Tech Evolution 2017 - 2025: The Biggest Things To Watch

No period in the human story yet has been more exciting, than the decade ahead, simply for the transformation of the human experience that awaits, thanks to what is now within reach, and is going to become manifest, technologically, in the period.

Purpose

This needs to be your first and last list as of 2016, to know the key areas to keep your sights on, technologically, for how the world is changing.

1.Internet of Things

Your water bottle will have a battery, a processor and an IP address. It will ubiquitously share information about your water intake, its temperature, whether you are drinking enough, your frequency of intake, your location, balance of content and so on. Anything and everything will be interconnected, to communicate around you, to invisibly and silently serve you, to your specific needs and interests

2. Autonomous Vehicles

Cabs, busses, limousines, delivery trucks, vans, personal vehicles will be guided by censors, GPS and even AI, to safely delivery people and good from place to place safely without accidents, efficiently too, without a need for driving schools, driving instructors and driving licences. The eventual outcome of the progress over the next decade, is at least some countries, putting a ban on human driven vehicles on roads, for the purpose of safety and security.

3. Robots

By 2020, in first world countries, on an average day, a robot will deliver your order at a cafe or a restaurant, or room service to your hotel room, perhaps arrest you for a violation of the law, keep you out of restricted parts of buildings, perform surgery on you (with a surgeon commanding it from a control room) for a touch of safe precision, deliver your groceries and bring you your clothes from the laundry. They will be, everywhere. They may even serve you as telepresence surrogates for you to work through in foreign locations without actually having to physically travel there yourself.

4. Holographic Technology

Visual presentations have never been so much fun and so clear, or so vivid.

5. Brain Computer Interface

No more touchpads, touchscreens, keyboards or the mouse. No more voice command. Perhaps the end of mobile communication devices as we have always known them. All communication happens silently, by thought. And you never will have to learn a software, program or application again. You will require zero skill to get any technology to do anything for you, unless you are in the tech profession. You think it, and a system or a machine, will do it, to your thought, in precision and detail.

6. 3D Printing

You have taxi services today that own no vehicles. You have hospitality companies that own no hotels. The future is definitely one, where you have goods companies, that will own no production assets. Somebody will design a product on a computer, by thinking it and transmitting it to a computer system via the Brain Computer Interface. You will review it using holographic technology. You will pay for the design and download it. Your home 3D Printer will print the product, for your usage. And 3D Printing will create much more change than just that.

7. Virtual Reality

You may work in virtual reality environments that best stimulate your mood or suit your aesthetic interest. Give it 5 or 6 years. If Oculus does not get you there, don't worry, somebody else definitely will. It is a race, really. Off course, entertainment too will be like it has never been before, and you will never want to go back to the pre-VR era once it is established.

Conclusion

Oh there is so much more, but I have given you more than half a dozen of the biggest here haven't I? And that is enough of a picture, of the world of tomorrow, different from today, gradually coming into being, year by year, after 2016 ends, until 2025 comes.

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting include Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking, Scenario Planning and Organisational Future Proofing.