ICT Technologies

By: Denis C.A. de Souza, Vice President at Akbar al Arab Consultancy.

Information and Communications Technology is an extensional term for Information Technology that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications like telephone lines and wireless signals and computers, as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage, and audio visual systems, that enable users to access, store, transmit, and manipulate information.

The term ICT is also used to refer to the convergence of audio visual and telephone networks with computer networks through a single cabling or link system. There are large economic incentives like huge cost savings due to the elimination of the telephone network to merge the telephone network with the computer network system using a single unified system of cabling, signal distribution, and management.

ICT is a broad subject and the concepts are evolving. It covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit, or receive information electronically in a digital form, e.g., personal computers, digital television, email, or robots. For clarity, Zuppo provided an ICT hierarchy where all levels of the hierarchy "contain some degree of commonality in that they are related to technologies that facilitate the transfer of information and various types of electronically mediated communications". Theoretical differences between interpersonal-communication technologies and mass-communication technologies have been identified by the philosopher Piyush Mathur. Skills Framework for the Information Age is one of many models for describing and managing competencies for ICT professionals for the 21st century.

The phrase "information and communication technologies" has been used by academic researchers since the 1980s. The abbreviation "ICT" became popular after it was used in a report to the UK government by Dennis Stevenson in 1997, and then in the revised National Curriculum for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2000. However, in 2012, the Royal Society recommended that the use of the term "ICT" should be discontinued in British schools "as it has attracted too many negative connotations". From 2014 the National Curriculum has used the word computing, which reflects the addition of computer programming into the curriculum.

Variations of the phrase have spread worldwide. The United Nations has created a "United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force" and an internal "Office of Information and Communications Technology". The money spent on IT worldwide has been estimated as US$3.8 trillion in 2017 and has been growing at less than 5% per year since 2009. The estimate 2018 growth of the entire ICT in is 5%. The biggest growth of 16% is expected in the area of new technologies like IoT, Robotics, AR/VR, and AI.

The 2014 IT budget of US federal government was nearly $82 billion. IT costs, as a percentage of corporate revenue, have grown 50% since 2002, putting a strain on IT budgets. When looking at current companies' IT budgets, 75% are recurrent costs, used to "keep the lights on" in the IT department, and 25% are cost of new initiatives for technology development.

The average IT budget has the following breakdown:

a)   31% personnel costs (internal)

b)  29% software costs (external/purchasing category)

c) 26% hardware costs (external/purchasing category)

d) 14% costs of external service providers (external/services).

The estimate of money to be spent in 2022 is just over US$6 trillion.

The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 optimally compressed exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 optimally compressed exabytes in 2007, and some 5 zettabytes in 2014. This is the informational equivalent to 1.25 stacks of CD-ROM from the earth to the moon in 2007, and the equivalent of 4,500 stacks of printed books from the earth to the sun in 2014. The world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of optimally compressed information in 1986, 715 optimally compressed exabytes in 1993, 1.2 optimally compressed zettabytes in 2000, and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007. The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of optimally compressed information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 optimally compressed exabytes in 2000, 65 optimally compressed exabytes in 2007, and some 100 exabytes in 2014. The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10^8 MIPS in 1986, to 6.4 x 10^12 MIPS in 2007.

The following is a list of OECD countries by share of ICT sector in total value added:

Rank Country                        ICT sector in %

1       Korea                          10.7  

2       Japan                         7.02  

3       Ireland                        6.99  

4       Sweden                       6.82  

5       Hungary                     6.09  

6       United States              5.89  

7       Czech Republic           5.74  

8       Finland                       5.60  

9       United Kingdom          5.53  

10     Estonia                       5.33

11     UAE                            4.8   

12     Slovakia                      4.87  

13     Germany                     4.84  

14     Luxembourg                4.54  

15     Netherlands                4.44  

16     Switzerland                 4.63  

17     France                        4.33  

18     Slovenia                      4.26  

19     Denmark                    4.06  

20     Spain                          4.00  

21     Canada                       3.86  

22     Italy                            3.72  

23     Belgium                      3.72  

24     Austria                        3.56  

25     Portugal                      3.43  

26     Poland                        3.33  

27     Norway                        3.32  

28     Greece                        3.31  

29     Iceland                        2.87  

30     Mexico                        2.77  

31     Pakistan                      2.90  

         Note : that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spent 4.3 per cent annually.

The ICT Development Index ranks and compares the level of ICT use and access across the various countries around the world. In 2014 International Telecommunications Union released the latest rankings of the IDI, with Denmark attaining the top spot, followed by South Korea. The top 30 countries in the rankings include most high-income countries where quality of life is higher than average, which includes countries from Europe and other regions such as "Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Japan, Macao in China, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States; almost all countries surveyed improved their IDI ranking this year." In developing countries, ICT development is constrained by limited capabilities and often the objectives of ICT projects are not fully met.

On 21 December 2001, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 56/183, endorsing the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing today's information society. According to this resolution, the General Assembly related the Summit to the United Nations Millennium Declaration's goal of implementing ICT to achieve Millennium Development Goals. It also emphasized a multi-stakeholder approach to achieve these goals, using all stakeholders including civil society and the private sector, in addition to governments.

To help anchor and expand ICT to every habitable part of the world, "2015 is the deadline for achievements of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which global leaders agreed upon in the year 2000. Today's society shows the ever-growing computer-centric lifestyle, which includes the rapid influx of computers in the modern classroom.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, a division of the United Nations, has made integrating ICT into education part of its efforts to ensure equity and access to education. The following, taken directly from a UNESCO publication on educational ICT, explains the organization's position on the initiative.

Information and Communication Technology can contribute to universal access to education, equity in education, the delivery of quality learning and teaching, teachers' professional development and more efficient education management, governance and administration. UNESCO takes a holistic and comprehensive approach to promoting ICT in education. Access, inclusion and quality are among the main challenges they can address. The Organization's Intersectoral Platform for ICT in education focuses on these issues through the joint work of three of its sectors: Communication & Information, Education and Science.

Despite the power of computers to enhance and reform teaching and learning practices, improper implementation is a widespread issue beyond the reach of increased funding and technological advances with little evidence that teachers and tutors are properly integrating ICT into everyday learning. Intrinsic barriers such as a belief in more traditional teaching practices and individual attitudes towards computers in education as well as the teachers own comfort with computers and their ability to use them all as result in varying effectiveness in the integration of ICT in the classroom.

ICT has been employed as an educational enhancement in Sub-Saharan Africa since the 1960s. Beginning with television and radio, it extended the reach of education from the classroom to the living room, and to geographical areas that had been beyond the reach of the traditional classroom. As technology evolved and became more widely used, efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa were also expanded. In the 1990s a massive effort to push computer hardware and software into schools was undertaken, with the goal of familiarizing both students and teachers with computers in the classroom. Since then, multiple projects have endeavored to continue the expansion of ICT's reach in the region, including the One Laptop Per Child project, which by 2015 had distributed over 2.4 million laptops to nearly 2 million students and teachers.

The inclusion of ICT in the classroom, often referred to as M-Learning, has expanded the reach of educators and improved their ability to track student progress in Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, the mobile phone has been most important in this effort. Mobile phone use is widespread, and mobile networks cover a wider area than internet networks in the region. The devices are familiar to student, teacher, and parent, and allow increased communication and access to educational materials. In addition to benefits for students, M-learning also offers the opportunity for better teacher training, which lends to a more consistent curriculum across the educational service area. In 2011, UNESCO started a yearly symposium called Mobile Learning Week with the purpose of gathering stakeholders to discuss the M-learning initiative.

Implementation is not without its challenges. While mobile phone and internet use are increasing much more rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa than in other developing countries, the progress is still slow compared to the rest of the developed world, with smartphone penetration only expected to reach 20% by 2017. Additionally, there are gender, social, and geo-political barriers to educational access, and the severity of these barriers vary greatly by country. Overall, 29.6 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa were not in school in the year 2012, owing not just to the geographical divide, but also to political instability, the importance of social origins, social structure, and gender inequality. Once in school, students also face barriers to quality education, such as teacher competency, training and preparedness, access to educational materials, and lack of information management.

In modern society ICT is ever-present, with over three billion people having access to the Internet. With approximately 8 out of 10 Internet users owning a smartphone, information and data are increasing by leaps and bounds. This rapid growth, especially in developing countries, has led ICT to become a keystone of everyday life, in which life without some facet of technology renders most of clerical, work and routine tasks dysfunctional. The most recent authoritative data, released in 2014, shows "that Internet use continues to grow steadily, at 6.6% globally in 2014 (3.3% in developed countries, 8.7% in the developing world); the number of Internet users in developing countries has doubled in five years from 2009 to 2014, with two thirds of all people online now living in the developing world."

However, hurdles are still large. "Of the 4.3 billion people not yet using the Internet, 90% live in developing countries. In the world's 42 Least Connected Countries, which are home to 2.5 billion people, access to ICTs remains largely out of reach, particularly for these countries' large rural populations." ICT has yet to penetrate the remote areas of some countries, with many developing countries dearth of any type of Internet. This also includes the availability of telephone lines, particularly the availability of cellular coverage, and other forms of electronic transmission of data. The latest "Measuring the Information Society Report" cautiously stated that the increase in the aforementioned cellular data coverage is ostensible, as "many users have multiple subscriptions, with global growth figures sometimes translating into little real improvement in the level of connectivity of those at the very bottom of the pyramid; an estimated 450 million people worldwide live in places which are still out of reach of mobile cellular service."

Favourably, the gap between the access to the Internet and mobile coverage has decreased substantially in the last fifteen years, in which "2015 the deadline for achievements of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which global leaders agreed upon in the year 2000, and the new data show ICT progress and highlight remaining gaps." ICT continues to take on new form, with nanotechnology set to usher in a new wave of ICT electronics and gadgets. ICT newest editions into the modern electronic world include smart watches, such as the Apple Watch, smart wristbands such as the Nike+ Fuel Band, and smart TVs such as Google TV. With desktops soon becoming part of a bygone era, and laptops becoming the preferred method of computing, ICT continues to insinuate and alter itself in the ever-changing globe.

Information communication technologies play a role in facilitating accelerated pluralism in new social movements today. The internet according to Bruce Bimber is "accelerating the process of issue group formation and action" and coined the term accelerated pluralism to explain this new phenomena. ICTs are tools for "enabling social movement leaders and empowering dictators" in effect promoting societal change. ICTs can be used to garner grassroots support for a cause due to the internet allowing for political discourse and direct interventions with state policy as well as change the way complaints from the populace are handled by governments. Furthermore, ICTs in a household are associated with women rejecting justifications for intimate partner violence. According to a study published in 2017, this is likely because “access to ICTs exposes women to different ways of life and different notions about women’s role in society and the household, especially in culturally conservative regions where traditional gender expectations contrast observed alternatives."

Regional Arabian Gulf ICT spending to reach $230b this year: Spending on information and communications technology (in the Middle East and Africa is expected to reach $230 billion (Dh844.1 billion) this year, a year-on-year increase of 2.7 per cent, an industry expert said.

“The growth is driven mainly by the third platform like cloud, big data analytics, mobile and social and emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things , artificial intelligence/cognitive systems, robotics, augmented and virtual reality, 3D printing and Blockchain,” said Jyoti Lalchandani, vice-president and regional managing director for research firm International Data Corporation. However, he said that the total IT spend is below the 2015 level of $90 billion.

He said that the IT spending in the region will reach close to $88 billion this year, a year-on-year growth of 2.7 per cent compared to $86 billion in 2017. IT contributes roughly 40 per cent of the total ICT spending while telcos share the remaining 60 per cent.

Lalchandani said that telcos transformation to ‘ICT players’ will accelerate this year. They will set up dedicated business units and portfolio expansion to boost its revenue streams. ICT portfolios will expand in breadth and depth to include digital transformation and emerging technologies.

“Digital transformation initiatives will top the chief information officer’s agenda, as emerging technologies are increasingly leveraged in an effort to drive desired business outcomes,” he said.

In 2018, the IT spending in the UAE is expected to rise by 4.8 per cent to $7.7 billion and 4.3 per cent in Saudi Arabia to $11 billion.

In the UAE, he said that infrastructure projects related to Dubai Expo 2020 and the UAE Vision 2021 is driving the demand but “we are cautious on inflationary concerns due to the value-added tax among consumers.”

He said that growth is expected to happen in the IT services sector (6 per cent), software (4.8 per cent), server, storage and networks (2.3 per cent) and mobile devices (2.2 per cent) while IT peripherals and displays will witness a fall of 1.4 per cent and PC and tablets by 2.7 per cent.

However, he said that public cloud spending in the region is expected to cross $1.1 billion 2018 compared to $952 million last year and the big data and analytics market will touch $2.4 billion this year.

“Economic diversification will finally push Middle East governments to establish progressive cloud regulations. We expect an increase in datacentre buildouts by service providers rather than enterprises,” he said. Spending on emerging technologies will grow at nearly 20 per cent in 2018 as use cases go mainstream, he said.

Paul Black, program director for telecoms and networking at IDC, said that IoT spending is expected to surpass $10 billion by 2020 with manufacturing, utilities, health care and transport industries forming the key industry markets.

He said that the region is growing from a relatively small base of IoT spending, less than one per cent of the global spend. In 2017, the total IoT spend stood at $6.07 billion.

         Examples of ICT businesses are IOT, IIOT, AI, AR/VR, Big Data Analytics, net Generation Security, Integrated Platforms, Block Chain, Machine Learning, 5G, Cloud Computing, Drones, and 3D Printing.

         Brief detailed description of each vertical:

         Internet of Things (IOT) : The growing universe of Internet-connected devices, otherwise known as the Internet of Things, has the potential to transform business in significant ways. From automatically monitoring and managing equipment and physical environments to identifying needed products or business processes that might never have become apparent, IoT promises to make businesses smarter, and thus better at what they do.

IIOT: The industrial internet of things, or IIoT, is the use of internet of things technologies to enhance manufacturing and industrial processes. Also known as the industrial internet or Industrie 4.0, IIoT incorporates machine learning and big data technologies to harness the sensor data, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and automation technologies that have existed in industrial settings for years.

AI: In the field of computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. Computer science defines AI research as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. More specifically, Kaplan and Haenlein define AI as “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation”. Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is applied when a machine mimics "cognitive" functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as "learning" and "problem solving".

AR/VR: Amazon Sumerian lets you create and run virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D applications quickly and easily without requiring any specialized programming or 3D graphics expertise. With Sumerian, you can build highly immersive and interactive scenes that run on popular hardware such as Oculus Go, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, HTC Vive Pro, Google Daydream, and Lenovo Mirage as well as Android and iOS mobile devices. For example, you can build a virtual classroom that lets you train new employees around the world, or you can build a virtual environment that enables people to tour a building remotely. Sumerian makes it easy to create all the building blocks needed to build highly immersive and interactive 3D experiences including adding objects (e.g. characters, furniture, and landscape), and designing, animating, and scripting environments. Sumerian does not require specialized expertise and you can design scenes directly from your browser.

Big Data Analytics: Big data analytics is the often complex process of examining large and varied data sets or big data to uncover information including hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends and customer preferences that can help organizations make informed business decisions. Big data refers to data sets that are too large or complex for traditional data-processing application software to adequately deal with. Data with many cases (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with higher complexity (more attributes or columns) may lead to a higher false discovery rate. Big data challenges include capturing data, data storage, data analysis, search, sharing, transfer, visualization, querying, updating, information privacy and data source. Big data was originally associated with three key concepts: volume, variety, and velocity. Other concepts later attributed with big data are veracity i.e., how much noise is in the data and value.

Current usage of the term big data tends to refer to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set. "There is little doubt that the quantities of data now available are indeed large, but that's not the most relevant characteristic of this new data ecosystem." Analysis of data sets can find new correlations to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on." Scientists, business executives, practitioners of medicine, advertising and governments alike regularly meet difficulties with large data-sets in areas including Internet search, fintech, urban informatics, and business informatics. Scientists encounter limitations in e-Science work, including meteorology, genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations, biology and environmental research.

Next Generation Security: Next Generation Security is a small company that evolved from the consumer small electronics industry. After years of dealing in Audio/Visual we found a growing need for Quality security camera systems. A niche that we became good extremely fast. Evolving from High Resolution systems that was operated by a DVR to the new I.P. HD Megapixel systems that are powered by a NVR. All systems are now linked through a companies network with allows access from any network computer as well as remote access from any device connected to the internet. With the new systems being networked based we can extend a companies wi-fi and run HD camera's wireless up to 3 miles from the NVR. The Megapixel recording quality is so extreme that we now run WD Purple Surveillance specific Hard drive that is designed to run to full max and 24hrs a day without worry of failure and picture fatigue. Motion only recording allows us to record up to 2 weeks in full 3 Megapixel HD at 30fps on a single 4 TB hard drive and all NVR recorders can accept up to 4 hard drive's for internal storage. Next Generation Security only uses Aposonic CCTV equipment that we purchase direct from the manufacturer. By doing that we can ensure quality products on every job and can control cost so we can install the best possible system at a fair price.

Integrated Platforms: An integration platform is software which integrates different applications and services. It differentiates itself from the enterprise application integration which has a focus on supply chain management. It uses the idea of system integration to create an environment for engineers. An integration platform is software which integrates different applications and services. It differentiates itself from the enterprise application integration, which has a focus on supply chain management. It uses the idea of system integration to create an environment for engineers.

Integration platforms can be built from components, purchased as a pre-built product ready for installation or procured from an integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) offering.

An integration platform tries to create an environment in which engineers can: Data (information) integration: Ensure that they are using the same datasets and can share information. Data management with metadata information and versioning ensures the data is kept consistent.

Integrate many kinds of applications (independent from platform, programming language or resource) so they can be bound together in workflows and processes to work in conjunction. The different interfaces are hidden by the usage of a uniform interface in the integration platform (Process Integration).

Collaborate between distributed and scattered applications and engineers over the network. Interoperability between different operating systems and programming languages by the use of similar interfaces. Take security considerations into account so that, for example, data is shared only with the right resources. Visual guidance by interactive user interfaces and a common facade for all integrated applications.

Common components of integration platform Integration platform typically contains a set of functional components, such as Message bus for enabling reliable messaging between enterprise applications. Adapters to transform messages from and to application's proprietary protocol. Adapters often offer connectivity via common standards, like FTP, SFTP or format support, like EDI.

Transformation engine and visualized data mapping to transform messages or files from one format to another. Metadata repository for storing information separated from processes, like business party. Process Orchestration Engine for orchestration design and execution. In this context orchestration is a technical workflow that represents a business process or part of it.

Technical dashboard for tracking messages in a message bus and viewing execution history of orchestrations. Scheduler for scheduling orchestrations

Batch engine for controlling large file transfers, batch jobs, execution of external scripts and other non-messaging based tasks. An integration platform has a focus to be designed by and helpful to engineers. It has no intention to map business processes or integrate tools for supply chain management. Therefore it is not related to those systems.

Block Chain: A block chain is a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a merkle tree root hash). Bitcoin and Ethereum are two examples of block chain applications.

Blockchain applications to date are Asset Management: Trade Processing and Settlement; Insurance: Claims processing; Payments: Cross-Border Payments; Unconventional money lenders/ hard money lending; Your car/ smartphone; Blockchain Internet-of-Things (IoT); Smart Appliances; Supply Chain Sensors; Blockchain Healthcare; Blockchain music; Blockchain Government; Public value/ community; Vested responsibility; Blockchain Identity; Passports; Birth, wedding, and death certificates and Personal Identification.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.

Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference. These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property.

This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middleman or counterparty risk.

The project was bootstrapped via an ether presale in August 2014 by fans all around the world. It is developed by the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss non-profit, with contributions from great minds across the globe.

Machine Learning: Machine learning is a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. It is a branch of artificial intelligence based on the idea that systems can learn from data, identify patterns and make decisions with minimal human intervention.

Machine learning (ML) is the scientific study of algorithms and statistical models that computer systems use to effectively perform a specific task without using explicit instructions, relying on patterns and inference instead. It is seen as a subset of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model of sample data, known as "training data", in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the task. Machine learning algorithms are used in the applications of email filtering, detection of network intruders, and computer vision, where it is infeasible to develop an algorithm of specific instructions for performing the task. Machine learning is closely related to computational statistics, which focuses on making predictions using computers. The study of mathematical optimization delivers methods, theory and application domains to the field of machine learning. Data mining is a field of study within machine learning, and focuses on exploratory data analysis through unsupervised learning. In its application across business problems, machine learning is also referred to as predictive analytics.

The use of machine learning in online commerce apps can provide customers with relevant search results while they search for products. Such functionalities will help your app to recommend the best products depending on user preference. Some apps could even predict the fashion trends and information regarding the offers. eBay’s ShopBot is the best example in case of e-commerce apps implementing machine language.

A weather forecasting app with ML technology can make use of your current location and fetch the possible forecasting of climate on your region. Dark Sky offers accurate weather insights to millions by integrating forecast data with AI to predict the change in weather.

A picture altering app can offer different sizeable layout choices and selection of various filters that you can apply by guiding the bot. Celeste is an apt example when photo editing apps with machine learning are considered.

Mobile finance apps with machine learning integrated can analyse your transaction history and offer appropriate deals. Such apps can also be used to manage the income and expenditure of a customer by linking their credit cards and accounts. Erica is such an ML powered voice assistant to keep your finances at bay.

A restaurant app powered with machine language can take orders, ask queries and even suggest the best recipe according to the user preference. By going through your order history, it could also help you experiment with new items on the menu.

For the food delivery applications, machine learning can provide the user with the ETA after precisely analysing the traffic conditions.

Such transportation apps can shed light on factors such as the expected time of arrival and a detailed description of the journey with real-time tracking on maps and many more.

Time management apps can help you discover the best time for you to kick off your exercise and other work processes and eventually help you organize things on your to-do list.

Machine learning can assume the role of a physician since such health apps could analyse the symptoms and help in providing the best countermeasures. For instance, machine learning apps can predict the possibility of a headache and prescribe ways to prevent.

Apps equipped with suitable sensors can analyse the data and provide the user with particular workout programs to nurture the well-being of the user. Such apps can even maintain a journal for the users according to their training sessions. Freeletics is one such app which offers workout plan based on your workout level.

Travel apps powered with automated learning technology can help the users in planning their future voyages, for instance, if you want to cut short the budget of the journey, the app will check with the least expensive hotels and travel alternatives.

Mezi is an AI-powered travel app providing personalized travel experience by understanding the user preferences and scheduling your trips accordingly.

Sports forecasting apps could hugely benefit if machine learning technology is incorporated wisely. Machine learning model, if implemented with utmost precision could even predict the outcome of the game.

Throne is a platform for predicting the outcome of a sport using machine learning. It makes use of live data, highlights, and many more features to encourage the use of the quantitative method in sports.

5th Generation: 5G is the latest generation of cellular mobile communications. It succeeds the 4G (LTE/WiMax), 3G (UMTS) and 2G (GSM) systems. 5G performance targets high data rate, reduced latency, energy saving, cost reduction, higher system capacity, and massive device connectivity. The first phase of 5G specifications in Release-15 will be completed by April 2019 to accommodate the early commercial deployment. The second phase in Release-16 is due to be completed by April 2020 for submission to the International Telecommunication Union as a candidate of IMT-2020 technology.

Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is shared pools of configurable computer system resources and higher-level services that can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort, often over the Internet. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a public utility.

Third-party clouds enable organizations to focus on their core businesses instead of expending resources on computer infrastructure and maintenance. Advocates note that cloud computing allows companies to avoid or minimize up-front IT infrastructure costs. Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and that it enables IT teams to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable demand. Cloud providers typically use a "pay-as-you-go" model, which can lead to unexpected operating expenses if administrators are not familiarized with cloud-pricing models.

Drones: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS); which include a UAV, a ground-based controller, and a system of communications between the two. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by a human operator or autonomously by onboard computers. And

3D Printing: 3D printing is any of various processes in which material is joined or solidified under computer control to create a three-dimensional object, with material being added together (such as liquid molecules or powder grains being fused together), typically layer by layer. In the 1990s, 3D printing techniques were considered suitable only to the production of functional or aesthetical prototypes and, back then, a more comprehensive term for 3D printing was rapid prototyping. Today, the precision, repeatability and material range have increased to the point that 3D printing is considered as an industrial production technology, with the name of additive manufacturing. 3D printed objects can have a very complex shape or geometry and are always produced starting from a digital 3D model or a CAD file. There are many different 3D printing processes, that can be grouped into seven categories: Vat photopolymerization, Material jetting, Binder jetting, Powder bed fusion, Material extrusion, Directed energy deposition and Sheet lamination.

         A digital asset, in essence, is anything that exists in a binary format and comes with the right to use. Data that do not possess that right are not considered assets. Digital assets include but are not exclusive to: digital documents, audible content, motion picture, and other relevant digital data that are currently in circulation or are, or will be stored on digital appliances such as: personal computers, laptops, portable media players, tablets, storage devices, telecommunication devices, and any and all apparatuses which are, or will be in existence once technology progresses to accommodate for the conception of new modalities which would be able to carry digital assets; notwithstanding the proprietorship of the physical device onto which the digital asset is located.

Types of digital assets include, but are not exclusive to: photography, logos, illustrations, animations, audiovisual media, presentations, spreadsheets, word documents, electronic mails, websites, and a multitude of other digital formats and their respective metadata. The number of different types of digital assets is exponentially increasing due to the rising number of devices that are a conduit for digital media, e.g., smartphones. Due to this steadfast growth of software applications and immense diversity of user touchpoints covering a wide span of devices, our view of the total digital assets universe is growing. In Intel's presentation at the company’s "Intel Developer Forum 2013” they named several new types of digital assets including: medical, education, voting, friendships, conversations and reputation amongst others. In 2015, Forbes and other sources characterized bitcoin as a digital asset.

A digital asset management (DAM) system represents an intertwined structure incorporating both software and hardware and/or other services in order to manage, store, ingest, organise and retrieve digital assets. Digital asset management systems allow users to find and use content when they need it.

Metadata is data about other data. Any structured information which's purpose is to define a specification of any form of data is referred to as metadata. "An item of metadata is a relationship that someone claims to exist between two entities". "Think of metadata as data which removes from a user (human or machine) the need to have full advance knowledge of the existence or characteristics of things of potential interest in the environment". At first the term metadata was used for digital data exclusively, but nowadays metadata can apply to physical data as well as digital one. Catalogues, inventories, registers and other similar standardised forms of organising, managing and retrieving resources contain metadata. Metadata can be stored and contained directly within the file it refers to or independently from it with the help of other forms of data management such as a DAM system.

The more metadata is assigned to an asset the easier it gets to categorise it, especially as the amount of information grows. The asset’s value rises the more metadata it has for it becomes more accessible, easier to manage, and more complex.

The majority of digital assets possess monetary and/or sentimental value. Since digital assets represent the goods sold by a business or they are in themselves among the goods being sold, their value usually increases according to their usage. Digital assets can be reused as is or with minor modification.

Due to a lack of either legislation or legal precedent, there is a limited control over digital assets. Many of the control issues relating to access and transferability are maintained by individual companies. Some consequences resulting from this include what is to become of the assets once their owner is deceased as well as can, and if so, how may they be inherited. Recent news on this subject was a bogus story about Bruce Willis allegedly looking to sue Apple as the end user agreement prevented him from bequeathing his iTunes collection to his children. Another case of this was when a soldier died in duty and the family requested access to the Yahoo! account. When Yahoo! refused to grant access, the probate judge ordered them to give the emails to the family but Yahoo! still weren't required to give access. The Music Modernization bill was passed in September 2018 by US Congress to create a new music-licensing system, with the aim to help songwriters get paid more.-End.

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