A4 Emerging technologies GapFill

Technologies come and go all of the time, but the most ground-breaking can stay for a long time and change the world.

The first people to use of buy in to a new technology are called  hobbyistsearly adoptersthoughtfulLuddites. At this stage, the technology might still be experimental, or lacking in  expertiseknowledgeproductivityfeatures or polish, or be very expensive. For example, the first iPhone didn’t have the ability to copy or paste! However, after a few years, successful new technologies become more sophisticated, feature rich, and,  cheaperniche marketmore expensiveniche appeal. For example, we saw failed attempts during the 1990s in the world of virtual reality – but only in the 2010s did the technology advance sufficiently for VR to break in to the  businesstechnologyconsumernews market where you and I can go out and buy a headset for a powerful PC or even a games console.

Since the early 2000s, fast  postageInternetLANdisk access access has enabled new technologies such as VOIP, remote desktop and VPNs to become commonplace is homes and  secretsmindsbusinessesgovernments. During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, many people and businesses started to rely on this technology for the first time as millions of employees in the UK were ordered by the government to  work from homebuy onlinetravel by bustravel on trains if they possibly could. Over Christmas, millions of people chatted to friends and family over  instant messagingVOIPfaxthe fence rather than in person. It is said that the pandemic considerable speeded up the advance of technology – the number of people using services such as Zoom exploded nearly overnight. With many people reluctant to go to the supermarket,  web browsingonline retailvirtual realityVOIP also moved forward with shops taking on new delivery staff, and long virtual queues to make purchases. Some new industries moved online, such as the buying of  carsfoodTV and filmsmusic – no more visits to the showroom and lengthy negotiation on the price.

One thing that is really taking off is the use of  atypical intelligenceartful intelligenceartificial intelligenceample intelligence or AI, and machine learning.  DriverlessManualDrivenLarge cars will likely become more widespread – we’re already teaching them how to recognise the outside world – how many times have you solved a captcha by pointing out traffic lights, zebra crossings or even palm trees? But there is a danger on relying upon technology to make  easynewmundanelife-changing decisions on our behalf – from driverless cars, to the hiring of staff (e.g. using AI to screen out applicants), to the fiasco surrounding the  examstaffboard of governers’new boundary grades during the summer of 2020. We call the sets of rules processed by a computer  an algorithma system diagrama terma flowchart. One of the scary thing is that for many, we don’t even know how or why they work because of a process called machine learning!