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he largest chip maker in the world, Intel Corporation, foresee wireless charging and augmented reality weaving their way into mainstream technology this year, further transforming the way people and devices interact.

Santosh Vishwanathan, the chief representative of Intel Indonesia, said that “new experiences” will start coming into the market this year thanks to advancements in software and hardware.

The first, he said, was wireless charging, or the ability to charge the batteries of mobile devices sans electrical cord.

“We will see wireless charging sooner or later,” he said.

Wireless charging involves the transmission of electric power through the air into a device that will charge up the gadgets.

Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has introduced this concept in its Nokia Lumia 820 and Nokia Lumia 920 in which users can charge up simply by laying the devices on a charging plate.

Viswanathan said, however, the current method of wireless charging still required these charging docks to be connected to an electrical outlet.

In the near future, he said, charging could be done without any cords involved, saving people from having to bring extra cords or batteries when on the go.

“We are talking about pure wireless charging of devices without wires connected,” he said.

Besides wireless charging technology, batteries would become increasingly compact, he said.

This, he said, was because processors within the devices would become more energy efficient, and hence, need less power.

“The slimmer batteries will allow devices to become thinner and sleeker in design,” he noted.

Vishwanathan added that another technological innovation that would start entering the mainstream was “perception computing”, or the use of voice, facial expressions or gestures to prompt actions on devices.

Perception computing, which would utilize improved hardware and software, would allow devices to detect a myriad of information about the user, from the person’s gender right down to his or her mood, he said.

“Various software can help determine the gender of a person and therefore, present suitable advertisements when this person is standing in front of a kiosk, for example,” he said.

Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung unveiled its F8000 LED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013 in Las Vegas recently. The television and its intelligent broadcasting platform can identify a user, enabling advertisers to offer specific content.

Vishwanathan added that gesture-based computing was “something we will see take off” this year.

He added that gesture-based computing had huge potential because people did not want to always be on a keyboard or touching their device to operate it.

Samsung’s Smart TV carries this function already. Users can operate their televisions, from changing the volume to playing Angry Birds, with gestures and voice commands.

“It is very human to move, so [gestures] are things that will come to computing soon,” Vishwanathan said.

Another technology that will increasingly become mainstream is augmented reality, which will allow the real world and Internet world to merge together in one form.

Internet giant Google made waves last year by announcing its Project Glass, a pair of computer-equipped glasses. Time magazine named it one of the best innovations of 2012.

Vishwanathan added that, as part of augmented reality, mobile phones would be able to sense the location of the user and provide relevant information.