2018 has been an exciting year for technological advancements. As we look to a 2019 that promises more of the same, this is a great point to stop and take a look at what 2018 has brought us. Check out the Lumo guide to the 10 most exciting technological advances of the last year

Artificial Intelligence 

When AI was first spoken about, the potential uses looked limited. Now we are in a position where AI devices sit in the home in the form of the Google Hub and equivalents. This means that people can control their own home with their voice. That’s a pretty cool development as far as we are concerned.

The Next Step in 3D Printing

3D printing has been around for a few years now but 2018 saw the technology become more mainstream, with home-use devices now available for a few hundred pounds. The future where we can knock up a little device when needed isn’t that far away, although this also needs to be balanced with plastic usage. Oh, and keep an eye out for 3D metal printing.

Alexa in Your Car

We have got used to having a conversation with a virtual assistant at home and sometimes when we are at work. But the car is the newest place where we can ask Alexa for some help. This features in cars from brands such as –  

• Volkswagen
• Ford
• BMW
• Lexus

And you can ask Alexa for help with selecting a song, sorting the navigation or getting your smart home ready for when you arrive.

Honda Robots 

One of the most exciting developments of the last year is the way that tech companies worldwide are ploughing cash into developing robots. This is one of the coolest features and really harks back to what we though the future would look like when we were kids (along with flying cars).

The Honda E3 Concept Robots first saw the light of day at the Consumer Electronics Show and captured the imagination of the audience straight away.

Sensing Smart City

The idea of a smart city has been put forward and rocked back many times over the last few years. What makes Sensing City (which is actually a suburb of Toronto) is that it uses the data from a network of sensors to gather data on the vital elements of urban life, such as noise level and human activity. The goal is to make life better through analysing this data.

Babel-Fish Earbuds

This one really blows our mind! Named after an animal in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel-Fish device translates speech from another language automatically and plays the result through the earbuds in your own language. The future is definitely here!

Life Sciences

It would be foolish to try to look for a single innovation in the life sciences field, so we are naming the whole industry here for its progress! These are hugely exciting times for life sciences as we can remotely monitor health data to look after people even when they are not stood in front of a doctor.

Blockchain 

No review of 2018 would be complete without looking at the impact Blockchain has on our lives both today and for the foreseeable future. The headlines were grabbed by bitcoin this year, but the long-term excitement is linked to currencies that aren’t controlled by governments. Watch this space!

Augmented Reality for the Masses

Pokemon Go was the first step on the road to get augmented reality in the consciousness of billions of people. And this was just the very start. The demand is there for AR and the success of this game saw big business sit up and take note. Think Snapchat’s Spectacles with bells and whistles on!

Linking of the Cloud and the Edge

It looks from the outside that Edge and Cloud are competing for the same space in our world. That simply isn’t the case. If and when these two giants get together, the resulting service is phenomenal. Imagine the service-oriented model of Cloud and add this to the Edge and you will get a connection for all the currently disconnected parts of the Cloud. This is a work in progress.

If you are a business that innovates in any way shape or form, just like the guys above, then you can access some cash in the way of R&D tax credits. These are a government initiative that helps businesses innovate and move forward.