In 2017, the world saw a lot of impressive technological innovations. Which of them are especially popular in 2018? Quora users shared their opinion on this issue.
Did you know that the global virtual chatbot market is expected to reach $1.25 billion by 2025, $215 billion for VR and AR by 2021, and $457 billion for the Internet of Things by 2020? Constantly emerging new technologies are already changing our lives and the world around us. If you are a true tech fanatic who is constantly thinking about what the future holds for the world of high technology, or if you just want to keep abreast of what is happening, the following information is sure to please you.
The technological innovations that the world saw in 2017 were impressive, the field of technology was developing at an unimaginably fast pace.
Artificial intelligence
AI is a field in the field of information technology that deals with the creation of intelligent machines that will act like a person in accordance with a given algorithm. In 2017, this technology has spread to the field of robotics, which, in turn, includes chatbots and self-driving machines.
Self-driving cars: Autonomous or robotic cars are special machines that are able to analyze their surroundings and navigate without human assistance. A self-controlled machine, like a person.
uses sensors to collect information about the world around it, and also has a “brain” for accumulating, processing information and making a decision that will correspond to a given situation. These machines are equipped with state-of-the-art information-gathering tools, including long-range radar, laser sonar, cameras, short- and medium-range radars, and ultrasound.
Although it is expected that such machines will enter mass use only by 2020, but already in November 2017, the American company WeMo announced that it was launching testing of fully automated vehicles that do not require human intervention on public roads in Phoenix, Arizona.Bosch Chairman Volar Dinner told the Automobilwoche news agency that Mercedes and Bosch are going to put test cars on the road very soon.
In addition, it will reduce the number of road accidents and purchased driver’s licenses, save a significant amount of time and further increase our dependence on technology.
Chatbots: This is a communication interface that initiates and maintains a conversation with the user in their native language, understands the user’s goals and desires, and acts on the basis of past experience and in accordance with pre-established rules. Although this technology cannot be called new: chatbots have been used for quite a long time, but in 2017 the technology has become one of the leading global trends. This was due to the following features:
Mobile messengers: Chatbots have been a significant push that has led to a significant development of mobile applications in the field of e-commerce, such as Sephora, eBay and others. Based on this, more and more companies are striving to expand their capabilities, providing users with maximum comfort.
When creating chatbots, companies use gamification technologies to attract as many users as possible.
Reducing the cost of developing and implementing a chatbot: Initially, it was necessary to spend a lot of money to develop an interactive chatbot. However, over the past few years, and in particular over the past year, software companies including IBM, Microsoft, Facebook and Google have made the most advanced tools for developing and installing chatbots freely available. With these tools, any local web development company can do it at a much lower cost than before.
Chatbot platforms from Facebook, Microsoft, and other world leaders: With Facebook’s chatbot, companies can use automated customer service, enhanced e-commerce tools, and interactive experiences. In March 2016, Microsoft announced the release of its own Bot Framework development environment. Thanks to this, it is now possible to develop and launch bots in Facebook messengers, Skype, Slack, Telegram and many others.
Chatbots for product promotion and sales: A chatbot can be seen as an intelligent tool that allows you to increase the number of customers and increase sales in our time. Chatbots are programmed to collect and analyze the personalized experience of the client, which improves feedback and thus allows the best possible interaction between the company and the client.
With the idea of mass marketing becoming less and less popular, the future lies with individualized marketing. Although earlier such an idea seemed simply impossible for many companies, with the start of the active use of chat bots, this task has become much easier. Chatbots can now provide customer support, recommend products, and collect data from customer reviews to further improve the business.
Augmented and virtual reality
Augmented Reality: This is an amazing technology that ingeniously introduces computer-generated enhancements into the surrounding reality, aiming to make it more interactive. It is as if, for example, when you received a message, you transferred its holographic image into the air in front of you or, using other modern technology, placed it on some object in the real world, so that it would be easier for you to respond to this message without focusing your eyes only on on the phone.
And now let’s remember what improvements this technology received in 2017:
Augmented Reality and the Future of iPhones: Augmented reality has not yet become ubiquitous in the world, and Apple’s CEO is already celebrating and singing praises of this technology with might and main. There was also a rumor that Apple is going to implement this technology in iPhones. Although it is unlikely that the company will release such a technological innovation in the near future, there is every chance that we will soon be able to enjoy a camera with a depth sensor, which will open the door to a new world of technology for amateur photographers.
Online Shopping with Augmented Reality: Amazon introduced AR Kit technology, which uses augmented reality to see how the product will look in the interior before buying. This innovation applies to furniture, interior items, appliances and toys. This news should please fans of online shopping, because with the help of new technology it will be possible to imagine in advance how the proposed purchase will look in the house.
Gearbox: Have you ever thought about how great it would be if we could design the geological environment in a few moments and find out how gravity would actually affect the objects that are there? Sounds like some kind of future technology from a science fiction movie, but such a project already exists! Iowa State University students designed and developed the Gearbox project, which uses augmented reality technology to help the user visualize how different gravity will affect objects in a given environment.
