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They were the most popular tech gadgets and gizmos of 2015, and they caught the imagination of the people. Some of them are going to be even bigger in 2016, and some are going to evolve. Here is a quick roundup of the most exciting tech trends of 2015, stuff that is within reach of us right now.

Hoverboards or Two Wheeled Self Balancing Electric Scooters

They are the insanely cool personal transporters, turned fiery demons turned next gen UL 2272 hoverboards. Yep the journey of the hoverboard has been trailblazing to say the least. They were the rage during Christmas 2015, and then some of them began to catch fire. Matters became so bad that the US Govt. agency the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) had to intervene and it declared all hoverboards unsafe unless they had proper certifications. New standards came into being and now a new breed of two wheeled hoverboards are emerging. Theier popularity soared initially also because every celebrity was flaunting their hoverboard, from Wiz Khalifa to Jamie Foxx to Scrillex.

Virtual Reality Headsets

We have all seen the techilicious Occulus Rift headsets, and now we know about Google Cardboard, a virtual reality headset that can be completely made by following instructions and putting together cardboard pieces. Virtual Reality headsets are now entering different realms. Microsoft’s Hololens being used by NASA to virtually experience the terrain of Mars in their labs, Sony is planning to integrate a virtual reality headset into the Play Station 4. Amongst the really drool-worthy headsets is the HTC Vive, but like the Occulus Rift it is very expensive.

Drones

Drones have been around for a while, and they are being used for everything from delivering packages, to military surveillance, to emergency medical help. Now the drones are becoming smarter and also popping up in unexpected places. We saw drones that are able to track you as you ski down a slope, or one that can do face tracking. The niftiest one is a wearable drone called Nixie that can be worn like a watch on your wrist and with a gesture it will fly, take a picture of you and then come back to you. Here’s a video of Nixie:

There are even cars with personalized drones. It seems that selfies sticks will soon be passe, as selfie drones hit the market. Some really exciting things are going to happen with drones in 2016, and they will become much more accessible.

3-D Printers

The cost of 3-D printers is coming down, and they are also becoming more specialized. It is envisioned that soon there will be 3-D printing centers in the local malls where we will pick up our 3-D printed stuff just the way we used to pick up camera prints before. The commercial 3-D Printers are now easily available and their prices are coming down. They used to be able to print only in plastic shapes but today 3-D printers can print using materials ranging from titanium to human cartilage, and can also produce fully functional components, including hip implants, dental implants, hearing aids, complex mechanisms, batteries, transistors etc. XYZprinting created a food printer. Some innovators in 3-D printing are MarkForge, Voxel8 and Carbon3D.

Smartwatches

Smartwatches from leading brands like Apple, Sony, Samsung, LG and Motorola are already available, but now the next generation smart watches are coming in. This include the Apple Watch 2, and a whole host of smartwatches from HTC, Casio, Samsung, New Balance etc. Most of these smartwatches connect to your smartphone and display notifications from it, they also track fitness and monitor the body. The current crop of smartwatches will allow messaging, email, calendars and other apps. In fact stand-alone smartwatches which will be able to do all of this without your smartphone being around are also coming to the market. The popular Pebble smartwatch came with a small software development kit for developers to create apps. Thus along with its primary functions of an on-wrist GPS display, run timer, and remote control, it would also let you order a pizza, engage with an e-ink maze and more.

The UK Tour of the Vamps kicked off on 25^th March, and their bassist Connor Ball was on a hoverboard on the stage. He has just had a knee surgery and it was the best way to move around for him, and to make a grand entry.

Connor Ball must have a lot of practice on the hoverboard to be wielding the bass guitar, recovering from a knee surgery and balancing flawlessly on the hoverboard on stage. The Vamps have kicked off the UK Tour with the first show in the Birmingham Genting Arena in England.

Here's a recent video of The Vamps:​

The 20-year-old Connor Ball, used a hoverboard on stage during the concert, which saw surging crowds. There were jumbo LED screens and ramps to give the concert goers a closer view of The Vamps. The entire line up of The Vamps include Brad Simpson, James McVey, Tristan Evans and Connor Ball. Bradley Simpson plays rhythm guitar, James Daniel McVey plays guitar, Connor Ball plays the bass guitar and Tristan Evans play the drums in the band.

You can see their UK Tour Schedule below:

Connor Ball was super excited about the tour and wrote this on Twitter just before the opening show – “Can’t wait for today we get to play the tour set fully too excited”. Later he tweeted – “Who enjoyed the first show?! And what was your fav part? ???? Birmingham you were bloody aweeeeesome.”

This is the UK Arena part of their World Tour called Wake Up. They have done the Asia part, and are doing the UK part and will be travelling to Europe, South America, USA, Canada and Mexico after this.

Check out the website of The Vamps here - www.thevamps.net

This is their official YouTube channel - ​The Vamps YouTube