Leading Edge Trends
By default, leading edge trends brings two general things to mind, artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
Does any among us recall thinking that these two technologies were a far-fetched concept?
According to the Forbes Technology Council, there are 13 leading edge trends to keep on the radar.
Quite honestly, some of these I have never heard of.
Leading Edge Trends:
- Homomorphic Encryption: This particular technology claims to be able to offer two people the ability to share information between each other without revealing, unnecessarily, any secret information.
- 3-D Multi-Sensor Transmitters: This technology focuses on sensory experiences. This particular technology works along side virtual reality. This means that this technology can replicate the way any item looks and feels.
- Robotics: According to the industry, robotics is going to be main stream, whether we like it or not. Unexpectedly, it is predicted that agriculture will be one of the industries to benefits from robotics first.
- IoT, 5G, and Edge Computing: e value of combining IoT, 5G and edge computing will surprise people. – Sanjay Brahmawar, Software AG
- At Home Digital Diagnostics: This particular technology is not a surprise considering the threat that global pandemics pose on any society. I expect to see a huge number of innovations that offer real-time, efficient, medical diagnostics remotely; reducing the risk of spread.
- Conversational AI: Quite frankly, this one is not that much of a surprise is it? I mean, there’s Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. Essentially, we should just expect this particular trend to continue to expand and be refined.
More Trends
- Augmented Reality: Perhaps a scenario using augmented reality would help provide a better understanding of what this technology is and what it can do. In this scenario, we are focusing on a warehouse. This technology can save an employee time by being able to quickly locate the correct product and package it.
- Rapid Virus Testing: I expect to see rapid virus testing tools move into homes — perhaps as a small device that talks to your smartphone. Combining easier, more frequent testing with location-based contact-tracing apps will dramatically improve society’s response to and management of a pandemic. – Jeff MacMillan, StorMagic
- Quantum Computing: In the last couple of years, quantum computing has matured from being in the realm of near science fiction to becoming a field of substantial commercial and strategic national investment. Within five to 10 years, large-scale gate-based quantum computers will make groundbreaking contributions in areas such as materials science, cybersecurity and medicine. – Paul Lipman, BullGuard
Cybersecurity
- Passwordless Authentication: I am certain that I am not the only person that has an issue with passwords and remembering them. This has been the case since about 1960, when the password concept was introduced. Soon the password as we know it will cease to exist, and we’ll see widespread adoption of passwordless authentication. This is a big step toward catching authentication up with the technology that we know today. – Arshad Noor, StrongKey
- AR/VR in Real Estate and Construction: Would you agree with me that this particular technology is quite encouraging and inviting? Really, who enjoys the time and effort it takes to drive to a potential location to view a home or property you are interested in purchasing only to be disappointed by what you see. This technology is heaven-sent in this context, as it allows the potential buyer and seller to save a lot of time, resources, and money.
- Always on Connectivity: It will be always on like oxygen is always on—there will be no handover issues and it will work in elevators, basements, tunnels, hallways and all the remote corners of the logistic center. – Tsvi Lev, NEC Corporation
- Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology used to be the stuff of science fiction, but we’re seeing growing examples of its use, such as food packaging that can detect the presence of pathogens including salmonella. That’s going to be huge in the near future. – Ahmer Inam, Pactera EDGE
Don’t follow a trend. Follow your heart.
Should we fear trending technologies?
What people are saying:
This question is definitely a conversation starter.
Here are some opinions:
Positive:
, former Engineer at Hewlett-Packard (1978-2000)
Technology creates many wonderful things that we need and enjoy. We should be scared of those who misuse the technology against others. This is analagous to language, which has enabled amazing things for our species. Language is good, but we can misuse it by using it to do harm through lies, as has the Trump administration.
Neutral:
, B.A Digital Enterprise Management, University of Toronto (2020)
Yes in the sense that if you look at the grand scheme of things humanity has evolved and innovated more in towards the last few years in the 20th Century and the start of the 21st Century as we have compared to a bulk of the 20th Century.
Comparatively we are improving at a faster rate than mankind before us because our generation have been blessed with the advent of technologies. The 20th Century brought forth the widespread adoption of Fossil Fuels, widespread energy sources — Electricity from Coal and the steam engine, gas-powered engines and then computerization.
Sources:
I recently reread an old article that I had when I was writing a paper on artificial intelligence in High School. It’s here: The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 1 – Wait But Why it is a long and rather depressing read. It suggests that humanity’s focus on increasingly sophisticated technologies could get out of hand. Basically, because of humanity’s innovation in all fields, technology has become one of our biggest focuses.
According to Moore’s Law computing power doubles roughly every 2 years while the price also reduces. (Although according to recent experts this may have slowed down around 2015).
So why are computers at the focus of everything? Well when we think of technology nowadays everything revolves around it! Some of the most successful startups, well the majority of successful startups are now increasingly software as a service centered. So many companies rely on Business Intelligence tools, Big Data Analysis, Customer Insight tools.
Some of the biggest companies on earth don’t have tangible assets in their field, some of the largest travel-booking websites like Expedia and Booking.com: The largest selection of hotels, homes, and vacation rentals for example don’t own any jets, hotels or homes!
AirBnb one of the most globally recognized homestay booking websites doesn’t own any homes! Uber, Lyft, Didi, GrabCar all of these major taxi industry disruptors don’t own a single car!
Technology
Basically my point is, technology has literally enabled us to shed the requirements of having tangible assets. Maybe the next biggest restaurant won’t have a physical restaurant, it will be a digital marketplace.
The next largest healthy burger chain perhaps will exist on a phone and be launched from city to city in 1 food processing center where to cut cost there are no diners and it’s simply takeout. If this terrifies you or makes you uncomfortable than yes…technology maybe something to be scared of.
Artificial Intelligence
Going back to the article and artificial intelligence. As we humankind rely on increasingly sophisticated technology to learn, to find insights, to analyze. We also have to create increasingly powerful technologies to do the hard computerization FOR us.
And sometimes we don’t cease to think about the potential consequences. For example, the world’s largest tech companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter) probably never stopped to think of the potential cybersecurity concerns and issues before the problems slapped them in the face.
Sometimes we aren’t ready, and sometimes when we aren’t ready it leads to consequences. Accounts being hacked, ransomware being installed on computers, phishing scams on online shoppers.
Dangers of Tampering
This can be applied to artificial intelligence. Elon Musk and others ave warned about the dangers of tampering with artificial intelligence, looking for ways to boost computing power in order to process larger and grander calculations.
All of this could—realistically—very possibly lead to a A.I revolution. Where artificial intelligence takes a mind of it’s own and technology evolves without our tampering to a more than intelligent—super intelligent being.
There are people that think there are positives and negatives to this, for example like I said in the beginning. Should we be scared of technology? Yes and No. Why do I say that?
Scenario:
People never realized the annoyance of going out to buy your groceries when you have Amazon…Amazon Prime that promises to deliver basically EVERYTHING to your housetop the next day.
People never realized the hassle they had to endure when the rented movies from BlockBuster until Netflix came along and disrupted the entire home movie industry.
People didn’t realize how much better and how many more alternatives and how much more consumer power they received when Uber / Lyft and all the other car sharing apps came along.
Consumers
Consumers have become empowered in this world of innovation, but we don’t realize is sometimes there’s an inherent cost to everything. In our lifetimes we may very well see Artificial General Intelligence (basically a form of intelligence that has the same cognitive / understanding as us) as opposed to Artificial Narrow Intelligence that we have now.
This could lead to an Artificial Super Intelligence being able to solve all of humanity’s problems being birthed as a result. Such as world hunger…famine…conflict…disease…lack of resources…overpopulation being solved and even—the issue of life and it’s extension.
Or.
Artificial SuperIntelligence and this evolved computer intelligence could very well spell the end of humankind.
It’s a matter of perspective I guess.
Why are people scared of technology?
One of the McDonald’s managers I knew once complained that when the power was disrupted once and they had to manually calculate change, many employees struggled, which created huge backlogs and stress on everyone.
This year McDonald’s announced that they are replacing all cashiers in 2,500 stores with the machines. The Wall Street cheered, because not only the machines would calculate change better, they will be far less costly than all the humans.
Fear or no Fear:
, Analytic and uncommon, most of the time.
Short answer: We are afraid of technology because we don’t want to go extinct being replaced by technology, we are afraid that it might turn us into zombies, we are afraid the world might become like the movie Surrogates or we become the slug people from Wall-E, or androids take over the world and destroy all humans.
Long answer:
Technology has always been used to aid us, but now it is being used to replace us. And makes some people feel obsolete. Basically annihilates self accomplishment, and eventually will substitute people. That’s what people fear. According to science, the meaning of life is to live on through our offspring. This is as well reflected on societies, and why the name (now last name) is so important. When a name ceases to exist, its as if the patriarch ceased to exist. So the thought of being replaced/killed off by technology is terrifying.
Technology Control
Another thing is people fear technology being used to control them. Sure, having a microchip in your brain to help you think and even connect to the internet doesn’t sound too bad. actually sounds pretty good if you re a fan of technology. Now, say that the chip can be used by some person somewhere to change your personality and even make you do things you would never do. Not so sweet anymore, right?
Oh, another thing. I almost forgot. The fear of becoming so dependent of technology that we become some dumb ugly species. Which would leave us very vulnerable if technology were to fail one day. Also feed us lies. Like catfish on the internet. We are afraid of the world turning into the movie Surrogates, or Wall-e.
Fear of Technology Dependency
Lastly, some people are afraid of technology because they think we are giving too much power to the machines and some day some A.I. is gonna take over the world and destroy all humans. Like in Terminator. Of all these, this one is the one that least scares me.
Welp, phone battery dies, we don’t always have a computer nearby. Heck, we don’t always have even tools to work with.
You know what we always have? The same that we’ve had to rely on since the dawn of life. Our body. Our brain, our muscles, our bones, our blood, etc. I personally like to think that the human body, including the human brain, can overcome.
Lioness
Elena Ledoux
Answered Aug 14, 2017
People are afraid of technology because the technology is superior to people.
One of the McDonald’s managers I knew once complained that when the power was disrupted once and they had to manually calculate change, many employees struggled, which created huge backlogs and stress on everyone.
This year McDonald’s announced that they are replacing all cashiers in 2,500 stores with the machines. The Wall Street cheered, because not only the machines would calculate change better, they will be far less costly than all the humans.