Tech Trends for 2017
Tech predictions are by far some of the most expected news for the upcoming year - exciting trends for 2017 have been blasting out from our fave media outlets, but here’s our taste of what’s to come for the coming year in technology developments.
1. INCREASED INTEROPERABILITY AND INTELLIGENCE AMONG DEVICES: Connected objects, robots, drones and vehicles will deliver the power of AI through smart embedded systems. Yes, 2016 brought IOT well on its way with improved platforms and networks, but this year, they will actually start getting smarter in a cognitive way. Yann LeCunn, Director of AI Research at Facebook, predicts “more embedded tech with specialised architecture running neural nets”, meaning they’ll self-learn through the data they gather. Additionally, we’ll see a better collaboration between devices, communicating with networks, and general AIs creating the smart, sentient world we’ve been waiting for — security and privacy challenges permitting…
Keep an eye out for: High-quality networks to connect millions of these objects; French Unicorn SigFox gives users options to connect to their high quality, but affordable, global network. Keep their startup programs in mind when selecting an operator.
2. SMARTER SYSTEMS: Making it flow. By itself. Devops, documentation, contracts and autonomous learning help create smarter systems to learn from behaviour and experience. The more specific the instructions, the richer the outcome. Repetitive tasks and processes delegated to algorithms, chatbots replacing customer service agents — we’re on our way to create the assistants we’ve dreamed of. Check out the vast array of Open Source automation tools applicable to pretty much any sector and you’ll be on your way to automation. Machine Learning and Deep Learning with massive high quality data sets will help boost autonomous systems. Better training, speedier clustering and spotting implausible relationships based on mathematical models and experience — will help systems becoming super-smart programmers themselves.
Keep an eye out for: OpenAI and Google’s open sourced platforms facilitating training
3. AUTOMATION IMPACTING SOCIETY: These smart automated ecosystems will soon be running independently, notably in the manufacturing and transport industries, set to further automate this year. Humans will need better training to advance their capabilities of identifying the best algorithms and agents to use for each situation, making AI Guidelines a necessity. A new society needs to be discussed, sooner rather than later, to set expectations for the changes to come, potentially sharing out available work and giving people more free time to enjoy and contribute to the planet ;)
Keep an eye out for: Established framework of AI guidelines, and recommendations from small and large AI collaborators alike, as started by MIT Media Lab
4. PERSONALISATION, IDENTITY and SECURITY: While we await the hyper-personalised user-interfaces we’ve come to expect from any platform, identity and security will continue to be vital to trust the connected systems and environment with your data and preferences. As we acknowledge the fact that 1.5BN people in the world have no legal identity, we need to tackle massive issues together.
Keep an eye out for: U-Port the self-sovereign identity platform built on the Ethereum blockchain to give an “immutable, trustless, and transparent agreed-upon network” established by ConsenSys in collaboration with Blockstack and Microsoft at ID2020
5. RICH CONTENT in VR, AR, MR. Creators will continue to test and push boundaries in immersive experiences in all forms: virtual, augmented and mixed reality, but 2017 will take experimentation and fantastic creations up a notch, with the first TiltBrush artist residencies, cross-platform development, easier creation of environments, democratisation of AR, VR and MR for consumers… However, more developers are needed to make quality content for HMDs and mobile for the massive demand surge to come from non-entertainment use-cases.
Keep an eye out for: An increasing offer of platforms and tools to help you out. We like VR Unity plugins CognitiveVR and RetinadVR to help you track user gaze, gather data and figure out a sweet UX.
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It remains to be seen if these will become reality or remain just a prediction. In any case we’re excited to see what 2017 will bring and are optimistic the key themes for 2017 are collaboration, automation and progress!
