Now looking into non-electronic developments, a real game changer would be a water collection device. I praised the Sawyer filter a number of times, but it still requires water as an input. I'd love to see a portable system that collects water from the air. Typically there is sufficient moisture around, but the challenge is to condense it. The only trace of a gadget like this I found back in 2017, but it was experimental and way too heavy to carry on my back...

Finally, back to the connected world, the next big connectivity revolution will be brought by Starlink.Satellites today give us the basic communications in the middle of nowhere. Starlink will change that by bringing broadband to this middle of nowhere. Won't happen in 2019 but it is the next communication revolution to come.