Trends Identified
Be nice to the telepresence robot
You wouldn’t rest your feet on a colleague during a meeting. But what if your workmate was a robot controlled by a co-worker many kilometres away – would it still be rude? This is typical of the new etiquette questions that will be raised by remote-controlled telepresence robots, which allow you to transport your “self” anywhere in the world to take a look around. A roving version of you, these robots could alter the way we travel and interact with each other.
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Stroll through data in the augmented city
Our cities could soon be painted with secrets we cannot see with the naked eye. The streets, buildings and sometimes even the citizens themselves would teem with virtual information. With the help of augmented reality (AR) you could see the occupancy level of a hotel emblazoned on its walls and read a restaurant’s reviews as you walk past. The people you meet might even reveal their names and job titles before you say a word. AR is about to create a new layer over the cityscape by adding graphical information from apps and the internet onto objects in your field-of-view as you peer around.
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Don’t invent, evolve
We are on the cusp of a new era in the history of invention. That’s the implication of software that can automatically “evolve” technology, and create designs that often no human would come up with. It’s already transforming fields as diverse as robot locomotion, computer security and drug design.
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Eat a printed dinner in your printed home
It’s early evening and you pull the car into the drive of your new home that was erected in just two days. Since it is your wife’s birthday, you are clutching a personalised gold necklace that you picked up from the printer. For dinner tonight, you won’t need to do any chopping or peeling – ingredients just go straight into your kitchen fabricator.
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Jacking into your brain
Of all the ways that we have been aided by technology, forging a direct link between our brains and computers is the most intimate yet. Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) are poised to challenge our notions of identity, culpability and the acceptable limits of human enhancement.
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
The crystal ball internet
For around 20 years, starting in the 1980s, the political scientist Philip Tetlock sought predictions from people considered knowledgeable. His experts, 280 of them, were the kind of folk who, in their work as TV pundits or government advisors, opined on matters such as the rise of China or security in the Middle East. As time passed, he checked their forecasts. The results were dismal. “Human beings who spend their lives studying the state of the world… are poorer forecasters than dart-throwing monkeys,” wrote one reviewer of Tetlock’s work. Not so for a powerful new method of forecasting called “text mining”. It draws on the vast amount of data available online. By sampling the sentiments expressed in the torrent of blog posts, tweets and Facebook updates, you can gain unprecedented insights into the mood of the world and use it to predict what is to come.
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Digital wallets will empty faster
Anthropologists know there are three things most of us now carry with us wherever we go: our keys, our wallets and our cellphones. Digital wallets could fold the last two into a single item – and perhaps eradicate cash altogether. Could it change how we spend too?
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Visualization
See, discover and explore deeper insights within large, complex data sets Enterprises move into 2011 with information at the forefront of their agendas. According to a recent Gartner survey, increasing the use of information and analytics is one of the top three business priorities1 . Data volumes continue to explode, as unstructured content proliferates via collaboration, productivity and social channels. And while organizations are making headway on enterprise information management and broad analytics solutions, much potential insight is buried within static reports that are accessible only by a small fraction of the organization2 .
2011
Tech Trends 2011 The natural convergence of business and IT
Deloitte
“Almost-Enterprise” Applications
Quick and agile solutions appeal to the business, but are they “enterprise enough” for IT? Business units have historically had a love-hate relationship with IT. In the early days, IT was an esoteric specialty, far removed from core business competencies yet consuming a big piece of the budget. IT was often seen as unresponsive, expensive or fl at-out ineffective, but business leaders saw no other choice for essential process and information automation. IT was left to balance these harsh perceptions with the practical reality of providing secure, reliable and scalable solutions with zero tolerance for fault or failure.
2011
Tech Trends 2011 The natural convergence of business and IT
Deloitte
Cyber Intelligence
Protecting vital information assets demands a full-spectrum cyber approach In 2010, security and privacy graduated from IT department concerns. C-suites and boardrooms took notice of highly visible incidents, ranging from malwareinfected motherboards from top-tier PC manufacturers1 , to information theft from a leading cloud provider2 , to the manipulation of the underlying routing tables of the internet, redirecting traffic to Chinese networks3 . At the same time, the regulatory environment around sensitive data protection has become more rigorous, diverse and complex. Organizations are aware of the shifting threat profile and are working to deal with technical barriers as well as sophisticated criminal elements. Incidents are increasingly originating in the trust vector – due to inadvertent employee behavior via the sites they visit, the posts they access on social media sites or even the devices they bring with them to the workplace. A “protect-the-perimeter and respondwhen-attacked” mentality is no longer sufficient.
2011
Tech Trends 2011 The natural convergence of business and IT
Deloitte