Emerging Technologies

The only difference that makes all the difference to our species is the capacity to innovate. Over time we have been observing, reasoning, and improvising through experimentation. From the stage of taming fire and engaging savage wheels, we have wheeled a long way away to tame and harness the invisible, massless negative charges, called electrons. The flow of electrons generated by various means has transformed the world. Innovation and technological advancements are an endless highway replete with potholes, diversions, distractions, highwaymen, and steep precarious topographies. Each nation and each generation had its own prized technological achievements to flaunt. But, lately, the long march has turned into a concerted pan-global endeavor, regulated by IPR watchdogs and standardized documentation. 

Long haul

Innovations are basically problem-based. But problems take new shapes, and an eternal solution is altogether an impossibility. That is the very reason why innovation and technological advancements have an infinite scope. Much more is left to be understood, and much more is left to be explored. This machine making species of ours will continue to outsource our traditional duties and responsibilities to machines that know not how to grumble and revolt. They are increasingly engaged to do all the dirty and hazardous jobs. Thus the endless chase continues for a perfect life, safe sequestered and insulated from all worries, which, fortunately, will never be. The quality of life, however, has been steadily picking up across time in terms of health care and the availability of goods and services. This process is, indeed, destined to continue ad infinitum.

There are certain areas where humanity has, in recent years, made revolutionary and game-changing advancements, possibilities that the world may not have even thought of a generation back. Some of the areas where the research fraternities have made spectacular spikes and caught the imagination of the world are glossed over in the following passages.

Artificial Intelligence

The art of simulating human intelligence in special purpose machines and making them imitate human reasoning and muscular action to perform specific activities has come a long way away from the pages of fiction. From the levels of robots, the horizon has expanded to self-driving cars, health care, assisted surgery, financial management, and sophisticated military engineering. Weak Artificial Intelligence is programmed to perform comparatively simple functions such as video games, Alexa, Siri, etc., whereas Strong artificial Intelligence gadgets are designed to be more human-like and are capable of solving defined problems with little or no human guidance. It is almost certain that AI will take over many dedicated assignments traditionally performed by human beings, especially in defense, healthcare, and logistics. The repercussions thereof in employment and economy sectors depend on the policy decisions of the governments and corporates. In any case, it is going to play a pivotal role in the shape of things to come.

 Emerging technologies in Artificial Intelligence:

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

5G: This latest generation and the emerging new global wireless standard is designed to connect everything and everyone together. Devices offering high Gbps and impressively low latency are destined to be in vogue. The anticipated impacts of the new revolution are multitudinous and far-reaching, in terms of global economic output, new jobs, and global GDP growth. In another fifteen years, 5G will dominate the dynamics of goods and services across the world. The geopolitical tug of war, happening behind the scenes, explains the stakes involved in getting an upper hand in the race for global market share. Job opportunities going to be opened up in the areas of OEMs, operators, content creators, app developers, and consumers are estimated to be to the tune of 22.3 million. 

Emerging technologies in 5G:

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

Internet of Things (IoT)

It is an area fast coming of age to connect the mundane fabric to the digital world, revolutionizing the concept of database and data sharing. The machine-to-machine data sharing process raging in the business and manufacturing world has recently spilled out of the elite realms to homes and offices, making it palpably useful in all strata of economic activity. In another five years, 41.6 billion connected IoT devices are expected on earth. The areas IoT is going to pervade utilities, government organizations, building automation, physical security, manufacturing, and natural resources, automotive, healthcare, retail and wholesale trade, information, transportation, and the area is expanding day by day.

Emerging technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT):

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

Biometrics

This fast-evolving area is focused on the identification and access control of individuals. The technique capitalizes on the behavioral and physiological fingerprints of the target population in question. This technology is gaining ground in public security systems and surveillance facilities. In criminology and forensic science, more sophisticated versions of biometrics will be used for scientific and foolproof conclusions. A scanning device, software to transmute the read data to a standardized digital format, and a database of biometric data for comparison and verification are the basic components involved in the system. The physiological identifiers usually relied on are facial recognition, fingerprints, finger geometry, iris recognition, vein recognition, retina scanning, voice recognition, DNA matching, and digital signatures. Behavioral patterns to be relied on include gait, idiosyncrasies, and handwriting patterns. Less obtrusive and faster scanning methods, with no frisking and physical insults, would make the security screening centers more humane.

 Emerging technologies in Biometrics:

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

VR has catapulted the levels of entertainment and experience to exciting levels. The VR headset absolutely takes over the vision and takes the viewer to a different designed reality. For education and entertainment, such pre-recorded 360-degree illusions will have a tremendous space, whereas, in augmented reality, additional supportive information regarding the surroundings could be provided by digital devices. More research and innovation will go into this area, and more IPRs will emerge from around the world in the years to come.

 Emerging technologies in Augmented Reality:

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

Emerging technologies in Virtual Reality:

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

Natural Language Processing

As a natural progression of linguistics, NLP has made long and bold strides in the last seventy years or so and has long ago spilled out of the rarefied academic circles. The functions involved are speech recognition, natural language understanding, and natural language generation. Text to speech, speech to text, grammar perfecting, sentiment analysis, semantics, dialogue management, machine translation, natural language generation and understanding, optical character recognition, cognition, etc. are the areas where innovations are happening at a spectacular pace.

Emerging technologies in NLP:

Source: Tech Tracker (Full report)

Other areas that are poised to alter the scope of entertainment and experience are quantum computing, blockchain, serverless computing, 3D printing, and drones.

To get a succinct and realistic idea about the emerging technologies, the major players involved, the IP arsenal, the temporal pattern, etc., a novel tool has been minted out by Relecura (www.relecura.com) called Tech Tracker (tracker.relecura.com). It will help us track and monitor the developments in each field and the entire information is just a few clicks away.