SparkLabs Group

Happy New Year! 2019 has come and gone like Kylo Ren’s reign in The Rise of Skywalker, and so it’s time for my (13th!) annual prediction piece for VentureBeat. But first, a quick look at the scorecard for my 2019 predictions: Facial recognition trials will launch in large public venues outside of China. 2019 saw numerous trials, including at carnivals in Nice, France, airports in Las Vegas, and public housing in Detroit.

Happy New Year! Unlike the holiday fruitcake we’ve all been avoiding the past couple of weeks, 2018 was far from stale. The year was riddled with controversies, excitement, and disappointments — from Facebook selling it’s soul … err, our souls, to the battle over net neutrality to Apple hitting over a trillion dollars to cryptocurrencies’ nosedive.

South Korea is truly crypto crazy. While the country has less than 1 percent of the world’s population, estimates indicate it is responsible for 30 percent of all cryptocurrency trading in the world. Steve Lim, CSO of South Korean crypto exchange Coinone said in an interview last year: “People are crazed over it. Grandpas and grandmas come to our office lobby and say they want to put [in] half a billion won ($447,000).