Today's lesson was about emerging and future technologies. I found this topic to be especially interesting, if a little technical, as it truly opened my eyes to what exciting promises technological development and innovation holds for the future of mankind.
There are several drivers of emerging and future technologies - unmet market opportunity and need which drives innovative solutions to meet these needs in the form of new research and development; at the other end of the causation spectrum, a driver could also be due to supply outstripping demand - the situation wherein consumers are unaware of a need until they become aware of the existence of the product and are influenced into desiring the product; thirdly, another factor may be attributed to the growing body of scientific knowledge and expanding pool of technical know-how which allows for greater insights to be drawn and subsequently, greater innovation, building on existent ideas.
Interesting Observations and Ideas
Video of
The Perfect Woman:
- Ai Robotics in Japan launched their new creation in June 2008 – an android
called Lisa who is an expert at everything from cooking and cleaning to
administering massage
-
The two men behind the project claimed to have developed a technology
called Recognition Krax System which supposedly gives Lisa “vocal, tactile and
visual recognition”
-
According to Telegraph UK, there were mixed responses to the project:
sceptics are convinced it is either a scam or a promotional tool similar to the
one used for I Robot, which also used a robot ordering website to generate interest;
some have suggested the creation may be art – in the sense of a damning critique
of women’s role in relationship; the wary point out that the technology for
such a robot has yet to be devised
-
Indeed, I would think this particular project tends more to be a scam or
at least an over-exaggeration of the actual capacities of the creation – the robot
that was featured in their promotional appeared more like a wooden actress,
certainly nothing like what one would expect of a “perfect woman”
Video of
Augmented Reality:
-
The video showed how augmented reality could work via the ubiquitous
platform of smartphone devices – how this new technology would augment our “reality”
with a layer of useful information of the object/place, when viewed through the
camera lenses and screens of our smartphones.
-
Augmented reality technology is shown to be cutting-edge technology
which allows for a digitally enhanced view of the real world, connecting the
user with more meaningful content in every day experience. All we would need is
a mobile phone, an attached camera and software on the phone to “bring it all
together”
-
Although a rather nascent technology, augmented reality does look set to
make a significant impact on the consumer market:
o IT research company Gartner
predicts that smartphone and tablet sales will increase to 1.2 billion in 2013
and will top 2 billion by 2015
o According to Juniper Research,
mobile augmented reality apps will generate nearly $300million in revenues and
reach $5.2 billion in 2017
o Hidden Creative revealed a study
which suggested that there is a 135% increase in likelihood that a consumer
will buy a product when viewing an AR version of it, compared with looking at a
still image.
o It has been found that AR has a
positive impact on value perception – a survey found that participants valued
the AR product 33% higher than the non-AR product
Other
interesting new and emerging technologies which Prof explored in class that I
found particularly intriguing were:
-
Biotechnologies
o Technology based on biology –
involves the harnessing of cellular and biomolecular processes to develop
technologies and products that help to improve our lives and the health of our
planet
o Modern biotechnology provides
breakthrough products and technologies to combat debilitating and rare diseases,
reduce our environmental footprint, feed the hungry and allow us to achieve
cleaner and more efficient industrial manufacturing processes, among other utilities.
-
Robotics
o Robotics involves the design, construction,
operation and application of technology in robots
o One common form of robotics is in
prostheses for the disabled – e.g. a bionic limb that substitutes for an organic
one which has been amputated
o Robotics in the form of assistive
technologies has immense potential to transform the lives of the disabled by
allowing them to engage in activities that would have been otherwise impossible
-
Nanotechnologies
o This technology essentially envisages
the manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale
o The potential applications of nanotechnology
are boundless – molecules may be manipulate to form all sorts of shapes and
combined in various forms to build materials with amazing properties such as a
carbon nanotube.
-
Artificial intelligence systems
o One example of AIS technology is in
the form of intelligent wheelchairs – an assistive technology for the disabled.
The intelligent wheelchair has been developed by a number of researcher groups
and is designed to reduce the cognitive and physical burden on the user in
navigating the chair. For instance, one design eliminates the need for the user
to steer the wheelchair – the chair is programmed to travel along
pre-programmed paths between specific destinations, and the user need only
control start and stop functions as well as adjust the speed of travel.
-
Grid computing and new networking technologies
o Grid computing is the linking of
many individual devices, creating a distributed system with massive computational
power that far surpasses the power of a handful of supercomputers
o Grid computing looks set to
change the world in the present – it is not a futuristic technology. Computational
grids offer a degree of resource sharing that is deemed able to far surpass event
the world-wide web and this will not only revolutionise the way in which data
is accessed but also how the data is produced, consumed and stored.
o The Siemens video is an apt and
attractive demonstration of how grid computing has the potential to make our
lives a lot more seamless and convenient
Key Take-Away Points
While new
technology is rapidly emerging and holds the promise of solving the world’s
most pressing challenges related to a vast array of issues – such as water and
food security, energy sustainability and personalized medicines – it first has
to be effectively transferred from the research lab into people’s lives. What this
requires, importantly, is supportive and welcoming public perception of the
technologies, government regulations which are facilitative and critical
investment flows.
Personally,
I found the technology of grid computing to be particularly intriguing and so
did a little more research on it. What I found was that even though this
cutting-edge technology offers significant benefits – in an example I came
across, Hewitt Associates, a global human resource outsourcer, cut the cost of
running a key business application by 90% when it made the switch from
mainframe to a grid; the application now even runs faster and more reliable
than ever – one should still refrain from throwing caution to the wind in
blindly adopting this technology.
It appears that not every application will
benefit from the parallel computing offered by a grid. Other factors that need
to be taken into consideration include: security, resource management, and
managerial politics. Given that grids are still a specialized technology, grid
computing would be most suitable for businesses already using high-performance computing,
such as financial services firms and pharmaceutical companies. There is also
the threat which grid computing poses to intellectual property. As United
Devices’ Kirchoff acknowledges: “high-performance computing traditionally runs
on nodes that are hard to access and tightly controlled. But when you connect
up non-dedicated resources like your salesperson's PC, you have to worry. You
cannot have data flying all over the place that is vulnerable."
Personal ratings
I
particularly enjoyed this topic and would rate the session a 9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment