The competence brought by the current technological advancements will make us wonder what more is in store for the coming years. The fact that necessity is the mother of all inventions will motivate us that we will never run out of innovations and discoveries. Emerging technologies are characterized by the progressive developments being persistent in the course of time that it generates substantial impact on socio-economic fields. Moreover, innovative scientific fields maybe an outcome of technological convergence. These are different systems progressing towards parallel objectives. Convergence combines initially separate technologies such as voice, data and video to share allocated resources and interact with each other, crafting fresh efficiencies. Today, our platform became further extensive in various domains like agriculture, transportation, artificial intelligence, construction, and medicine. Here are some notable emerging technologies that enhances previous similar studies and some are new to our plate.
Internet of Things (IoT). Dated back September 1985, the concept of the Internet of Things was conceived and coined by Peter T. Lewis in his speech at a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Fast-forwarding to 2030, 500 billion devices are expected to be connected to the Internet according to Cisco. The IoT is a promising part of business strategies to excel. Based on an International Data Corporation (IDC) study of 2300 executives in 15 countries, 48 percent of those surveyed have already deployed IoT solutions, and 58 percent said that the IoT is strategic to their business strategy. Mainly, the idea of IoT is the convergence of numerous physical-devices or smart devices utilized together to remotely control an interconnected infrastructure. In this concept, these devices can collect and exchange data using embedded sensors and actuators. It allow objects to be sensed or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure and reduce human intervention. Some examples of IoT nowadays are smart homes like Mark Zuckerberg’s version of “Jarvis” from the film Iron Man. The Facebook CEO finished a total of 100 hours building the assistant, which can control his lights, music and even his toaster from the 1950s. In addition, a company called NEST presented smart thermostats, smoke detectors and other systems that can alert and control homes using the householder’s smartphone. AT&T also focuses on connected cars to enhance vehicle management and driving experience. Real-time traffic, news, and streaming music is readily available when vehicles are connected to their network. Other examples of IoT are called wearables like sleep tracker for babies, language translators, heart rate tracker and food consumption and medication prescription reminders. Gadgets that monitor your mood and even surrounding air and key finder tags that automatically monitor your movements, location, and workouts throughout the day are also commercialized today. According to Business Insider, IoT will be generating a total of $13 Trillion total investments by 2025 because entities like business, government and consumer’s will use IoT ecosystems.
Traffic Market. The urgency to reduce or apparently to eliminate traffic congestion is a challenge in today’s generation. In London, they are aiming to create a Smart City to combat traffic congestion. By creating a traffic market, the price of driving would go up when congestion is at peak. It is simply analogous to the economic market where people are less likely to buy when the price is high. When traffic is at worst condition, people might be motivated to take public transport or rather change their travel time. Consequently, if they really urgently need to travel with their car, find a less-congested route. Motorists could type-in their trips into a smart phone app to search the cost of a trip. If it’s too costly, the mobile app could find cheaper road alternatives. It could also provide information on public transport, allowing drivers to compare the travel time and cost of bus to driving. The same practice is also applied in Helsinki where they aim to make private cars unnecessary by 2025. They are developing an app that allows users to plot out a multi-modal commute and to book and pay for any part of that commute they need.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Business to business (B2B) marketers are now adapting AR and VR technologies to gain and sustain customers by incorporating greater emotional experience with their products. IDC states that the joint revenue for both the AR and VR markets will rise $162 billion by the year 2020. Last year, the revenue for the markets is around $5.2 billion. Marketing schemes promptly transit its evolution from conventional ways like offline websites, smartphones, information kiosks and social media to interactive and immersive experiences everywhere. Businesses can use AR and VR for training, 360 degree tours, virtual product demonstrations, prototyping, and more. We have witnessed how Pokemon Go dominated with over 100 million downloads. The user experience is more immersive and it generates emotional impact on consumers. Moreover, a headset called Oculus Rift and Google Daydream features revolutionary technology that delivers virtual reality experiences for playing games and watching movies. One marketing strategy that went viral on social media was when Incheon International Airport in South Korea promoted South Korean culture using virtual reality campaign. Upon arrival, tourists wear VR headsets and have the opportunity to sample Korean food, taekwondo, fashion and a parade of the historic Joseon dynasty. In addition, Innisfree VR enables tourists go on a virtual date with Lee Min Ho to explore the beauty of Jeju Island. Lastly, construction design VRs in architecture and engineering like Unity, Unreal and Fuzor, Autodesk Live are also now used to translate Revit, Sketchup or 3D models into a realistic setting making its easier to modify and present to clients.
Machine Learning. There is a confusion between ML and Artificial Intelligence as they are sometimes used interchangeably. However, ML is just a current application of AI. Machine Learning is the idea that machines can access immense amount to data to rely on statistics and evaluate algorithms to learn for themselves. AI is of broader perspective. It is projected to boosts in 5-20 years away subjected to the precise field of the “intelligence” being learned while ML is at hand. Tom Mitchell of Carnegie Mellon University described ML as a computer program that is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P, improves with experience E. Machine Learning a profitable tool in the field of finance wherein oceans of data can be used to predict if an applicant is credit-worthy, detect credit card fraud and find promising trends on the stock market. Social network advertisements benefited from data mining of personal information and selecting relevant ads to show based on location or interest of the sample. Recommendation algorithms are also used nowadays like Google’s RankBrain, Netflix and Amazon search engines. With all of these capability, we have a lot to expect for the coming years for Machine Learning.
In Vitro Meat. In the field of agriculture, there is an expanding research on the production of cultured meat. Looking back, the in vitro cultivation of muscular fibers was performed dated back as early as 1971 by Russell Ross. A form of cellular agriculture, the study aims to produce synthetic meat and make it grow in cell culture instead of getting it directly from animals such as pigs and cows. It is projected that there will be reduced exposure to dangerous chemicals like pesticides and fungicides. Researchers further proposed that omega-3 fatty acids could be supplemented to cultured meat as a health bonus. An organization called New Harvest is a known research institute that pushes this production of animal products without animals. Have you ever imagined beef without cows and eggs without hens? On the other hand, another company called Modern Meadow takes away the spotlight from synthetic meat commercialization. CEO Andras Forgacs said that their emphasis is not on meat but on leather. Technically, skin is a simpler structure than meat, making it easier to yield. The company is aiming to mass produce in tissue-engineered leather this 2017.
In conclusion, although many discoveries and inventions are readily available for commercialization, the possibilities are limitless. There is so much more to expect for 2017 and beyond. Future researches are needed but they will always refer back to established studies to converge better technology.
By: Sarah May G. Cruz
