Like It Or Not: Things Are Happening. Part I.
Highlights on the technologies of the impossibilities.
For so many years we have been seeing a lot of changes and advancement in different aspects of human life since the time of ancient civilization to the current modern world. All of these changes are being contributed by different factors one of the great factor is technology, Unfortunately, it is not possible to stop the advancement of technology due to the fact that everyday different new ideas born and creativity increases which leads to innovations and inventions of different solutions to different problems and challenges. Transformation in technology has reshaped people’s thinking and ways of doing things, also people around the world are upgrading themselves everyday to adopt to these changes which includes the use of new devices and upgraded tools. Some of noticeable changes are industrial revolutions that started with the first industrial revolution which involved the use of water and steam, the second industrial revolution where electricity came in control and replaced some water and steam dependent mechanical tasks, the third industrial revolution which brought about digital era and came up with computers and the internet and now we are in the fourth industrial revolution which is described with different technologies which I’m going to highlight on this article.
In all these industrial shifts Africa has always being lagging behind and sometimes as Africans we fail to know in which phase we are in. Probably we didn’t pass through the first phase and we are still struggling with the second and the third phases but while we are still in the struggle already another phase is in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). There are several new technologies that are little known by the public but these technologies have beginning showing impact(s) in our lives. Here are some of the questions to ask ourselves; how are we able to finely select and cope with these kinds of changes? How are our learning systems and learners subjected to these changes? How can we leverage this technology advancement for our economy development? All these questions can be answered by taking a step in transforming our thinking while looking at the global perspective point of view.
In this article I would like to talk about the frontier technologies of 4th Industrial revolution. Some of technologies which characterize the fourth industrial revolution are Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, The Internet of Things, Quantum Computing, Nanotechnology, Cloud Computing, Three Dimensional (3D) printing, Biotechnology, Robotics, Virtual Technologies(Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and Extended Reality), and Advanced Wireless Technologies e.g Fifth Generation Networks (5G). Let’s take a look to some of technologies which feature the fourth industrial revolution.
Three Dimensional (3D) Printing:
Some few years back the idea of printing a real object may have sounded as awkward idea. However, it is not an imagination anymore. Currently it is totally possible to print 3D object as the way we use to print pages from our different work spaces. Then what does 3D Printing mean, in simple words this is just a way of manufacturing 3D objects from their digital prints by fusing materials such as plastics, powder, metals, liquid, ceramic and even living cells.This process can also be referred as additive manufacturing. As it is for printers where we need a word, image or pdf document to feed the printer, in 3D printing also we need to have a digital design file, the 3D printer will print the object layer by layer.
You might be asking yourself, where this kind of technology can be used, well some of the areas where 3D printing is being used is in Aerospace industries for manufacturing end-use parts and prototypes. In entertainment, it may be hard for us to know that the Iron Man’s costumes from the blockbuster film were 3D printed. This is the same as for many Marvel films, and other filmmakers in developed countries employ the technology because it reduces both time and money costs. The technology can also be used in health care in categories such as tissue and organ fabrication, implants, and anatomical models creation. Other applications of 3D printing are robotics, education, automotive industries, fashion industries and food industries.
Robotics:
This is one of Artificial intelligence area of study and it may require a little description because it brings together also some other different field of studies such as Electronics, Computer Science, Neuroscience and Linguistics, it involves the building of machines that are capable of performing physical even non physical tasks. Most of people think of robotics as mimicking human form, but of course that’s not necessary, a robot can take any form and Artificial Intelligence has made robots more sophisticated and more intelligent.
As less number of workers are inclined to perform hazardous jobs in processing such as grinding and milling, manufacturers are looking into automation. With advances in software, force/torque sensors, and end-effectors, manufacturers are heavily automating these tasks using robots. Repetitive and strenuous tasks such as surface polishing can be automated for consistent results. Advances in features such as wear and tear compensation of tools are enabling easier programming and deployment of robots for such tasks. Automation in processing applications will significantly minimize the exposure to harmful particulates such as metal dust to factory workers.
Robots are now being used in many areas especially industries and they are widely used in factories to perform high precision jobs such as welding and riveting, they have gone to mars, to the ocean depth, and even volcanoes. Other forms of robots are warehouse robots, surgical robots, and agricultural robots.
The major applications for industrial robots include handling, welding and soldering, assembling and dispensing, processing, and others (inspection and quality testing. Processing tasks such as polishing and burring (that involve repetitive tasks in various industries such as automotive; chemicals, plastics, and rubber; and wood) are expected to have the fastest growth among all the application.
In Africa there have been some initiative to the field of robotics with reference to Tanzania, some of companies which are working in robotics are robotech labs and Tanzania Flying Labs.
Blockchain:
Satoshi Nakamoto, is a name reference to an unknown person or group of
people, who in 2008 created the first reference implementation specification
that theorized the design of a distributed database made of records called
“blocks” or “blockchains”, each block of which contains a timestamp and is
linked to previous block. A key feature is that data is distributed across the
whole network of blocks making its almost impossible to attack, as there is
no central point that hackers might exploit, therefore the data stored in the
blockchain is regarded to be incorruptible.
We can think blockchain as a charter or document which contain many shared entries, and these entries can be shared within a group of people or organization.The entries can be anything related to people or organization within the sharing group: items owned, money sent or received , items sold or bought, etc.One concern on these shared entries is security, how secure are the entries in the blockchain.
To ensure that data in blockchain are always correct and true for everyone in a group the shared documents are encrypted and verified. There is no need of a central authorities such as a bank,the police, a judge or any other part to validate the transaction between the people in the group because everyone in the group have access to the exact same entries, everyone knows about the transaction that occurred between the two people. Also the entries are immutable meaning that once they created cannot be updated or deleted. They cannot be tempered.
Note: Updating of data is done by adding another entry of data in available group of data (eg. adding another transaction between two people in the pack of data), but not updating a single entry of data (eg. modifying a already done transaction between two people).
Blockchain has many applications in the societies of the fourth industrial revolution but one popular is cryptocurrency eg. Bitcoin which can be thought as a peer to peer electronics cash system where Blockchain is described as a backend infrastructure of bitcoin. Bitcoin is a virtual, electronic currency. It is not issued by a bank, and no government or authority in the world endorses it.There are no official Bitcoin currency notes and physical coins, but also blockchain can be applicable in health care, land registry, taxation, real estate, IoT Security, etc.
Nanotechnology:
Nanotechnology is an important field of modern research dealing with synthesis, strategy and manipulation of particle’s structure ranging from
approximately 1 to 100 nm in size.
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology are studies and applications of extremely small things and can be used across all the other science fields such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology , Material science and Engineering. Nanotechnology may be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in medicine, electronics, biomaterial, energy production,computers, mobile, fabrics,textile, and military.
Nanotechnology is a brand new technology that has just began, it is a revolutionary science that will change all what we knew before. This
new technology will first of all, keep us healthy because of Nano robots that will repair every damage that we have in our body, Nanotechnology covers a lot of domains today and will cover a lot more in the near future, it is
infinitely big and will make a lot of inventions come true. Currently, a variety of research is being performed on nanomedical devices. Few industrial products exist right now and the possibilities are endless, but will take
time to develop. To explore more on Nanotechnology visit here.
Quantum Computing:
This field of study is derived from sub field of study in Physics called quantum mechanics which studies phenomena at the micro level. Quantum Computer is a computer based on a computational model which uses quantum mechanics. The area related to quantum computers is generally called the quantum computing, and it is one of the field which is regarded as promising fields in computer science.
Note: quantum computing is not a faster or better classical computing
but it is altogether different way of computing.
Still in early stages but gaining momentum very fast.
The basic unit of information in quantum computers is called Q-Bit (qubit).It is based on the superposition states in which both the states 0 and 1 are overlapped. Current computers that’s classical computers represents information by means of a bit which can have only one value or one state of 0 or 1. On the other hand, quantum computers use qubits which can represent
more information than in bits.
Why Quantum Computing?
For solving world’s most fundamental problems like inventing new drugs, making brand new materials, creating more precise climate models, strong encryption and easy decryption (which is too hard a nut to crack).
It is generally thought that the advent of quantum computers can change the world of computers and our life. Some people showed that quantum computers can be used to compute the answers to certain difficult problems much faster than any classical computer, due to this high computational capability quantum computers will change completely the world of computing and revolutionize it, this field can also be integrated with other fields such as Machine Learning (Quantum Machine Learning) and Deep Learning. Check Google’s Quantum Computer.
Conclusion
On the next part we will look on other remained technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Cloud computing, The internet of Things, Virtual Technologies,Biotechnology and 5th Generation of Networks (5G). And we will highlight some points of view on how developing countries especially African countries can adopt and use these technologies for social and economic development.
Referencies
http://www.mar-ketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/Industrial-Robotics-Market-643.html?gclid= CjwKEAjwrMzHBRDW3saA88aT80MSJACbvo1Tvb
Slz-JI8wGWSES9_W37E2EAIcgMzI3f4vnUq41kYRoCYIrw_wcB.
https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain
https://3dprinting.com/
www.nanotechgroup.org
www.nano.gov/you/nanotechnology-benefits
https://3dprintingindustry.com/3d-printing-basics-
free-beginners-guide/history/
