Every year I put out a list of what I think the major tech issues and gadgets are likely to be for the year ahead and this week 6PR’s Chrissy Morrissy took me through last years list to see how we’ve progressed, what’s come about and what hasn’t.

My 3 main thoughts on the tech we’d see in 2016 were:

Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are set to boom in the first half of next year with all major manufacturers promising new VR products and most under $US400. This may take a while to show its true potential, but it is definitely a new frontier that’s here to stay.

Ambient technology and device consolidation will start its journey next year, as technology becomes as ordinary as electricity and gas, and becomes more about what it can do for me rather than the fact it exists. In this same thought devices will begin to become agnostic with users switching often from one to the other, making choices based on situation and purpose, rather than on wow factor.

Personal Assistants, in the form of robots, that listen to you and talk back will begin their journey to purpose next year with releases like Jibo hitting our retail stores for around the $US2,000 mark. These in the early stages will read emails and texts, announce callers and generally  interact with us, they are not yet the robots of our science fiction dreams, but they are the first line in an evolution that may one day bring us the robot butler, we supposedly can’t live without.

Happy to say I got 3 for 3 they’re all on the scene, all in various stages of usefulness and all still largely untapped.

Listen in as we discuss where each of these and my other predictions are at and how and where they’re being used already as well as a look ahead at what we can expect to see, have and do in 2017 (24 mins 51 seconds)