Predicting trends in technology has never been easy – unless you were the late Steve Jobs, who didn’t so much predict technological wants and needs as he created them.
But Bill Tam, president and CEO of the BC Technology Industry Association (BCTIA), is confident in predicting that cloud and mobile computing will be adopted by the mainstream in 2012.
This year is also shaping up to be a good one for B.C.’s clean-tech sector and could see genomics-based treatments making inroads in the fight against cancer and infectious diseases.
“The evolution of mobile is finally here,” Tam said. “We’re going to see breakthroughs of close to 35% to 45% adoption in North America, so I think that will be a big driver.
“What I think we’ll also see this year is the ongoing evolution of things that will move to the cloud.”
Because cloud computing reduces or eliminates an organization’s need to have its own servers and IT department, it removes what can be a significant cost for new enterprises.
“With the onset of mobile and cloud, the cost of setting up any sort of enterprise is going to be a fraction of what it once was,” Tam said. Sales at Best Buy Canada stores confirm 2011 was the year of the mobile device. Smartphone sales Canada-wide increased 40% between 2010 and 2011. Company spokeswoman Danielle Jang said the numbers were slightly higher at Best Buy Mobile.
Meanwhile, Best Buy’s tablet sales tripled between 2010 and 2011.
It wasn’t just the volume of sales in mobile devices that was noteworthy, but the way in which consumers are making their purchases. Jang said sales figures show a 37% increase in online sales for Best Buy’s early Boxing Day sale compared with 2010.
As for 2012, Jang said one new gadget that’s expected to become popular is smart TV devices, like the Apple TV and Boxee Box, which turn your flat-screen TV into a big computer screen where you can watch Youtube videos and other Internet-based media as well as your own videos and photos.
“People are using these devices to move their content from their laptops to their TV,” Jang said.
In the local life-sciences scene, advances in nanotechnology and genomics are dovetailing to allow scientists to drill down to smaller scales, which will simplify the process of sequencing the human genome.
“I think in 2012, 2013, we’ll see, finally, single-molecule sequencing,” said Genome BC CEO Alan Winter. “This is the convergence of nanotechnology and biology. What it allows you to do is achieve the sequencing of a particular genome much faster.”
Brad Nelson at the BC Cancer Agency on Vancouver Island is using genomics to develop a vaccine for cancer, and the advances being made in sequencing the genome of specific cancers is key to that approach.
Winter added that gene sequencing can also be used to treat infectious diseases.
Renewable energy is also expected to see a lot of activity in 2012. BC Hydro has signed 27 energy purchase agreements for clean energy projects like run-of-river, biomass and wind power.
Paul Kariya, executive director for Clean Energy BC, said some of those projects should start getting underway in 2012 as certificates are issued and construction initiated.
Because of the pine beetle infestation, B.C. has huge swathes of dead forest. Kariya said that abundance of available biomass raises prospects for bioenergy. He added that the B.C. government’s new jobs plan holds a lot of promise for the clean-energy sector, particularly in northern B.C., where new mines, liquid natural gas plants and an upgrade of Rio Tinto Alcan’s Kitimat aluminum smelter are all expected to increase demands for additional energy – demands not anticipated in BC Hydro’s most recent forecasts.
“This load growth that was embraced in the jobs plan was not really foreseen a year ago,” Kariya said. “If developments like the LNG, which have a very tight time frame, are going to move ahead, then 2012 has to be a big year in terms of government announcements and what government is going to do to enable electricity developments to occur.
“Where we’re feeling optimistic, as an industry group, is that we’re going to need a mix of supply and they need to do it right away.” •
