Recent Technological advancements

• The Bionic Eye: A Retinal Implant That Can Receive Updates

The Argus Retinal Prosthesis is the first of its kind—a bionic retinal implant that helps people see in the same way a hearing aid helps people hear. The Argus II was approved and released commercially in the United States in this year and received a firmware update that granted users color vision. The Argus II is a peek into the future—a glance into a future where once these implants get good enough, a bionic eye will be better than a natural human one.

• Displays Get Insanely High Definition

Oh you thought your 1080p television looked good? Wait till you take a look at the 4K displays that companies have been flaunting all year. They made a big splash at CES earlier this year, but now that prices have gone down and more content has become available, 4K displays might become the new standard sooner than we think.

• Wearable Technology Really is The Next Big Thing

Journalists have been predicting that wearable technology will be the “next big thing” for what seems like forever. With milestone releases like Google Glass, the Pebble Smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Gear and the Nike+ Fuelband SE, it just might be time to finally crown wearables as the official “next big thing”. It’s at the point where the once-rumored, but still unannounced iWatch is almost a given in 2014.

• Hard Drives Filled With Helium

Besides just sounding cool, the new helium-filled hard drives introduced by Western Digital this year are a game-changer in storage technology. To put it simply, because their new highly efficient hard drives are filled with helium rather than air, they can now cram 6 TB of capacity into a single drive. You probably won’t be buying one of these any time soon, but with big cloud-centered companies taking part, you just might feel the benefits as a consumer of services like Netflix (especially now that 4K streaming has been announced).

•  Virtual Reality Gets Real

Although the Oculus Rift hasn’t seen its commercial release yet, developer kits are out—and the experience has been stunning the world. With its lag-free head tracking and HD displays, this Kickstarter-funded, virtual reality headset is the only one that has ever mattered. If the way it took the game development community by storm in 2013 is any sign, 2014 will be the year the Oculus Rift becomes the sought-after piece of mainstream commercial hardware that it’s always meant to be.