Trends Identified
Open source is enabling community problem solving and differentiation
Often a problem is widely experienced by many different firms. Instead of solving it individually and sub-optimally, it makes sense to band together and solve it as a community. The open source model enables companies to tap into a community dedicated to building modern software, and to align with vibrant, active projects. As such, companies can accelerate innovation on the differentiating parts of their platform while leveraging the underlying foundational innovation of the broader open source community. The open source model lowers costs and in some cases achieves vendor independence. Notably, the cloud providers’ embrace of open source is leading to lower cost for additive cloud services as well as more robust competition. Open source also helps to attract the next generation of talent, who want to work on cutting-edge projects and have a positive impact on the world. Linux, an open source solution that modernized and replaced an outdated alternative, is a great success story. But not all projects achieve that level of success, and it is important to identify which ones are likely to remain vibrant and viable. One indicator is when the founders remain involved and the project is growing, as in the case of Confluent and Databricks with Apache Spark and Apache Kafka. Another positive sign is when open source projects are widely adopted across the major cloud providers, such as Docker and Apache Spark. Perhaps one misperception is that the acquisition risk is lower with open source technology. IBM bought Red Hat recently, and VMWare bought Heptio. As a result, companies that have decided to migrate toward an open source technology may find themselves bound to a large incumbent vendor once again. If this trend continues, the full benefits of tapping into open source may not be long-lasting. Moreover, some new license frameworks prohibit companies from reselling what they have built on open source. Given these trends, Nasdaq plans to contribute to a select group in the open source community. In particular, open source makes it easier for exchange customers to access data and derive insights from it in real time. If market participants handle data in a common way and with a common set of tools, individual firms do not have to devote resources to building those tools. Importantly, data can be shared in a way that does not compromise security and integrity to the benefit of all.
2019
NASDAQ DECODES: TECH TRENDS 2019 -The technology trends that are driving the world of markets forward
Nasdaq
Unconventional oil deposits
Oil from unconventional deposits includes problematic reserves of hydrocarbon raw materials, in particular traditional (or mobile) oil resources with difficult extraction conditions and immobile (or slow-moving) oil, caused by low porosity of collectors or high molecularity of the hydrocarbons themselves – dense and high-viscosity oils. However, on account of the lower consumer qualities and high costs of extraction, oil supplies from unconventional deposits with unconventional extraction conditions are evaluated only provisionally. The extraction of heavy oils is currently carried out in Canada, Venezuela, the USA and a number of other countries, including Russia, but according to the majority of forecasts, in the next two decades these products will not make a significant contribution to the global oil recovery.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Your next vacation may be to space or undersea.
Ok, maybe not “next” vacation unless you’re a very occasional traveler. But in 2019, NASA will start building its Lunar Space Station and we’ll see continued investment in private spaceflight, predicts Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings. His company compiled data-driven travel insights from its millions of reviews and bookings. Until space becomes an option, “travelers are seeking out uncharted territories in other forms, with 60% of travelers confirming they’d want to stay in an accommodation under the sea,” Fogel writes. Gen Z and Y travelers are also bringing their values with them and seeking environmentally-friendly and socially-conscious experiences, often opting for shorter, nearer trips. The hot new destinations? The Bahamas, Florence, Palm Springs and Cartagena.
2018
50 Big Ideas for 2019: What to watch in the year ahead
LinkedIn
Converging data architectures
Old approaches to data survive because structured forms of data make IT leaders feel they’re in control. But new approaches to managing unstructured data provide a whole new notion of control—the ability to turn data into new streams of value. Successfully rebalancing the data architecture portfolio and blending the structured with the unstructured are key to unlocking that value.
2012
Accenture Technology Vision 2012
Accenture
Decrypting Crypto-Consumers
On October 31th, 2008, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published the paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, which would lay the groundwork for the world’s most talked about and prominent novel currency project since the creation of the euro some twenty years ago. Growing from a little-known cryptography mailing list, a discreetly registered domain, and a dedicated forum set up by its founder, Bitcoin soon inspired a huge growth in traders, platform and brokers, trade media, fans churning out memes, as well as commercial endeavors from cash brokers to exchanges, pubs to candy stores. This rapid expansion also meant that the user and consumer base has been difficult to track and segment. The crypto landscape is awash with data, but consumer data has been more difficult to come by for a variety of reasons. At first the audience was very small, and few cryptocurrency holders would be caught in the dragnet of national surveys – some of which were still based on calling landlines when Bitcoin was launched – and others relied on data volunteered by community members based on straw polls and student surveys. Self-selection also favored outspoken crypto activists, rather than silent investors. It’s the latter group our research has been able to capture. By including cryptocurrency into our global internet user survey, we’ve been able to expand the dragnet to almost 90,000 respondents – and picked up cryptocurrency holders in the course of general fieldwork, without targeting them. This means we have a sample of cryptocurrency holders with more than 25,000 data points against them, which has also served as a benchmark for our subsequent targeted poll.
2019
Trends 19
GlobalWebIndex
Assistive robot suit
Once the disabled or the elderly to wear a robot suit which is similar to the body frame, the suit can detect neuronal signal from the muscle and operate. The suit allows the user to move freely and move heavy objects as it gives more strength. With the same principle, the suit enables the elderly or the disabled to expand their work environment at production spots and work.
2013
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2013
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Automating trust
One high potential area for blockchain, when used in combination with technologies like AI or IoT, is its ability to automate trust among users within a network. For example, IoT enables the tracking of a pallet of food from the farm to the warehouse to the store. The sensors can verify the entire supply chain — not only to know where a shipment is, for example, but also the recording conditions of each leg of the shipment so you know if conditions become too hot, too cold, or too humid. IoT and blockchain create an immutable supply chain, enabling buyers to trust they are getting an authentic product. They can also be used to verify if a product containing hazardous materials has been correctly and safely disposed.
2017
The Essential Eight - Your guide to the emerging technologies revolutionizing business now
PWC
Open AI Ecosystem
One of the advantages that CEOs and celebrities have over ordinary workers is that they don’t need to spend much time handling the uninteresting, time-consuming aspects of daily life: scheduling appointments, making travel plans, searching for the information they want. The elite have PAs, personal assistants who handle such things. But soon— maybe even this year—most of us will be able to afford this luxury for the price of few lattes a month, thanks to the emergence of an open AI ecosystem. AI here refers, of course, to artificial intelligence. Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s OK Google, and Amazon’s Echo services are nifty in the way that they extract questions from speech using natural-language processing and then do a limited set of useful things, such as look for a restaurant, get driving directions, find an open slot for a meeting, or run a simple web search. But too often their response to a request for help is “Sorry, I don’t know about that” or “here’s what I found on the web.” You would never confuse these digital assistants for a human PA. Moreover, these systems are proprietary and hard for entrepreneurs to extend with new features. But over the past several years, several pieces of emerging technology have linked together in ways that make it easier to build far more powerful, human-like digital assistants— that is, into an open AI ecosystem. This ecosystem connects not only to our mobile devices and computers— and through them to our messages, contacts, finances, calendars and work files—but also to the thermostat in the bedroom, the scale in the bathroom, the bracelet on the wrist, even the car in the driveway. The interconnection of the Internet with the Internet of Things and your own personal data, all instantly available almost anywhere via spoken conversations with an AI, could unlock higher productivity and better health and happiness for millions of people within the next few years. By pooling anonymized health data and providing personalized health advice to individuals, such systems should lead to substantial improvements in health and reductions in the costs of health care. Applications of AI to financial services could reduce unintentional errors, as well as intentional (fraudulent) ones—offering new layers of protection to an aging population. The secret ingredient in this technology that has been largely lacking to date is context. Up to now, machines have been largely oblivious to the details of our work, our bodies, our lives. A human PA knows when you are interruptible, stressed, bored, tired or hungry. The PA knows who and what is important to you, and also what you would prefer to avoid. AI systems are gaining the ability to acquire and interpret contextual cues so that they can gain these skills as well. Although initially these AI assistants will not outperform the human variety, they will be useful—and roughly a thousand times less expensive. Various companies have already demonstrated AI systems that have some of these capabilities. Microsoft Research built one that knows when you are too busy to take a call (and which calls should ring through regardless) and that automatically schedules meetings at times you would likely choose yourself. Other companies such as Angel.ai have introduced services that search for flights that suit your preferences and constraints based on simple plain-English requests. Just as discretion and loyalty are prized among human PAs, digital versions will succeed only to the extent that we trust them with our security and privacy. Vendors will no doubt try to use such systems to influence our purchase choices. We will have to decide when and whether we are comfortable with that.
2016
Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
World Economic Forum (WEF)
The end of the 19th-century grid
One of the biggest changes we will see (or at least have made substantial progress towards) by 2020 is global electrification. In the US and Europe, most people take electricity for granted. But that is not the case in many parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia. More than 1.3 billion people still aren’t connected to the grid. More than 1.5 billion still don’t have regular access to electric light: they use oil lamps, which are a safety hazard. Even where the grid exists, it’s fragile: power blackouts are a major problem in many megacities. Power theft also plagues Brazil, India and South Africa. Safe, reliable power will have a transformative effect on these countries. Not only will there be near-term benefits such as greater productivity, but we will see long-term quantum leaps in educational achievement, healthcare and quality of life. These communities don’t have power now because our 19th-century grid is too expensive. The advent of new technologies is changing both the business models and use-case scenarios to make it possible. In a few years, the world will finally, truly, be wired.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Self-healing materials
One of the defining characteristics of living organisms is their inherent ability to repair physical damage. A growing trend in biomimicry is the creation of non-living structural materials that also have the capacity to heal themselves when cut, torn or cracked. Self-healing materials which can repair damage without external human intervention could give manufactured goods longer lifetimes and reduce the demand for raw materials, as well as improving the inherent safety of materials used in construction or to form the bodies of aircraft.
2013
The top 10 emerging technologies for 2013
World Economic Forum (WEF)