2013 is almost over. We’ve seen a lot of interesting trends over the past few months. As the year draws to a close, let’s look at what we can expect for 2014.

2014 Trends

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• Wearable Tech

2013 was big on wearable devices. Google Glass made a lot of noise in the tech scene but, since it has a limited availability, few have been able to try it. But that isn’t the only wearable tech trend that piqued consumers’ interest. This past year, fitness trackers and life-logging devices slowly invaded our personal lives as we tried to achieve a better version of ourselves.

2014 is expected to draw out more wearable devices that do two or more things at a time. We can expect fitness trackers that double as home-automation solutions including the rumored Apple iWatch, a wig that helps the visually impaired get to places and a bra that prohibits you from overeating.

• Home Automation

Safety and security are two of the biggest concerns of homeowners, thus we are seeing more and more people now interested in home-automation solutions. Though home-automation solutions still pose a lot of security risks (i.e., hackers can infiltrate the system to make home invasion easier), more Americans, including parents and caretakers, are interested in remotely monitoring and controlling their homes. Having a real-time feed of your home ,or being able to grant access to people to your home even when you’re away, brings a whole new perspective to smart homes.

• Big Data

Big Data is changing our lives even if we are not aware of it. Companies know what consumers want because they are studying trends; they can even predict what consumers would want based on current preferences. And, as we go more mobile and social, we can expect Big Data to play a bigger role in our lives. Example of how Big Data will play a bigger role include websites and apps becoming safer to use, access to higher education expanding, landing your dream job becoming more possible, and even roads becoming safer.

• Implantable Tech

Wearable tech is one thing, implantable tech is another. As more people feel the need to better themselves, people are becoming more open to experimenting with implantable tech. Such tech can either deliver medication on time or it can track your vital signs and deliver that data in the cloud for your healthcare provider to monitor. Other implantable tech devices promise to help you to see or hear better. Though these technologies were once only found in sci-fi movies, they are now a reality. In the near future, expect more of these implantable technologies to be made available to the public.

• 3D Printing

Crowdfunding sites are laden with a lot of 3D printer startups. Their 3D printers range from rebuildable units, portable ones, plug-and-play ones, and even one that is as small as a pen.

As more people engage in do-it-yourself projects, the demand for affordable 3D printers will continue to grow. We can expect people to present projects on crowdfunding sites that are more affordable, portable and print faster as current 3D printers take hours to print even just a little model. Hewlett-Packard is even putting its money on 3D printers so expect this market to boom soon.

• Tablets

The market will continue to see a rise in the demand for tablets that also function as laptops. According to Gartner, the total PC market for this year amounts to 321.6 million units, and they see it plateauing until next year (at 321.4 million units). This is due to the increasing demand in tablets as well as  in tablets with keyboards that replace low-end or outdated computers.

The reason behind this is, everything you need on a PC is mostly available as applications for tablets or even smartphones. So, if you are not a heavy PC user, you probably won’t be purchasing a new PC; instead you’ll just opt for a powerful tablet.

This year, Apple unveiled the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina Display. Microsoft released the second version of its Surface tablets. Nokia released its first tablet, the Lumia 2520. And even Amazon released new versions of its Kindle Fire tablet.

• Storage

The storage capacity for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets isn’t likely to increase in 2014. Smartphones will likely still have a storage capacity of somewhere between 16GB to 64GB. For tablets, it’s somewhere between 32GB to 128GB. The reason behind this is, people are now greatly relying on cloud storage as files can be accessed any time without compromising the actual storage of the device.

Storage manufacturers such as Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba are pushing to release hybrid flash memory in HDD solid-state hybrid HDDs. These devices can be as thin as 5mm and can fit into ultra-thin notebook PCs, something experts see as a possible lucrative arm of the PC business. Notebook PCs are more appealing to some consumers as they are almost as powerful as desktop PCs but are as portable as tablets. We could be seeing more ultra-thin notebook PCs equipped with SSHDDs to come our way in 2014.