The number of things that have been connected by IoT, have long ago surpassed the number of people existing on this planet. And very soon, the technological world will connect and automate our worlds beyond imagination. The human API will accentuate further with the help of AI-driven intelligent insights.
In 2020, we are bound to get subjected to most of the technologies listed below which will transform our lives for the better.
5G
With Intel/ HP/ Lenovo/ Dell partnership, the 5G network is predicted to come live soon in the coming year. The current 4G broadband cellular network which has been supporting our smartphones, tablets and laptops would be replaced by a speed which can even surpass a Gigabit Ethernet connection which means there is a lot more capacity to power up thousands of connected devices. The communications will be so fast that they will become almost real-time. With greater network stability, businesses will be able to meet their demands beyond expectations.
Multi-Experience Environment
With smart wearables, automobiles, and consumer appliances and not just headsets, we will soon have an immersive experience which will change the way people think of the digital world. It will stimulate a greater and broader range of human as well as computer senses like heat, cold, humidity, radar etc. The Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) / Mixed Reality (MR) is looking forward to including additional stimuli and more responses that will play with technology. As per research, we will be subjected to 70% of this immersive experience.
Additionally, there are more advances to come in immersive platforms which might vertically integrate a stack of immersive hardware and software functionally proprietary to each individual participant, offering better consistency and stability.
Digital Twins
Although digital twins aren’t something new and have existed from the beginning of this decade, there has been an exponential increase in the interest and investment in it.
As per Gartner, organizations using digital twins will triple by 2022 which will hugely impact the evolution of Industrial IoT platforms with strong edge intelligence capabilities across various verticals like healthcare, transport, automotive, manufacturing and consumer-oriented applications. Basically, a digital twin is a historical repository of its counterpart which is used for real-time analysis and simulation. And, just not the tangible entities, but these have started representing intangible entities as well like services, processes etc.
Example – General Electric (GE), creates a digital twin for each turbine they produce. Once these turbines are assembled on a windmill or deployed on an aircraft, they report operation status back to GE which is compared with data generated by each unique digital twin for consistency. And any deviation, activates an application to analyze the discrepancy and take necessary action.
Solar Panels
This is one technology which has seen different forms of development in recent years. Thanks to Tesla, we already have them powering our houses but in the coming year, we will also have them integrated onto our car roofs. This will power our cars in an Eco-friendly way. Then we also have solar-powered sidewalks generating clean energy.
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Drones
As per FAA, around 2 million drones would have been sold only in the U.S which have increased safety by 55%. With a market share of 98%, consumer-grade dominates the non-commercial areas and the top industries for drone job opportunities which include Construction, Agriculture, Insurance, Oil/Gas, Police. These have helped to create a forecast of 100$ billion market by 2020. Drones had the greatest impact on the security industry. Currently, drones are being used for surveillance, anti-terror operations, border control and searching for missing persons. But these drones are mostly consumer-grade drones which have to be managed or manned by the security teams which are time-consuming and potentially dangerous in many ways.
However, in the coming year, our security forces will have autonomous drones powered by AI which will help them meet their objectives easily without any need for continuous operation. This will enable them to focus on the situation effectively. Thus, the coming year is going to witness a widespread escalation in the adoption of drones that will be connected and powered by the AI.
Augmented Analytics
Many business enterprises have already adapted augmented analytics like Chevron Corp who was first to adopt Google’s Cloud Auto ML(Machine Learning) technology.
This technology assists users with less machine learning expertise to build and train analytical models. Just not that, in the coming year, this high-end technology is going to work in collaboration with the power of automation.
One of the experiments on a predictive software has already shown its magic. The Tableau software which has a recommendation engine has developed clustering algorithms assisting users to group related datasets together into their data preparation tool. And it’s also trying to use the NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology to help business users ask for required data and its analytics without the help of any data scientist.
Hence, as per a recent research by Gartner, the analyst house highlighted that augmented data preparation, natural language query & narration, visual-based data discovery and automated advanced analytics will be so extensively used that they will be included in 90% of the connected products and applications
Privacy
With more and more digital security tools being available, 79% of US online adults are already using them to safeguard their digital information. Time has arrived when privacy would be better for consumer-driven economies. Ecommerce would no longer be able to trade the consumer analytics like user online behavior to manage their festive shopping deals. Gartner Vice President, David Cearley also clearly stated that the backlash for using a consumer’s personal information will only increase more if they do not proactively address it in the coming times. Hence, 2020 will be a year of consumers challenging the e-commerce giants in terms of data security. We will have more and more privacy enforcers.
Just not that, privacy is not the concern for only online shoppers but for students as well. The way eCommerce sites collect different types of information to better their services, many colleges and universities across the globe are almost doing the same for students. With cell-phone towers springing up like mushrooms and wifi becoming the next most important utility, many activities of a student are being monitored continuously. Right from their usage of a specific laptop to the amount of time spent in a particular location in the campus to their retention, various types of information is collected without any consent or knowledge. Some of the student advocates have taken this issue with the respective authorities to work things out where the privacy would not be compromised but at the same time, colleges/universities will be able to gather the required information.
There are other trends as well with respect to machine learning, Blockchain, 3D printing in the food industry and boutique manufacturing, smart spaces which would be subjected to major revolutionary technical adaptations and changes. So, let us wait for 2020 to see how things unfold.
