Trends Identified
‘Sense and avoid’ drones
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have become an important and controversial part of military capacity in recent years. They are also used in agriculture, for filming and multiple other applications that require cheap and extensive aerial surveillance. But so far all these drones have had human pilots; the difference is that their pilots are on the ground and fly the aircraft remotely.The next step with drone technology is to develop machines that fly themselves, opening them up to a wider range of applications. For this to happen, drones must be able to sense and respond to their local environment, altering their height and flying trajectory in order to avoid colliding with other objects in their path. In nature, birds, fish and insects can all congregate in swarms, each animal responding to its neighbour almost instantaneously to allow the swarm to fly or swim as a single unit. Drones can emulate this. With reliable autonomy and collision avoidance, drones can begin to take on tasks too dangerous or remote for humans to carry out: checking electric power lines, for example, or delivering medical supplies in an emergency. Drone delivery machines will be able to find the best route to their destination, and take into account other flying vehicles and obstacles. In agriculture, autonomous drones can collect and process vast amounts of visual data from the air, allowing precise and efficient use of inputs such as fertilizer and irrigation. In January 2014, Intel and Ascending Technologies showcased prototype multi-copter drones that could navigate an on-stage obstacle course and automatically avoid people who walked into their path. The machines use Intel’s RealSense camera module, which weighs just 8g and is less than 4mm thick. This level of collision avoidance will usher in a future of shared airspace, with many drones flying in proximity to humans and operating in and near the built environment to perform a multitude of tasks. Drones are essentially robots operating in three, rather than two, dimensions; advances in next-generation robotics technology will accelerate this trend. Flying vehicles will never be risk-free, whether operated by humans or as intelligent machines. For widespread adoption, sense and avoid drones must be able to operate reliably in the most difficult conditions: at night, in blizzards or dust storms. Unlike our current digital mobile devices (which are actually immobile, since we have to carry them around), drones will be transformational as they are self-mobile and have the capacity of flying in the three-dimensional world that is beyond our direct human reach. Once ubiquitous, they will vastly expand our presence, productivity and human experience.
2015
Top 10 emerging technologies of 2015
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Get to Know Me
Unlock unique customers and unique opportunities Technology-driven interactions are creating an expanding technology identity for every consumer. This living foundation of knowledge will be key to not only understanding the next generation of consumers, but also to delivering rich, individualized, experience-based relationships in the post-digital age.
2019
Accenture Technology Vision 2019- The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us ARE YOU READY FOR WHAT’S NEXT?
Accenture
Human Body Communication System
Unlike conventional communication systems using wired or wireless devices, the human body communication system uses data delivered from or interchanged between portable devices attached to the human body.
2009
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2009
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
The Darker Side of New Technologies: How A New Global Security Order Has Arrived
Understanding the impact of new technologies on global security has never been more urgent – but responses are falling behind and there is no framework on the table to get back on track.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Brain-inspired technologies
Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges facing 21st century science. Advances in this understanding can help us gain profound insights into what makes us human, develop new treatments for brain disease and build revolutionary new computing and robotic technologies. Modern ICT has now brought these goals within sight.
2015
Preparing the Commission for future opportunities - Foresight network fiches 2030
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
DARQ Power
Understanding the DNA of DARQ.New technologies are catalysts for change, offering businesses extraordinary new capabilities. Distributed ledger technology, artificial intelligence, extended reality, and quantum computing will be the next set of new technologies to spark a step change, letting businesses reimagine entire industries.
2019
Accenture Technology Vision 2019- The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us ARE YOU READY FOR WHAT’S NEXT?
Accenture
Inequalities in labour market outcomes persist
Underlying these aggregate labour market and social trends are disparities across a number of demographic groups. Gender disparities are of particular concern. On average, women are less likely to participate in the labour market, facing a global gender gap in participation of over 26 percentage points, and are less likely to find a job when they do participate. These gaps are particularly wide in Northern Africa and the Arab States, where women are twice as likely to be unemployed as men. Once in employment, women face segregation in terms of the sector, occupation and type of employment relationship, resulting in restricted access to quality employment. For instance, 82 per cent of women in developing countries are in vulnerable forms of employment in 2017, compared to 72 per cent of men.
2018
World Employment and Social Outlook
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Deep space travel
U.S. President Obama has indicated that the USA, and mandated NASA, to send a human mission to Mars by mid-2030 with intermediary steps to Lagragian points in 2020s. NASA is consequently developing appropriate capabilities with the SLS launcher and the Orion crew capsule that should be ready by early 2020s. This would allow human to ventures farther into deep space compared to previous endeavours in the last century.
2015
Preparing the Commission for future opportunities - Foresight network fiches 2030
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Immersive Technologies – Enhancing the Digital Experience
Two distinct but merging technologies are behind immersive technologies: Virtual Reality (VR), computer- generated, digital environments that fully immerse users in a virtual world and Augmented Reality (AR), which overlays digital information on the physical world and augmented reality operating environments. Companies are already experimenting in pilot projects and the technology has the potential to become the next computing platform. Mobile devices are currently at the center of the implementation of AR/ VR and they could replace large parts of the PC landscape. We observe a co-evolution with digital twins and gaming. Hardware is important, but the user experience such as ease and comfort of use and real-time performance as well as a structured content are keys for success. High data quality including realtime analytics is also a prerequisite. Immersive Technologies are still in early development and are five to ten years from wide mainstream adoption. They currently show a slower adoption than smartphones but will probably experience a similar cost reduction and speed up significantly cost reduction and development speed. Hardware vendors are accelerating computing and speeding up application performance and vendors are already developing and offering enterprise-level collaboration tools and augmented reality operating environments. For now, the clumsiness of the current devices has reduced mobility and the cost for adopting content are slowing progress and cybersecurity and safety of usage remain issues. Immersive technologies promise unique user experiences including 3D interactions, new ways of data handling, and interaction with the physical world and has the potential to accelerate and simplify business practices or even invent new ones. Use cases are hands-free tasks like in field service and maintenance, digital twins for operations, architecture, real-estate etc., live media streams, and augmented information for any digital supported workplace.
2018
Trend Report 2018 - Emerging Technology Trends
SAP
Dueling Neural Networks
Two AI systems can spar with each other to create ultra-realistic original images or sounds, something machines have never been able to do before.
2018
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2018
MIT Technology Review