We are in an exciting Technology era at the moment, where disruptive Tech is breaking all conventional paradigms and acting as a conduit between the consumer and the digital world.
This article will take a look at technologies and trends which we can expect to see more of throughout the year. Businesses and technology leaders should be looking at how these technologies can benefit their current organisation and how they can potentially implement them in order to push innovation boundaries to their fullest.
So here goes:
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Artif
Every application built in coming years will be an 'intelligent application'. Machine Learning (ML) has, and will, further revolutionise the way software applications are being built. If your company isn't using Machine Learning to eradicate errors and anomalies at the moment, then I predict you won't be far off doing so.
Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality is transforming the way individuals, and potentially businesses, interact with one another. AR/VR apps completely transcend our virtual boundaries, and not just apparent when catching a Charizard in the hit 2016 app 'Pokémon GO', but can be used for an array of technology scenarios and remote experiences. Organisations will start to target VR/AR strategies for their real time training situations, where they can use graphic overlays and UI's to train their employees.
Blockchain
You've probably heard about the technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, but not really known how this can integrate into the real world. Blockchain is effectively a ledger technology that enables institutions to transfer and record assets sequentially in a ‘block’ without an intermediary. Each block includes verified transactions and the blockchain maintains a ledger with all prior transactions. So, what does this mean in the real world? Well… Nasdaq are developing a blockchain technology system for trading shares in companies. A London based start-up has used blockchain to uniquely ‘fingerprint’ and record diamonds on discovery in mines, to tracking them internationally until they appear on someone’s finger. This technology will revolutionise the way assets are purchased.
Security Architecture / IoT
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an incredibly exciting space and 2016 was a fantastic year for educating the masses around the limitless boundaries of this technology and concept. Embedded software solutions technology will only get bigger and more advanced throughout the coming years in the form of software sensors, electronic devices, stronger network connectivity etc. As these technology facets grow throughout the year, we need to make sure that the architecture which these devices are built on can exchange and collect the data efficiently and most importantly securely. This might be a story for 2025 but the security of all this data we are capturing needs to be addressed appropriately to begin with.
Chat Bots
Artificial Intelligence in the e-commerce and retail space is huge. 2016 saw a colossal surge in automated chat bots, which were assisting shoppers with their everyday online queries. The launch of Facebook Messenger's Bot Store earlier last year, gave consumers the ability to communicate via story mapping, product discovery and customer service and is the future of online retail. It will be interesting to see how other industries and enterprise companies can utilise this form of AI to communicate with their customers.
Polyglot Engineering
Polyglot programming continues to get widespread adulation and acceptance with the industry and comes off the back of organisational desire to satisfy a widening technology roadmap. Polyglot and Full Stack Developers will start to broaden their technical skill sets to accommodate the rise in disruptive technologies listed above.
This is an exciting time to be exploring new technologies. If you are interested in having a discussion about any of the technologies listed above, or new emerging technology trends, please don’t hesitate in reaching out.
