CultusWill we be teleported, read other people’s minds, implant a chip instead or reading or something else in the next 5 years?
The IBM annual tech predictions, suggests radical changes in security, mobility and energy that will alter our lives all by 2017.
According to them, the social and market trends will result in a number of technological innovations that will change our daily lives.
- Energy: People power will come to life. IBM predicts that not only will the Kinect technology explode, together with the“The Internet of Things”, but the connection of the world around you to online networks will increase. Energy generation will be boosted worldwide. Distinct areas of innovation will range from using the water in your plumbing, attaching devices to bicycles for energy generation, to finding renewable sources of energy.
- Security: You will never need a password again. “Multi-factor biometrics” sounds like something from SF movies, but in reality, the biometrics field is developing at a rapid rate. Even though it may be something of an inaccurate art at the moment, the ability to use retina scans, fingerprints, and voice verification is going towards replacing the humble password in years to come. Eye recognition is already used in checking the identity of online students or in other appropriate locations.
- Mind reading: no longer science fiction. Hand-written letters and the typewriter are already a ‘touching’ the history borders, but as the technology develops, speaking on the telephone may be heading in the same direction. Rather than keying in a number or using voice-activated assistants on your smartphone, it will be very cool if you could simply “think” about calling someone and it happens? IBM believes that this not only could become a viable factor in our daily lives, but such technology could be used to help understand brain disorders including autism.
- Mobile: The digital divide will cease to exist. The use of mobile phones in the information-accessibility gap in disadvantaged areas (restrained by economic woes or remote locations) may disappear, once and for all. Cheap communications technology, remote healthcare, and recorded messages to deliver information to those who are illiterate, are the next steps of innovation that may take in the next five years.
- Analytics: Junk mail will become priority mail. Future without junk mail, phishing scams and messages about a Prince in Africa who needs you to accept $1 million into your bank account will be long gone? The use of analytics technology to proactively separate the junk and e-mails you have no interest in could potentially be used to present only the information you want, and nothing else.
The full report can be found at: IBM predictions
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past”, was once said by Thomas Jefferson, so let’s begin dreaming for real.
