What will Google, Facebook, and other great technologies face in 2018?

After 2017 marked by news such as the roller coaster of bitcoin, cyber attacks and the fight against inequality in the technological field we reached the doors of 2018, a new year that brings new challenges. Companies such as Google, Facebook or SpaceX, among many others, are already preparing to face this new exercise and the challenges that this entails.

With this article, La Vanguardia goes through the possible scenarios in which the big technology companies will be involved in 2018, which will surely end up occupying the headlines of the technology sections of the mainstream media.

After continued accusations against Russia for interfering through social networks in the past US presidential elections, Facebook and other similar companies have a golden opportunity in 2018 to show the world that they are working against misinformation: the legislative elections in the country of the stars and stripes that will take place in November.

In the face of these elections, Mark Zuckerberg's company has promised changes in its advertising products to increase transparency.

Beyond the problems of interference, the new year will also see the arrival of new original content funded by Facebook to Watch, the video platform of the social network with the most users in the world. We will have to see how this format evolves throughout the year, one of the most important bets of the American company.

In Google, 2018 will be the year of "regularization" of Google Play. During the new exercise, the popular digital distribution platform will require new applications and updates that reach an API (application programming interface) similar in level to the most recent version of Android.

For Apple everything seemed to go smoothly in 2017; the opening of new headquarters, the good sales figures of the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X and the news of the value of the company on the stock market for an amount of 900,000 million US dollars augured a happy end of the year for the Cupertino. However, the company's recent statements, in which it admits slowing down old iPhones, could spoil the new year. To date there are already eight lawsuits filed in several federal courts against the company of Tim Cook after learning of the software change - admitted by Apple - that causes the slowdown.

During 2018, another of the issues that will have to pay attention will be the relationship between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Asian giant's technology companies. The all-powerful CCP led by Xi Jinping, aware of the potential of companies such as Tencent, Weibo, and Alibaba, is pushing some of these conglomerates to offer the State a share in them and a direct role in corporate decisions, says the Wall. Street.

Who does not seem to be afraid of 2018 is Elon Musk, rather the opposite. Tesla and SpaceX, two of the companies of the multi-faceted South African naturalized the US, face equally commendable challenges: the first could finally normalize the electric car if it solves its supply problems and the second could return the man to the moon in 2018 if finally, It carries out the lunar tourism mission that it announced in February of this year.