From mesmerizing displays and memorable fails to excellent new products and everything related to artificial intelligence, 2024 has brought no shortage of intrigue - mostly for the good, but in some cases for the bad.
5. Meta Orion
While it was a good year for the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses that play music, capture content, and work with Meta's artificial intelligence, there's no denying the importance of the Meta Orion. Demonstrated at Meta Connect 2024, the Orion AR (augmented reality) glasses concept achieves something that few other similar augmented reality devices have been able to do. From playing ping pong to following a recipe in the kitchen and multitasking between apps, Orion is a strong indicator of what Meta has planned in the consumer space. While the glasses may still look pretty clunky, reports suggest that some hybrid between them and what we now have in cobranded Ray-Ban glasses will emerge as early as 2025. Just imagine the current Ray-Ban Meta with a display.
4. The smart ring revolution
This year was undoubtedly the year of the smart ring. It's no longer the only option buyers can buy. The most notable new product is the Samsung Galaxy Ring, which not only sold out in a matter of days, but also introduced some interesting features we haven't seen before for a smart ring. Built into Samsung Health and with no membership fees, it's no wonder this is one of the biggest products of the year. Too bad for Samsung that Oura stole back the spotlight with the highly anticipated release of the Oura Ring 4, which has quickly become a favorite everyday device for many enthusiasts. The bigger story to pay attention to, though, is that we're at a stage where smart rings are almost as capable as some smartwatches, in a more discrete and longer-lasting form. It will be interesting to see how smart ring manufacturers can raise the stakes and how other wearable fitness tracking devices will respond to this technological revolution.
3. The war between AI assistants
The race for the best voice assistant with artificial intelligence is well underway, and this is certainly one of the key areas where we expect to see innovation in 2025. For 2024, we saw the key launch of ChatGPT Advanced Voice's speech-to-voice capabilities. Meta AI Voice also impressed in a similar way, although it still uses text-to-voice conversion to calculate responses. We've also seen improvements to the free version of Gemini Live Voice mode, which gives Android users free access to explore ideas, brainstorm, and discuss topics in real time. Siri finally got contextual awareness, too, but it's nowhere near as advanced or conversational as ChatGPT or Gemini Live. Between the more realistic voices, more natural conversation streams, and greater bandwidth for complex queries, voice AI is very compelling.
2. Apple Vision Pro
At this rate, Apple's Vision Pro release seems like a century ago. But no, in February 2024, Apple's ambitious $3,500 mixed-reality headset hits stores. And it wasn't long before news of delayed shipments and higher-than-average returns came out. Despite its innovativeness, however, the high price tag didn't get any easier to swallow, even with the release of VisionOS 2, which brought an even larger virtual display and more options for customizing the user experience. Arguably, everyone should get a taste of the Vision Pro excitement at least once (you can order a free demo at the Apple Store) to see why tech enthusiasts are impressed. Realistically, though, we'll need a cheaper Apple Vision Pro in 2025 if such a device has any chance of going mainstream.
1.Sora brings artificial intelligence video to life
Topping the list of biggest tech innovations for 2024 is another AI-related item, but who's surprised? In a year where there was so much news about AI that it was practically shoved down our throats, there's one product that managed to blow our collective minds: Sora, OpenAI's video creation model. Now available to ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro subscribers, Sora turns written prompts into videos lasting 3 to 5 seconds. Theoretically, these small videos can be linked together to create longer, multi-minute visualizations with a coherent storyline. While it's amazing to experiment with a tool that quickly generates ideas from your head into actual clips (about 5 minutes), there's room for improvement. Still, if there's anything on this list that's recommended for tech enthusiasts to try out, it's this. | BGNES
