5 More Disruptive Technologies Of The Next Decade
In my first blog about disruptive technologies I promised myself that I would restrict the list to just 10! It wasn’t easy and as some of you pointed out there was a small anomaly with a reference between Point No. 9 – Quantum Computing and Point No. 5 – 3D Printing.
I must confess that the night before posting my article I made a last minute change and what was at point No. 5 was replaced with 3D printing.
Now it’s time to correct the error and to add a few more disruptive technologies to the list! Starting with Digital Security, which was the item that was previously bumped from the original post.
11 Personal (and Corporate) Digital Security
Clearly everything we do is being watched, monitored, captured, recorded and analysed by both the governments of the world and the capitalistic corporate world so that they can better sell us stuff! In short we need a way to redress the balance back in favour of the individual. To do this we need a personal digital cloak that is with us at all times, shielding our personal data and protecting our lives from all but our close friends and family. We want to have greater conscious control over what personal data we share and when. Whether it’s our personal details in the classical sense or the myriad of trend and interest data that’s unique to us as individuals, we want to be able to shield this with an intelligent personal digital security layer so that we can move freely through the digital world. Artificial Intelligence and potentially quantum computing technology will no doubt help us in securing our ever connected lives.
12 Our Connected Lives
We are at the dawn of a new era in technology. We are also hungry for information, data and news. Wearable technologies, home devices, shared media, notifications and alerts are all feeding our hunger. We also strive for greater control of our lives, our gadgets and our homes. When combined with our ever mobile lives we also want instant access to data and instant control of our things.
So, it’s probably a good job that some smart person came up with the idea of the Internet of Things (IoT)! The growth forecasts for the IoT are huge. Significant strides are being made as we speak and it’s getting the attention of all the big players. Apple, Microsoft, Intel, IBM and a host of smaller companies are all building us the hardware and software needed to control EVERYTHING that we own. It will not be long before you can sit down on the train and turn on your dishwasher, review the summary of your irrigation system, remotely control your air conditioning, review your house security alerts and feed the cat.
Just be sure you have solid Personal Digital security though because if you can access everything in your connected life then it won’t be long before someone wants to hack it!
13 Drones
No list would be complete without a mention of drone technology. Drones have caught the attention of every industry and suddenly we see a whole host of use cases being developed. Amazon is considering drones for the home delivery of products, the military forces of the word are using them in the battle zone, the media industry is using them to capture stunning shots, there is talk of medical drones that can dispatch emergency defribullators and of course the general public can use them for capturing their latest and greatest exploits and adventures. As drones become increasingly developed expect to see autonomous drones guiding us through shopping centres, weaponised and autonomous drones fighting our wars, surveillance drones keeping an eye on us and so much more. Let’s hope that someone comes up with a guidance protocol to stop them crashing in the sky above us, or worse mowing us down in the streets. 🙂
14 Electronic Warfare
As we become increasing dependent upon our technology to fight wars, drive our cars, integrate with our homes and our lives there will be a growing trend to defend ourselves against such technology. What if your autonomous car decides that it wants to take you to the other side of the country against your will? What if a flock of military micro weaponised drones are hacked for terrorist endeavours? What if your autonomous robot guard dog turns on you? What if the nation next door to you decides to invade with an army of autonomous robots? Well, the answer is electronic warfare! These systems will come in a variety of guises, both defensive in nature and aggressive. Governments of the world are already working on Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) technologies, laser guided resonance devices and power down / blackout technology. Being able to stop an autonomous car dead in its tracks is going to be very useful to the police. Using a satellite to deactivate a swarm of aggressive drones in a war zone could be extremely useful to the governments of the world. Think about it. Every force has an equal and opposite reaction. The same can be said of advancing technology.
15 Farming
Farmers spend a lot of time in their tractor ploughing, spraying, harvesting their crops. Imagine a farm where the farmer could monitor these daily activities from his mobile phone! Companies like Google are currently focused on developing autonomous vehicles for driving us around cities but it isn’t much of a leap of the imagination to extend this technology to transportation, shipping and farming. Imagine a connected farm that schedules the daily activities of ploughing, spraying and harvesting based on intelligent and autonomous decisions. Farming equipment scheduled by the farm system, driven by an autonomous digital driver and monitored by the farmer. Seeds will be selected and planted by an intelligent system that forecasts future demand, predicts weather conditions, analyses soil type and calculates optimum yields. Farming is about to go super hi-tech!!
Malcolm
In my next technology post I’m going to play a little game with technology trees. I’ll be mixing up the top 15 disruptive technologies from both this post and my last post and combining them to see what combinations of technology were most likely going to see in the near future!
