22 Dec 5 emerging technologies everyone should know

 

Trying to keep up with technology? Well, here are five emerging technologies that will disrupt 2018.

Looking into future of technology is one of the best things about what we do here at Qualitance. Imagining possibilities is what makes this era of technology so exciting.

Just when we caught up with the current software boom, it feels like the age of data is already upon us. Yikes! Never before has the exponential growth of technology felt so ubiquitous. According to Domo, every minute of everyday Twitter users send over 400,000 tweets. Every single minute.

2017. The year of Bitcoin and Voice as an Interface

This year we predicted Blockchain, Virtual Reality, and Chat & Voice interfaces would change the game. Blockchain poster child Bitcoin has undoubtedly done so. Its value has rocketed more than 10x this year. And cryptocurrencies, built on the blockchain, look like one of the biggest bubbles of recent times.

The voice as the interface has come hurtling into our lives via Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home devices. Over 30 million units have been sold in the USA alone.

Apple’s Siri receives over 1 billion requests per week via our iPhones and Google has announced that 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches, and the ratio of voice search is growing faster than type search.

Virtual Reality didn’t catch on this year. Producing VR experiences is challenging, and the final product often pales in comparison with an IMAX movie. The power of well-produced VR is undeniable. A VR viable effort and return on investment remain elusive.

 

What’s the big picture marketplace a technology can thrive with?

 

It feels like Augmented Reality will offer similar immersive experiences that are easier to design and take a far less CPU and battery life to deliver on a smartphone.

How to pick a Technology Winner

We always look for a few things in technology. We take our inspiration from Gartner and alike and evaluate the technologies across these three filters:

1. User Wow! We look for user experiences that are pure 10x better than today.
2. Addressable Market. What’s the big picture marketplace a technology can thrive with?
3. Openness to innovation. How open or closed is the technology ecosystem?

Top 5 Emerging Technologies for 2018

1. Augmented Reality

Move aside VR; AR is the new sheriff in town. IDC predicts AR/VR spending to grow more than 100% per year until 2024. Juniper expects nearly 200 million global AR users next year.

With all the tech titans jumping into the AR arena we have the perfect conditions for market innovation.

For inspiration, take a look at the auto industry and what they’re doing with AR. Volvo is improving everything with AR – advertising, showrooms, and driving itself.

2. Autonomous Vehicles

Computers are better drivers than humans. The enormous safety and decongestion benefits from autonomous vehicles lead to only one truth – Autonomous Vehicles are inevitable.

Need more proof? Uber just bought 24,000 autonomous SUVs from Volvo. UPS recently purchased 125 Tesla Semi-trucks. One of the smartest tech CEO’s Jensen Huang of Nvidia said this year “Fully autonomous vehicles would be on the road before 2022”. Uber noted their fleet would be driverless by 2030.

For inspiration, just enjoy Death Star-like beauty of the Tesla semi-truck.

3. Face Recognition

Using our faces as means of authentication is nothing new in the security world of biometrics. Facebook has been doing some work in the field as it relates to photography over the last years. But this year it all changed when Apple release Face ID with the new iPhone X.

With facial recognition endorsement by Cupertino, we already see the trend moving to the mainstream. Not surprisingly, Alibaba and KFC partnered in China, so you pay for your fried chicken with just your face. Yum!

4. IOT Effect

We’ve already highlighted the boom in Amazon Echo and Home devices. You can expect many more new gadgets in 2018 from Philips Hue, Apple Home and Google Nest.

Perhaps the most significant innovation will be in the office and factory. IOT is heading well beyond the consumer’s home. Statista predicts The global Internet of Things (IoT) market will grow from $2.99T in 2014 to $8.9T in 2020.

Rio Tinto launched its Mine Of The Future program almost a decade ago. Since then, we’ve seen autonomous trucks already in the field. Recently the mining company used IoT solutions to better understand data regarding tires, the loads on vehicles, environmental factors and driver behavioral performance.

5. Artificial Intelligence

Let’s leave the biggest technology until last, huh? AI is nothing short of a game changer in epic terms. It will reshape the data, the workforce, the economy, the way everything works.

No longer shall humans need to deal with mundane data-driven tasks such as paperwork, scheduling and timesheets. AI will take care of all of that and more.

 

AI is nothing short of a game changer. It will reshape the data,  the workforce, the economy, the way everything works.

 

According to Tractica, the AI market will catapult from just $1.4 billion in 2016 to nearly $60 billion in under than ten years. What comes with that is a massive change. PWC predicts 38% of jobs in the U.S. could be lost to AI in the next few decades.

If you still need a little more proof then this year’s three-match series of Go should do the job. DeepMind, Google’s AI platform, made history when it’s AI application AlphaGo beat the Go world champion. The remarkable nature of this historical moment was that the game Go, an ancient Chinese board game, was believed to be uncrackable by computers.

So there you have it. 2018, another big year in tech, is just around the corner.