The web and mobile space continue to evolve in every corner of our lives. On one hand existing technologies are enhanced, getting more powerful and on the other hand new technologies are rapidly emerging. Today we are going to present 5 technologies we believe are relevant for the future of web and mobile world. Let’s take a look at them.

1. Future payments technology: A few days ago, CreditUnionTimes wrote about Pay Pal’s new technology that will change future payments.  This new technology relies on mobile phone technology and in many cases bypasses point-of-sale terminals. Moreover, it is said that it will “move past the dominance of Visa and MasterCard in the industry”. So, what is it all about? One approach of this new technology is letting “a user enter a telephone number and a personal identification number with the amount, then charged to a bank account or card associated with the number.  Another approach will allow the user to swipe a PayPal-issued plastic card at the point of sale. The card will not have an account number nor carry a Visa or MasterCard logo, but will require the use of a PIN.Larger items will be purchased in a store by scanning the item’s barcode which will  allow PayPal to find that exact item in stock with the retailer and allow the user to purchase it from the aisle and arrange for it so be shipped to their home address, according to media reports. PayPal will also have the ability to provide credit for the item, allowing the user to purchase it and pay for it over a set number of payments”, explains CreditUnionTimes. There are two great things about this. First, the technology does not require any change in payment hardware and second it will allow users to “check in” when they enter a store and receive targeted marketing or other sales support automatically, furtherwrites CreditUnionTimes.

2. Eye- tracking/ Voice commands: Yesterday Rick Chin, director of product innovation at SolidWorks, published a very interesting article, 8 Current Technologies That Will Shape Our Future. One of those technologies he writes about is the eye-tracking and voice commands technology. Tobil and Dragon from Nuance are some of the players in this field. Chin claims that this technology combined with augmented reality (AR) will create “a near-invisible and natural interface with your personal mobile computers (PMC). We’ll call these information glasses”, writes Chin. So how will it work? You see an object, you speak and this will be transmitted to your PMC. The PMC will interpret this, find, compute and finally will transmit the results back to you visually or verbally. For example: “Look at a restaurant and say, ‘Do they have good salads there?’. A moment later you will hear the highest-rated salads, communicated via your information glasses either by visual display or audible voice, depending on what you are doing at that moment, like driving”, writes Chin.

3. Autonomous cars: “Nevada Preps For The Future With Driverless Car Legislation”, wrote TechCrunch three months ago. “Google is testing and test-driving an autonomous car… a car where a computer does the driving, and people are along for the ride. Sebastian Thrun”,  a Google Fellow researching driverless cars, “calls it the perfect driving mechanism. But besides the cool-factor, Sebastian Thrun says there are compelling reasons to embrace the new technology”, reportsCBCRadio. Moreover, TechCrunch says that Google is not alone. “BMW has a clever race track-only trainer and VW just unveiled a near production-ready system, dubbed temporary auto pilot, which scans the road ahead so the driver can sit back and enjoy the ride. This is done through lane detection, speed monitoring and works up to 120 kph. Minority Report, here we come”, writes TechCrunch. Follow this link to read more about the way autonomous vehicles work.

4. CAD, 3D Printing & Custom Products: “Computer-aided design (CAD) products are popular among engineers, designers and students for creating 3D product design”, writes Chin.  Currently, in most cases this software is too advanced to be used by average consumer. However Chin believes that in future even average consumers will use CAD “to design own custom products that are both manufacturable and affordable”.

Next, 3D Printing (3DP) (check Dimension), is another technology taking the 3D CAD model to produce a real physical model. Chin says: “It can create almost any shape, even those that can’t be made by traditional manufacturing”. It is expected that this technology will be advancing in future and will be able to produce robust parts quickly and cheaply (currently the whole process is “slow, costly, and doesn’t produce parts strong enough for real world use”).

Sites such as NIKEiD, ShapeWays and Ponoko will grow, thus online custom products will gain popularity. You can design your own customized products, Nike shoes for example, but this is still pricey and it takes several weeks to get to you. The expectations are: future fast, flexible and inexpensive manufacturing of online custom products.

5. Face recognition technology: Two months ago, TechCrunch reported that Google acquired facial recognition software company PittPatt (Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition). PittPatt develops a facial recognition technology that can match people across photos/videos. “The company has created a number of algorithms in face detection, face tracking and face recognition. PittPatt’s face detection and tracking SDK locates human faces in photographs and tracks the motion of human faces in video”, reports TechCrunch. Although in May this year, Eric Schmidt,  Google Chairman said that facial recognition technology is “Too creepy even for Google”, still TechCrunch reports Google issued statement confirming the acquisition “The Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition team has developed innovative technology in the area of pattern recognition and computer vision. We think their research and technology can benefit our users in many ways, and we look forward to working with them.”

These were 5 technologies we thought will be relevant for web and mobile future. They definitely offer endless possibilities with a lot of room for creativity and innovation. Maybe you cannot predict disruptive technologies, since their nature is such – unpredictable, but what you can do is watch out the existing and emerging technologies and think about the way your web or mobile product can capitalize on the same.