Technology is essential in progressing as a society. Its ethical and practical uses help by lessening manual, time consuming labor and widening the availability of information through the internet.
With the progress of technology come the phases of succession and legacy. Legacy technology are older platforms or systems that were developed years ago but are maintained until a new and much improved successor is introduced.
Succession refers to introduction and integration of new systems and platforms that offer improved capacity and computing efficiency, and will succeed legacy systems. In between the migration from legacy to succession platforms comes “disruption”. Disruptive technology is mainly about the introduction of new platforms that will start a serial debate whether to migrate or retain older systems, but the upfront technology – mostly branded as groundbreaking may as well be industry defining or revolutionise an industry altogether.
Computer World identified six technologies that have the potential to be the disruptive technologies that impact business in the foreseeable future:
- Internet of Things
The Internet of Things or known as IoT has the potential to be truly disruptive as it creates a new ecosystem of inter-connected devises that pass on data to one another and all are accessible within a centralised master application. As the IT sector braces to chart the way of how IoT will be implemented for business and practical use in governing, there are issues to be addressed such as the glaring security issue. Inter-connected devises escalates an exponential risk in vulnerability as one faulty firmware may lead to the compromise of the IoT infrastructure for the organisation. IoT is still in its infancy despite its potential and big businesses are still sceptical about its vulnerability proposition and yet find its commercialisation a potential consumer boom.
- Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is another disruptive technology that is slowly going mainstream. The use of virtual reality headset that enable the viewing of spherical presentations have been put to practical use already around industries that quickly adapt to it. Real estate companies offer a virtual tour of their properties and model units. The medical and health industry allow the use of virtual viewing for better immersion for students in learning. The gaming industry is also leading the virtual and augmented reality platforms to serve better realism on developing games that takes the gaming experience to another level of interactivity. As virtual reality become much more common thanks to the quick adaption of businesses and the prices of the peripherals become more affordable, expect VR and AR technologies be used for better marketing across industries.
- Wearable Tech
Wearable technology is another disruptive technology that started as a commercial enterprise in the competition of developing and selling compact technologies gearing toward nano properties. With the evolution of commercial electronics based mostly around communication devices, the trend of creating much more compact and portable devises that outperform their predecessors were the key selling point for consumers. The handheld device market has evolved from bulky cellphones to sleek and light computers. Next in line is the wearable tech that houses firmware and inter-connection properties ranging from Bluetooth, WAN and secured inter-operability to matching frequencies. One good example is the iWatch that exceeded Apple’s expectations of its sales projection and is now seen as a mate to its compatible devices such as the iPhone.
In business, Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) has revolutionised how enterprises communicate within departments. In todays corporate world we are seeing applications and firmware built into commercial wearable tech that allow greater flexibility in work and essential collaboration. While wearable tech is seen as disruptive, its application is being used from simple telecommunications platforms to much more advanced security protocols for personnel verification.
- 3D Printing
In 2012, industry pundits projected that 3D printing would impact how specialty industries work. Today 3D printing has revolutionised manufacturing of most products. With the help of 3D printers, consumers and businesses can print in an object to scale – provided that they have the schematics and materials. 3D printing is used across industries – medical, infrastructure and niche commercial hobbies. One would be astounded that 3D printers can also print your car parts basing on specialised models per industry. Material valuation, costing and retail basing from the application of 3D printing is changing commercial retail. 3D printers are likely to drop in price within the foreseeable future.
- Artificial Intelligence
When self-computing devices were first programmed to solve mathematical problems, the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was born. Artificial Intelligence has made a leap from solving pre-defined maths problems to computing probability of events and scenarios as it gets fed data. AI has progressed towards machine learning and other related fields include cognitive software and self-governing artificial intelligent systems. With the premise of big data and increasing sophistication of cognitive computer learning, AI platforms are getting more intelligent – data is fed continuously and the system learns to disseminate and visualise data. AI is the core intelligence of decision making when it comes to the big businesses within Fortune 500 companies. Big data and analytics are analysed and given visual interpretation by an artificial intelligence built within the data setup. In a number of seconds the AI can analyse and provide insight basing on gigabytes of data that would take a team of experts years to formulate. In 2016, artificial intelligence is available in the market as a licensed property for subscription that can be bought for small and medium use in analysing their business data like sales.
- The Blockchain
The Blockchain is a term not discussed often and chances are you might be reading it for the first time. Blockchain is focused on the controversial and conundrum of electronic transaction known as Bitcoin. In consumer transaction going over the wire and the internet, financial institutions keep a general ledger of all made within an accounted financial year. These institutions comply with industry standards and operate under state, federal and international charters. Bitcoin is not subject to the same principle of consumer protection guidelines. For years, Bitcoin has operated on a purely merchant to consumer transaction. Unlike money, Bitcoin can be mined and produced without the monetary standardisation required to produce currency and its base valuation. This has lead to a debate whether Bitcoin should be institutionalised as an official currency for commercial and sector use.
This lead to the theory and application of a Blockchain in which a general ledger operating under a very strict network security tracks, records and make changes to the encrypted general ledger – all without a central authority. In the age of cloud computing across logistics, shipping, material valuation and manufacturing, keeping an accurate ledger will no longer be possible with manual audits. The Blockchain combines cloud ERP technology, financial encryption, analytics and artificial intelligence to accurately track moving value chains.
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