Here are the top 10 breakthrough technologies for 2018

MIT Technology Review unveils its breakthrough technology list for 2018 – a rundown of 10 awe-inspiring scientific and technological advances that have the potential to change our lives in dramatic ways.

I spoke to editor David Rotman about why these particular breakthroughs made the cuts, what makes them exciting – and why some of them raise important ethical concerns that will need to be addressed in the near future.

He told me “We select the list by asking each of our journalists what are the most important new technologies they wrote about this year? And which will have a long-term impact. We’re looking for fundamentally new advances in technology that will have widespread consequences.”

Alan Oviatt

1. 3D Metal Printing

We’ve all become used to 3D plastic printing over the last few years, and the ease it has brought to design and prototyping. Advances in the technology mean that instant metal fabrication is quickly becoming a reality, which clearly opens a new world of possibilities.

The ability to create large, intricate metal structures on demand could revolutionize manufacturing.

“3D metal printing gives manufacturers the ability to make a single or small number of metal parts much more cheaply than using existing mass-production techniques,” Rotman says.

“Instead of keeping a large inventory of parts, the company can simply print a part when the customer needs it. Additionally, it can make complex shapes not possible with any other method. That can mean lighter or higher performance parts.”
2. Artificial Embryos

For the first time, researchers have made embryo-like structures from stem cells alone, without using egg or sperm cells. This will open new possibilities for understanding how life comes into existence – but clearly also raises vital ethical and even philosophical problems.

Rotman told me “Artificial embryos could provide an invaluable scientific tool in understanding how life develops.  But they could eventually make it possible to create life simply from a stem cell taken from another embryo. No sperm, no eggs. It would be an unnatural creation of life placed in the hands of laboratory researchers.”

3. Sensing City

At Toronto’s Waterfront district, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, are implementing sensors and analytics in order to rethink how cities are built, run, and lived in. The aim is to integrate urban design with cutting edge technology in order to make “smart cities” more affordable, liveable and environmentally sustainable.

Rotman says “Although it won’t be completed for a few years, it could be the start on smart cities that are cleaner and safer.”

4. Cloud-based AI services
Key players here include Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft, which are all working on increasing access to machine learning and artificial neural network technology, in order to make it more affordable and easy to use. Rotman told me “The availability of artificial intelligence tools in the cloud will mean that advanced machine learning is widely accessible to many different businesses. That will change everything from manufacturing to logistics, making AI far cheaper and easier for businesses to deploy.”

5. Duelling Neural Networks

This breakthrough promises to bestow AI systems with “imagination”, through allowing them to essentially “spar” with each other. Work at Google Brain, Deep Mind and Nvidia is focused on enabling systems that will create ultra-realistic, computer generated images or sounds, beyond what is currently possible.

“Dueling Neural Networks describes a breakthrough in artificial intelligence that allows AI to create images of things it has never seen. It gives AI a sense of imagination,” says Rotman.

However, he also urges caution, as it raises the possibility of computers becoming alarmingly capable tools for digital fakery and fraud.

For More Information:- Bernard Marr

Eight Technology Trends Ready For Exploitation In 2018

In the age of disruption, businesses and their leaders will rise or fall based on their ability to spot and creatively respond to rapid technological change. Some companies notice an emerging technology and take a “wait and see” attitude. Others see a new technology and take action. They begin experimenting, making small bets, and learning.

Their attitude is that it’s never too early to start. It’s never too early to begin looking at what others are already doing. It’s never too early to engage the imagination to conceive of how the new technology could be used to create competitive advantage.

These "fast movers" often jumpstart creative applications by asking themselves leading questions such as:

•     Where is this technology likely to be in five years?
•     When will it become mainstream?
•     How might it help us differentiate, and to add value to customers? To improve speed of satisfaction, manage choice and complexity, and enhance customer experience?
•     How will/could this new technology help us gain productivity and become a better place to work?

 With such questions in mind, what follows are eight technologies that are ripe for exploitation by your company in 2018, and beyond:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is about to go mainstream. 

Real Estate giant Coldwell Banker is experimenting with AI to target classes of likely buyers for a specific property, and piloting new AI software that helps identify likely sellers. Leading law firms use AI to scan thousands of legal documents in minutes, rather than weeks, to build stronger cases at a fraction of the cost.

While Netflix, Amazon, Google and Facebook pioneered artificial intelligence, AI is beginning to be deployed by increasing numbers of mid-sized and even small businesses. Here, the applications are exploding.  At Coldwell Banker, when their data shows a confluence of events, the software alerts the company to a likely new prospect. For example, the homeowner’s youngest kid just went off to college. The couple has been in their home beyond the average of 10 years.  And it sees that the couple has been online browsing for properties in North Carolina. AI brings these data-points together and concludes that this household is likely to be selling soon. “If we can find those people before they even know they’re selling, we’re that much ahead,” Coldwell Banker CEO Charles Young tells Chief Executive Magazine.

2. Apps are becoming essential tools for boosting customer convenience and employee productivity. What are you app to do next?

Fort Worth, Texas-based startup Booster Fuels saves time-strapped motorists a trip to the gas station. When you order fuel on your Booster app, they bring the gasoline to you. Startup businesses like Booster Fuels are taking advantage of the app trend to address unmet customer needs. And established companies like Safeco auto insurance are finding new ways to use apps to add value to customers — and improve worker productivity.

Safeco’s auto insurance customers can now report an auto accident using the company’s app. Right from the accident scene, customers can submit photos, report what happened, and arrange for a tow — all by using Safeco’s innovative app. Fast movers will increasingly use mobile apps for on-the spot-troubleshooting, managing inventory, providing on-site estimates, generating invoices, and gathering data that can be used to better understand customer preferences.

Pest control operator Rentokil uses a proprietary app to give its field technicians a productivity edge. When confused by a type of bug or rodent, they simply snap a photo and run the app, which sifts through a data-bank of pest images to quickly identify the intruder. The app even suggests remediation solutions. Voila, problem solved.

3. Wearable technology. Already enhancing guest experience at Carnival Cruise Lines.
Modern cruise ships carry over 6000 passengers and offer everything from violin concerts to bungee jumping to belly dancing classes. But there’s a problem. Carnival Cruise Lines’ research showed that so many choices were overwhelming guests and creating an anxious-prone customer experience. So, Carnival created a wearable technology to help customers avoid “over-choice.” Passengers are given the option to wear a wristband device synced with a companion app on their smartphone to serve as a kind of constant guide while onboard. As you partake of various onboard activities, the wearable tool responds by guiding you to activities that you’re bound to like, providing a new level of customized service for passengers. Result: Carnival customer data shows that guests come away happier, less stressed, and more apt to return to Carnival for their next cruise.

Alan Oviatt is a business Leader including versatile skill-set, a lot of integrity and many more. No matter the business discipline or the size of the arena, he always aspired himself to do the best.

For More Information:- Robert B. Tucker

Is new technology fueling new levels of conflict ?

The philosopher Marshall McLuhan was famous for saying “The medium is the message,” meaning that the technology used to convey ideas is more important, from a cultural standpoint, than the ideas themselves. Television, he argued, was a disruptive “cold” medium that required human beings to unconsciously assemble the myriad pixels that comprise a television image, thus compelling them to join themselves to the technology, become addicted to it, risk being homogenized by it and fight back by becoming more tribal — asserting their national and geopolitical identities through conflict with one another. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States may, in fact, have been partly fueled by the threat that television would dissolve everyone, and all identities, into it.

Alan Oviatt

McLuhan, who died in 1980, had no idea that new technologies, like the internet and its children, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google, would represent an exponential threat of the same kind. Writers for the Washington Post, the New York Times and other publications are only now addressing the problem I identified several years ago: that these new technologies don’t really reinforce individuality and self-expression and identity; they threaten to obliterate it instead.

How? Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google and others seek to monopolize information dissemination and product marketing. They do so by absorbing consumers’ likes, dislikes and patterns of behavior into their sites and hardware, forcing interactions with them by spitting back marketing and social networking prompts and algorithms that trigger more searches, more buying, more socializing and more fingerprinting of the consumers’ inclinations and intentions. Once the consumers are known sufficiently, it could be argued that their psychological DNA “exists” inside the technologies behind such sites and products. The consumers are owned and operated, to an extent, by the media and technology they are using to learn, shop and socialize.

Alan Oviatt is pleased to share his accomplishments at this point of time, not only of his achievements, but of mistakes he made. Day to day, he learned from my mistakes – improved and become a far better person. He proudly share that he endured some self-imposed afflictions. Although these things doesn`t inspire envy.

For More Information: Fox News

Alan Oviatt | London trials new technology to increase bus safety

Transport for London will trial new safety technology on London buses including automatic braking and audible warning systems.

Alan Oviatt

As part of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan plans to eradicate road deaths as a result of London buses by 2030, the new technology will begin with a completely independent trial by leading engineers and technical specialists at the Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham.

The focus of the trials will be on autonomous emergency braking systems that allow the bus to detect its surroundings, features to alert pedestrians of the presence of a bus, a re-design to reduce the impact of a collision to the front of buses, interior changes to improve passenger safety and an increased field of vision to drivers themselves, including improved mirror designs.

TfL’s managing director of surface transport, Leon Daniels, said, "We are determined to drive down the unacceptable number of people injured or killed on London’s roads, and make streets safe for pedestrians and cyclists."

The results of the trials will feed in to a new Bus Safety Standard to be incorporated into bus operator contracts from the end of 2018.

London’s deputy mayor for transport, Val Shawcross, said, "Nothing is more important to the Mayor than the safety of Londoners. We are doing our utmost to make the streets of the capital safer and these measures can potentially make big improvements to bus safety."

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For More Information: Iain Gilbert