GRAND RAPIDS – Technologist Keith Brophy, a vice president at RCM Technologies Enterprise Integration Division, once again looked into his crystal ball to make his annual predictions of what tech trends will likely prevail in the years to come ? the eleventh straight year he has provided his “geeky” outlook.

Before a packed house on Feb. 18 at the Grand Valley State University Eberhardt Center, Brophy shared his technology insights that originally launched to kick off the year in style by the SBTDC ( Small Business Technology Development Center).

As the event grew in size and scope, it transitioned to the kick off of AimWest, the former ConnecTech Grand Rapids chapter which broke away from the Automation Alley-backed technology networking group several years ago.

“A common question I receive is, ‘how do you select the trends from among all the possibilities”?? Brophy asked? “After so many years of studying the future, I have evolved a set of K factors that accurately predict how deeply an emerging technology will take hold and rock our society, our businesses, and our lives. These K factors remain a closely guarded secret – primarily because they would likely bore anyone who attempted to understand my long explanation of them.”

Brophy said his Tech Trends predictions are serious. All research shared with the predictions is factual. Many advances happening in research labs are simply astounding. From mind reading interfaces to flying robot bugs to the more close to home advances in cell phones and computer display surfaces, the world is changing at a rate unprecedented in human existence.

A drum roll please:

1. Mind Reading Technology

Prediction: In 5 years brain neuron reading solutions will be in limited use in the field of psychology. In 20 years they will be common place in other industries as well.

2. A New Era of Displays

Prediction: Over the next 5 years displays will become substantially cheaper and more effective, triggering a vast increase in the use of multiple displays for a variety of purposes. Pixel Qi ups the ante!

3. Self-Aware Roadways

Prediction: Within 5 years stretches of self-aware highways will exist in 5 states. In 15 years they will be in the majority of states.

4. New Age Interfaces

Interfaces have steadily evolved, and we are on the brink of a new era in how we interact with our computers. The Wii is one of many signs of this. The Wii was reportedly introduced to broaden the demographics of users of gamers to include more young, old, families, and technophobes. It has been a phenomenal success with record adoption and now the top of the gaming popularity list. The Wii includes a Wii remote with an accelerometer that you control by gestures rather than clicking, and a Wii Balance Board that you control by body movement. Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox Natal is rumored to be the next step forward in the interface wars, using a video 3D motion sensing system that essentially lets users stand in front of it and interact by simply moving their bodies. Existing interface systems like voice recognition on cars and cell phones and other recent introductions like the Microsoft surface and Ipad all demonstrate ways of interacting beyond the mouse and keyboard. Historically the new interfaces in specialized uses have been slow to cross the chasm to business systems. With the many incremental advances that have occurred, though, that age has arrived.

Prediction: Within 5 years 30 percent of all of our interactive experiences with computers will be hands free.

5. Microbug Bug Swarms

Prediction: Within 5 years we will see early deployments of microbug swarms in areas of safety and security. General industry and consumer adoption will follow over the following 5 years for a variety of productivity tasks.

6. Augmented Reality

Prediction: Within 5 years augmented reality systems will roll across many industries, and they will become a new category of ?must have? competitive tool for many businesses.

7. Driver Assisted Control Vehicles

Prediction: Over the next 5 years we will see an increasing variety of automated driver assist vehicle options. In 20 years the car will be driven by the computer and we will see remote drivers emerge in certain jurisdictions of the world.

8. Mobile Social Media

We revisited our prediction of explosive social media growth from last year. Even though celebrities like Miley Cyrus have stepped back from social media with much fanfare, and some say it is out of fashion, the reality is that this is just the beginning. Over the last year Facebook use grew from 150 million to over 400 million, social network sites flourished across the world, and interesting new products such as “Puppy Tweet” which allows your dog to tweet via a location sensitive collar have come into existence.

More importantly, social media is rapidly converging with the corresponding rapid revolution of adoption of smart cell phones. 1 + 1 = 3 in terms of the productivity power this provides. It is easy, quick, engaging and often highly productive to use social media from an always present phone to check in, keep in touch, and share information. Social media will become an assumed ever present entity, much like the Internet, as a taken for granted part of our human existence.

Prediction: In 5 years a variety of mobile-device driven social media will become our primary form of (remote) communication.

9. Technophobe Health Movement

Prediction: Over the next 5 years there will be increasing regulation of technology with respect to its impact on physical and mental health.

10. Emotion Recognition Systems

Prediction: Within 5 years emotion recognition systems will be deployed in many industries, although progress will be slowed by privacy concerns.

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