2019 Year in Review: Tech Developments Part 2

We continue to delve into what the past year brought the tech world.

Last week we took a look at 3 of the most significant developments in technology in 2019. We talked about about the developments artificial intelligence made over the course of the year, the advent of 5G and where it could be set to go, and the growth of artificially intelligent chatbots and how they’re transforming customer service.

The pattern that’s beginning to form indicates that while there can be tremendous change over a year, that change is typically iterative and the big changes displayed only come at the end of a great deal of gradual progress and smaller breakthroughs. Our tech developments in this article are set to continue that pattern.

This week, we at Innovexa Solutions explore 3 more prominent changes in the tech world over the past year.

Automation Adoption

The adoption of automation by companies to supercharge their operations skyrocketed in 2019. That said, alongside its rise remain serious concerns over it leading to mass job loss. With even one of the more prominent Democratic presidential candidates in Andrew Yang basing much of his campaign around these concerns.

Nonetheless, automation isn’t slowing down. With the way it can boost productivity, minimize waste, avoid worker harm, just to name a few of its benefits, companies would be foolish to ignore it. It’s going to be up to companies and perhaps even governments to find new roles for workers, possibly changing the nature of some work as a consequence.

Data & Privacy

Whether we like it or not, all of our data is only growing more valuable by the year. With that being the case, big tech companies are only growing more incentivized to collect it however they can. While that mass data collection is here to stay, 2019 saw some more pushback over it.

With concerns over privacy increasing, not only has the US government got involved in questioning companies like Facebook (something that begun in 2018) over their data collection practices, but hardware and software have been developed to make data gathering harder. Although it seems unlikely that either of these countermeasures will be enough to stem the tide, they’re a start.

Electric Cars

Electric cars certainly didn’t come into being in 2019—they’ve been around for a while now—but the year did see them garner mass attention once more. Lamborghini launched the Sián, a hybrid car that the company claims is its fastest ever. In turn, Elon Musk introduced the world to the Cybertruck just last month, its unique design drawing a great deal of attention.

It’s hard to say what either of these high profile unveilings mean for electric cars at large, but if nothing else, they indicate an ongoing fascination and enthusiasm with them. Which, in time, should translate to more of them being on our streets in the future.

Key Takeaways:

• Takeaway 1: The implementation of automation increased significantly over the year, despite the concerns over it leading to large scale job loss.
• Takeaway 2: Mass data collection continued in 2019 but saw some pushback via governmental pressure as well as hardwares and softwares being developed to combat it.
• Takeaway 3: Although electric cars have been around for some time, the year saw them come into the spotlight once again with several big name unveilings.
• Takeaway 4: Happy holidays! Be safe!