Robot lawyers, smart assistants: Tech trends for 2015

Robot lawyers? Smart virtual assistants? Headbands that can affect how hot or cold we are?

Tech strategist Amy Webb today released her annual list of 55 trends to look out for this year, and while they range from intuitive (Uber for everything-delivery model), to out-there (neuroenhancers that make your body controllable by computer), several are certain to be future game-changers.

We ask Webb 5 questions:

Q. What are the trends you think will have the biggest implications for consumers?

1. Wearables. "This will be in two key markets — wearables for kids and wearables for women. In kids, many will help with tracking for little kids, but what I think is really interesting is additional functionality meant to get your couch-potato kids to put their iPad down and run around. You can literally nag your kid from afar."

2. Neuroenhancers. "What they promise to do is basically change your mental or emotional state. The Muse headband can be programmed to your mood selection — for an energy boost or feeling relaxed. There's a couple prototypes out there that send electrical pulses to make you feel cooler or warmer."

3. Lendership. "That one's obvious — the trend of lending and borrowing over buying and selling."

4. Smart virtual personal assistants. "There are several apps that have been acquired, but a cool product is the Amazon Echo. It's an ambient thing that looks a lot like a sleek garbage can — you put it in a central space in your house and it takes a verbal cue, listening to your conversation and starting on the fly."

Q. If you're not a tech person, which of the trends will blow your mind?

A. "This may or may not launch at the end of next year: the new Google phone, Project Ara. This will do to the mobile phone market what the iPhone did. It is a modular phone so basically what you buy is a piece of metal that has eight slots that fit rectangles smaller than an SD card, each with different functions. So you'll pretty much be able to attune your phone to what you need — get more space, get a better camera — by putting the pieces together."

Q. What are you most excited about?

A. "Blockchain, which is what Bitcoin is on. It's the hardest trend to explain, but by the end of next year with what's happening in the space, we could effectively replace a lot of what lawyers do. If robots are taking jobs in the industrial space, Blockchain is the robot of the professional world; it could take over trusteeships, brokers, lawyers, credit cards, things that require authentication."

Q. What terrifies you the most?

A. "Privacy. I'm concerned about how cavalier people are about what information they are sharing. We get so delighted and excited and that overshadows common sense. You have to think about the information you are giving and to whom."

Q. What's a downward trend? What do you think will be unpopular in 2015?

A. "I think ephemerality — being able to post and delete content — will be on the rise, but a big part of me hopes that the anonymous networks like Whisper and Secret will go away and we'll tire of them. I think that obsession has waned. It's a dark rabbit hole."

Check out all the trends here.

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