In the fast-paced world we live in today, we are all looking for ways to make our days and lives a little easier. Since we spend at least eight hours a day and over 30% of our life working, the first place to start improving should be our workplace.

Below are a number of gadgets, apps and more to look out for.

Top five ways to arrange your office for the New Year

  1. Voice dictation – This tool will allow you to never miss a beat during your meetings with your clients. It will dictate and transcribe every word of your conversations or emails allowing you to focus more on your insightful thoughts and ideas.
  2. Solar chargers – You can keep your devices powered and fully charged no matter where you are.
  3. Smart whiteboard − How many times have you had to take a picture of a whiteboard brainstorming session to remember all of your new great ideas? This convenient “smart whiteboard” allows you to send all of your whiteboard notes directly to a smartphone or laptop.
  4. Ultimate standing desk − Now you don’t need to spend an hour in the gym before or after work, you can stay healthy and fit right from the comfort of your own office with a treadmill desk.
  5. Google Chromebox − These days meeting virtually has almost become the norm. With Google’s Chromebox you can take your video conferencing to the next level. Companies will use this to facilitate constant collaboration across their different office locations.

Five most exciting new tech products to launch in 2015

  1. The Apple Watch will launch in early 2015. It will be Apple’s first new product category under CEO Tim Cook.
  2. Microsoft will launch Windows 10. It is designed to work on all devices including smartphones, laptops, desktops and the Xbox.
  3. Samsung’s next flagship phone, the Galaxy S6, will launch in early 2015. Details are scarce, but some early rumours suggest that this will be the biggest upgrade yet to Samsung’s Galaxy phone.
  4. Apple is working on an even larger version of the iPad. The rumours are that it will be a larger version of the iPad with a 12-inch screen.
  5. A touch version of Microsoft Office for Windows. Microsoft Office is going to get an overhaul in 2015. The company is working on a new touch-friendly version of Office for Windows tablets and touchscreen laptops.

Three productivity apps that will change the way you work in 2015

While many new gadgets, tools and apps were designed to drain our time, others are created to help us make the most of our workdays. Here are three productivity apps that will play a major role in 2015:

  1. Google Drive for Work. In June 2014, Google announced a version of Drive specifically for businesses. Drive for Work offers unlimited storage space, meaning it could potentially be a company’s main storage facility. It includes Google Vault, which has an archiving feature for all emails and chats. The eDiscovery feature allows you to find and retrieve information quickly, even from closed accounts.
  2. IFTTT (acronym for If This Then That) is a simple app that helps users automate their days and makes tasks easier. Following a simple pattern, or recipe, users can set up filters so if something happens, then it will perform an action. The program currently allows you to pick from more than 100 other sites to monitor. Popular examples include: “If my company gets a new follower on Twitter, send them a welcome tweet” and “If a photo is uploaded to my company’s Facebook page, save it to Dropbox”.
  3. Limitless. One of the biggest time-wasters at work is careless web browsing that lure staff away from their tasks. Limitless is a Chrome browser plugin that monitors what employees are doing and, by comparing their activity to yearly and daily goals, will give them gentle nudges when they seem to be straying from their tasks. Sites are grouped together into categories (many predefined, but they can easily be amended) so the business can see the percentage of an employee’s browsing time divided into work, email, learning and more. Each category can be blocked at certain times – say, social media in the last few hours of the workday – to help boost productivity.

Some more app news

    • Game apps will become even more addictive
    • Apps will become even more specialised
    • Holograms might finally arrive
    • Apps will become even more plentiful.

 

Sources
http://www.newsmobile.in/articles/2014/12/07/5-coolest-office-gadgets-you-need-2015
http://www.thenewsfunnel.com/blog/ten-ways-increase-your-office-productivity-2015#sthash.2mnDKBaA.dpbs
http://hobbingpost.com/gadgets-to-anticipate-in-2015/
http://www.djangotech.com/future-tech-13-top-tech-gadgets-products-look-2015/
https://mybusiness.singtel.com/techblog/three-productivity-apps-will-change-way-you-work-2015#sthash.YbfRIEim.dpbs
http://www.forbes.com/sites/salesforce/2014/09/14/breakthrough-technologies-2015/
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/google-android/3530428/26-best-consumer-tech-products-coming-soon/?pn=2