Future IT

Innovation in information technology (IT) has forever changed our lives: people can do more and communicate better, all in dramatically less time.  Recent 3D technology innovations have led, since 2010, to the introduction of 3D TVs into the marketplace; now millions enjoy realistic 3D content in their homes. Many nations have already launched 3D broadcasting services which will continue to expand in the near future. Around 2020, 3D TVs incorporating 3D-interface technologies will enable people to not only watch realistic 3D content, but also to touch, feel, and control it with their hands; a technology currently called Real Immersive Interactive Media Service. The number of mobile devices will sharply increase in the near future, a phenomenon which many have termed the 'Mobile Big Bang'. It has been predicted that by 2020 there will be approximately one trillion devices in operation, and a new era, the 'Machine to Machine' era, will open up life-enhancing technologies even more by connecting mobile phones and other devices to sensors and information appliances. In 2009, there were only about 0.8 ZB (1 Zettabyte = 1 trillion Gigabytes) of information; by 2020, vastly increasing volumes of digital information generated by devices such as sensors, mobile devices, business IT systems, and environmental and biomedical systems will increase the amount of data to 35 ZB. In order to meet these demands, SAIT is creating more realistic and interactive personal multimedia technologies and building topologies that converge across private and local networks, while creating new applications for IT devices and new components for emerging areas. Here are some exceptional resources for expanding your understanding of the technology trends that will determine our future. An excellent slide deck from Business Insider detailing the mobile trends in advertising and the skyrocketing adoption of mobile devices around the world. Innovations in technology are driving workplace, business and economic trends that are creating new opportunities each and every day. Trend Hunters covers hot global trends you may not have heard like discrete consumerism, toddler touchscreens and charitable deviance. The Trends Research Institute tracks important political, social and economic trends. FET actions are expected to initiate radically new lines of technology through unexplored collaborations between advanced multidisciplinary science and cutting-edge engineering. It will help Europe grasp leadership early on in those promising future technology areas able to renew the basis for future European competitiveness and growth, and that can make a difference for society in the decades to come. FET Open funds projects on new ideas for radically new future technologies, at an early stage when there are few researchers working on a project topic. By examining the advances possible for technology and the capabilities that might be attained, we can gain an understanding of the implications for society and gain a better understanding of our present trajectories. Growth rates matter because they lead to widely different predictions about how much change we can expect to see within our lifetime and how it will relate to other ongoing trends. This project is investigating and seeking to clarify the plausibility of scenarios that postulate major advances in various types of machine intelligence and to cast light on issues that arise in the context of the future of automation of physical processes such as via molecular nanotechnology. The programme's work in this area has a strong focus on ethical and philosophical issues associated with potential advances in machine intelligence, and on the economic consequences and security concerns that might be raised by different levels of capability. Existential risks and future technologies : seeks to characterize the existential risks threatening humanity's future, linking many of the largest risks to potential advances in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and neurotechnologies”. The focus is not on present-day capabilities or any advances that can be expected within the next few years, but rather on potential advances that might take place several decades from now. There have been some interesting studies done on technology looking forward including the website which is part eerie scary and part mythical entertainment. Then there are others, like the one published by BBC News in January 2013 which makes predictions for the New Year like the ability for patients to be prescribed medical apps by their doctors as well as predictions five, ten and even twenty years down the road which foresee a digital currency, the ability for your computer to sense smell, purely automated cars and more. Regardless of how outlandish some theories might seem one thing is certain is that future technology will only become more and more sophisticated. Not only that, but expect to see technology continue to be more of a factor in everyday lifestyle as the latest trends are clearly not fads. Expect to see tablet computers or devices with a similar size and functions continue to be capable of doing more. If it entirely likely that cell phones, cameras, mp3 players, etc could one day all be consolidated into one single device, yet how quickly that will occur is questionable as reducing several individual electronic devices to one single product would inevitably hurt profits of major corporations like Apple , Samsung, Amazon, Google and others. Some of the prototypes developed by the R&D lab in response to these trends include Editor , a tool that automatically tags keywords in articles in real time and indexes the information across four categories: people, locations, organisations and concepts. Later that month, NYT published an 11-page strategy memo, 'Our path forward' , outlining its plans to double its digital subscription revenue by 2020 and become mobile-first. If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly). From mobile video to podcasts and virtual reality, numerous trends shaped the media industry in 2015 and many of them are here to stay. Some 3600 companies and more than 150,000 participants from 150 countries are lapping up future trends at CES, which is also showcasing new advances in virtual reality, drones, high definition TVs, wearable gadgets and international security on the web. Per The Australian, the integration of Ford cars with Amazon, known as Amazon Echo, will allow users to open the garage door before reaching home, control house lights, thermostats, home security system and other devices from the car. Ford CEO Mark Fields said in a news conference at Las Vegas they are eyeing off the end of the year as the date to start rolling out these offerings for consumers. Tech company Cisco threw down the gauntlet and predicted 50 billion more objects will be connected to the internet by 2020. Whether you need help from Facebook's new ‘M' virtual assistant or you want to connect with a clever robot called ‘Pepper' , this technology review delves into what the future of technology holds and the products we should all be looking out for. The Telegraph Technology team has previously looked at the best smartwatches , connected devices and apps of the year. While many of the ideas may never be produced, the program creates anything from narratives to prototypes to help get the ideas across, and stimulate debate. Philips also hopes that looking into the far future will eventually help the company improve the way they innovate. While many reports and surveys pretty much predict the same thing - the popularity and increasing acceptance of online education, the better employment rate, and the age of technology encouraging more access to education for all, there are some projections that have not been discussed as of late. Looking in depth and analyzing many factors contributing to the development of academic progress, we have aggregated 5 key trends to the future of education. Secondly, with so many new emerging markets predicted to expand the economic system, more and more programs will be catered to new technology and entrepreneurial, as well as innovative programs. Top Universities and online colleges will have to face incorporating new classes that maximize on today's current technological advances and issues that present themselves. With that in mind, here's a look at five nascent technologies that will be everywhere you look by 2020. We're not just talking about TVs: Broadcasting, streaming media, and cinema will all adhere to 4K (UHD) standards by 2020. The biggest stumbling block for mainstream adoption of the tech is the speed with which devices need to render images to keep up with the wearer's movements. Since all mobile devices are on the way to becoming one ur-device, it makes sense that Microsoft is unifying its next OS (Windows 10) across all devices—including Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox. Self-Driving Cars: Tesla's new autopilot function is brilliant , and we hope it works as advertised, but there's no way it's going to be mainstream by 2020. Futures studies does not generally focus on short term predictions such as interest rates over the next business cycle , or of managers or investors with short-term time horizons. Plans and strategies with longer time horizons that specifically attempt to anticipate possible future events are definitely part of the field. The futures field also excludes those who make future predictions through professed supernatural means. The genre of science fiction became established towards the end of the 19th century, with notable writers, including Jules Verne and H. G. Wells , setting their stories in an imagined future world. Future studies had a parallel origin with the birth of systems science in academia , and with the idea of national economic and political planning , most notably in France and the Soviet Union 6 15 In the 1950s, France was continuing to reconstruct their war-torn country. In the process, French scholars, philosophers, writers, and artists searched for what could constitute a more positive future for humanity. Future studies was therefore primarily engaged in national planning, and the construction of national symbols. International dialogue became institutionalized in the form of the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), founded in 1967, with the noted sociologist, Johan Galtung , serving as its first president. In the United States, the publisher Edward Cornish , concerned with these issues, started the World Future Society , an organization focused more on interested laypeople. Futures practitioners use a wide range of models and methods (theory and practice), many of which come from other academic disciplines, including economics , sociology , geography , history , engineering , mathematics , psychology , technology , tourism , physics , biology , astronomy , and aspects of theology (specifically, the range of future beliefs). Practitioners of the discipline previously concentrated on extrapolating present technological , economic or social trends , or on attempting to predict future trends, but more recently they have started to examine social systems and uncertainties and to build scenarios , question the worldviews behind such scenarios via the causal layered analysis method (and others), create preferred visions of the future, and use backcasting to derive alternative implementation strategies. Most estimates of probability in futures studies are normative and qualitative, though significant progress on statistical and quantitative methods (technology and information growth curves, cliometrics, predictive psychology, prediction markets , crowdvoting forecasts, 29 better source needed etc.) has been made in recent decades. For reasons of convenience, they often extrapolate present technical and societal trends and assume they will develop at the same rate into the future; but technical progress and social upheavals, in reality, take place in fits and starts and in different areas at different rates. A long-running tradition in various cultures , and especially in the media , involves various spokespersons making predictions for the upcoming year at the beginning of the year. These predictions sometimes base themselves on current trends in culture (music, movies, fashion, politics); sometimes they make hopeful guesses as to what major events might take place over the course of the next year. Possible new trends grow from innovations, projects, beliefs or actions that have the potential to grow and eventually go mainstream in the future. Very often, trends relate to one another the same way as a tree-trunk relates to branches and twigs. When a potential trend gets enough confirmation in the various media, surveys or questionnaires to show that it has an increasingly accepted value, behavior or technology , it becomes accepted as a bona fide trend. Trends can also gain confirmation by the existence of other trends perceived as springing from the same branch. The longest running Future Studies program in North America was established in 1975 at the University of Houston-Clear Lake 42 It moved to the University of Houston in 2007 and renamed the degree to Foresight. The program was established on the belief that if history is studied and taught in an academic setting, then so should the future. Design, much like future studies is an interdisciplinary field that considers global trends, challenges and opportunities to foster innovation.