2010 Trends – A Roadmap for the Future: The trends map has 16 lines
representing everything from society & culture to news & media.
There are also 5 time zones representing 2010-2050, so everything that
falls outside the central zone (zone 1) is obviously a prediction. The
key mega trends on the map are: Ageing; Power shift Eastwards;
Globalisation; Localisation; Digitalisation; Personalisation;
Volatility; Individualism; Environmental change; Sustainability; Debt;
and Urbanisation. Some of the predictions include: All televised sport
becomes short-format; Epidemic of new disorders caused by uncensored use
of digital devices; Turkey, Iran and Mexico become key powers; Online
communities gather offline to start physical communities; The robot
population surpasses the human population; Brain holidays;
Communications free resorts; People attending online funerals; and The
appearance of laboratory grown meat in supermarkets.
https://goo.gl/tZsUsT
See the roadmap at 2010 Trends - Roadmap
http://toptrends.nowandnext.com/2009/12/30/2010-trends-a-roadmap-for-the-future/
Showing posts with label trends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trends. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Friday, 12 February 2016
The crazy world of connectivity expected in 2016
Wi-Fi has been the buzz word for 2015, an expected ask from every public space in our country; a hotel without Wi-Fi is unthinkable; our travel/everyday destinations are decided basis two questions - mobile connectivity and Wi-Fi. Trust me, the need for Wi-Fi is on its way to becoming synonymous with air and water - available and is taking!
Wi-Fi technology has taken the telecom landscape by storm, reshaping and impacting strategies for many Telco's including Tata Teleservices. Moreover, Government of India's Digital India initiative, launched earlier this year, to ensure that Government services are made available to citizens electronically by improving online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity is expected to take flight in next few years. So how will these developments and the accelerated roll out of Wi-Fi in all forms, both on the device and network side, impact our lives in 2016 and beyond?
There are some very interesting trends and innovations lined up next year. Here is a look:-
Fortifying the Transit
Smart up your homes
Time shifted Video content - (TV on Demand) here we come
Next-generation Wi-Fi Calling
Rise of LBS
Innovative and socially impacting uses of Wi-Fi technology
Wi-Fi offloading becomes an imperative
Read the post
Wi-Fi technology has taken the telecom landscape by storm, reshaping and impacting strategies for many Telco's including Tata Teleservices. Moreover, Government of India's Digital India initiative, launched earlier this year, to ensure that Government services are made available to citizens electronically by improving online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity is expected to take flight in next few years. So how will these developments and the accelerated roll out of Wi-Fi in all forms, both on the device and network side, impact our lives in 2016 and beyond?
There are some very interesting trends and innovations lined up next year. Here is a look:-
Fortifying the Transit
Smart up your homes
Time shifted Video content - (TV on Demand) here we come
Next-generation Wi-Fi Calling
Rise of LBS
Innovative and socially impacting uses of Wi-Fi technology
Wi-Fi offloading becomes an imperative
Read the post
10 Job Skills You'll Need in 2020
The world of work —and the world in general—is changing. People are living longer, new technologies are emerging, and we’ve never been more globally connected. That means the skills we use now in the workplace are not necessarily the skills we’ll need in the future.
To get a sense of what skills you might want to start investing your time into developing, check out the infographic in the post. (Note: It might sound like 2020 is really far into the future, but it’s actually only about five years away.)
To get a sense of what skills you might want to start investing your time into developing, check out the infographic in the post. (Note: It might sound like 2020 is really far into the future, but it’s actually only about five years away.)
- Sense Making
- Social Intelligence
- Novel and Adaptive Thinking
- Cross Cultural Competency
- Computational Thinking
- New Media Literacy
- Transdisciplinary
- Design Mindset
- Cognitive Load Management
- Virtual Collaboration
10 terrifying uses of artificial intelligence
Many advances in artificial intelligence are innovative and extraordinary, but some are downright creepy. Here are 10 of the eeriest ways people are using, or could use, AI.
1. Robots predicting the future
2. Robot soldiers
3. Schizophrenic robot
4. Economic meltdown
5. Robots that deceive
6. Robot lovers
7. Survival robots
8. Police using AI algorithms to predict crimes
9. AI-based medical treatment
10. Autonomous drones and weapons
Read the post
1. Robots predicting the future
2. Robot soldiers
3. Schizophrenic robot
4. Economic meltdown
5. Robots that deceive
6. Robot lovers
7. Survival robots
8. Police using AI algorithms to predict crimes
9. AI-based medical treatment
10. Autonomous drones and weapons
Read the post
Thursday, 11 February 2016
The chips are down for Moore’s law
The semiconductor industry will soon abandon its pursuit of Moore's law. Now things could get a lot more interesting.
Next month, the worldwide semiconductor industry will formally acknowledge what has become increasingly obvious to everyone involved: Moore's law, the principle that has powered the information-technology revolution since the 1960s, is nearing its end.
A rule of thumb that has come to dominate computing, Moore's law states that the number of transistors on a microprocessor chip will double every two years or so — which has generally meant that the chip's performance will, too. The exponential improvement that the law describes transformed the first crude home computers of the 1970s into the sophisticated machines of the 1980s and 1990s, and from there gave rise to high-speed Internet, smartphones and the wired-up cars, refrigerators and thermostats that are becoming prevalent today.
None of this was inevitable: chipmakers deliberately chose to stay on the Moore's law track. At every stage, software developers came up with applications that strained the capabilities of existing chips; consumers asked more of their devices; and manufacturers rushed to meet that demand with next-generation chips. Since the 1990s, in fact, the semiconductor industry has released a research road map every two years to coordinate what its hundreds of manufacturers and suppliers are doing to stay in step with the law — a strategy sometimes called More Moore. It has been largely thanks to this road map that computers have followed the law's exponential demands.
Not for much longer. The doubling has already started to falter, thanks to the heat that is unavoidably generated when more and more silicon circuitry is jammed into the same small area. And some even more fundamental limits loom less than a decade away. Top-of-the-line microprocessors currently have circuit features that are around 14 nanometres across, smaller than most viruses. But by the early 2020s, says Paolo Gargini, chair of the road-mapping organization, “even with super-aggressive efforts, we'll get to the 2–3-nanometre limit, where features are just 10 atoms across. Is that a device at all?” Probably not — if only because at that scale, electron behaviour will be governed by quantum uncertainties that will make transistors hopelessly unreliable. And despite vigorous research efforts, there is no obvious successor to today's silicon technology.
The industry road map released next month will for the first time lay out a research and development plan that is not centred on Moore's law. Instead, it will follow what might be called the More than Moore strategy: rather than making the chips better and letting the applications follow, it will start with applications — from smartphones and supercomputers to data centres in the cloud — and work downwards to see what chips are needed to support them. Among those chips will be new generations of sensors, power-management circuits and other silicon devices required by a world in which computing is increasingly mobile.
The changing landscape, in turn, could splinter the industry's long tradition of unity in pursuit of Moore's law. “Everybody is struggling with what the road map actually means,” says Daniel Reed, a computer scientist and vice-president for research at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) in Washington DC, which represents all the major US firms, has already said that it will cease its participation in the road-mapping effort once the report is out, and will instead pursue its own research and development agenda.
Everyone agrees that the twilight of Moore's law will not mean the end of progress. “Think about what happened to airplanes,” says Reed. “A Boeing 787 doesn't go any faster than a 707 did in the 1950s — but they are very different airplanes”, with innovations ranging from fully electronic controls to a carbon-fibre fuselage. That's what will happen with computers, he says: “Innovation will absolutely continue — but it will be more nuanced and complicated.”
Read the feature published in Nature
Next month, the worldwide semiconductor industry will formally acknowledge what has become increasingly obvious to everyone involved: Moore's law, the principle that has powered the information-technology revolution since the 1960s, is nearing its end.
A rule of thumb that has come to dominate computing, Moore's law states that the number of transistors on a microprocessor chip will double every two years or so — which has generally meant that the chip's performance will, too. The exponential improvement that the law describes transformed the first crude home computers of the 1970s into the sophisticated machines of the 1980s and 1990s, and from there gave rise to high-speed Internet, smartphones and the wired-up cars, refrigerators and thermostats that are becoming prevalent today.
None of this was inevitable: chipmakers deliberately chose to stay on the Moore's law track. At every stage, software developers came up with applications that strained the capabilities of existing chips; consumers asked more of their devices; and manufacturers rushed to meet that demand with next-generation chips. Since the 1990s, in fact, the semiconductor industry has released a research road map every two years to coordinate what its hundreds of manufacturers and suppliers are doing to stay in step with the law — a strategy sometimes called More Moore. It has been largely thanks to this road map that computers have followed the law's exponential demands.
Not for much longer. The doubling has already started to falter, thanks to the heat that is unavoidably generated when more and more silicon circuitry is jammed into the same small area. And some even more fundamental limits loom less than a decade away. Top-of-the-line microprocessors currently have circuit features that are around 14 nanometres across, smaller than most viruses. But by the early 2020s, says Paolo Gargini, chair of the road-mapping organization, “even with super-aggressive efforts, we'll get to the 2–3-nanometre limit, where features are just 10 atoms across. Is that a device at all?” Probably not — if only because at that scale, electron behaviour will be governed by quantum uncertainties that will make transistors hopelessly unreliable. And despite vigorous research efforts, there is no obvious successor to today's silicon technology.
The industry road map released next month will for the first time lay out a research and development plan that is not centred on Moore's law. Instead, it will follow what might be called the More than Moore strategy: rather than making the chips better and letting the applications follow, it will start with applications — from smartphones and supercomputers to data centres in the cloud — and work downwards to see what chips are needed to support them. Among those chips will be new generations of sensors, power-management circuits and other silicon devices required by a world in which computing is increasingly mobile.
The changing landscape, in turn, could splinter the industry's long tradition of unity in pursuit of Moore's law. “Everybody is struggling with what the road map actually means,” says Daniel Reed, a computer scientist and vice-president for research at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) in Washington DC, which represents all the major US firms, has already said that it will cease its participation in the road-mapping effort once the report is out, and will instead pursue its own research and development agenda.
Everyone agrees that the twilight of Moore's law will not mean the end of progress. “Think about what happened to airplanes,” says Reed. “A Boeing 787 doesn't go any faster than a 707 did in the 1950s — but they are very different airplanes”, with innovations ranging from fully electronic controls to a carbon-fibre fuselage. That's what will happen with computers, he says: “Innovation will absolutely continue — but it will be more nuanced and complicated.”
Read the feature published in Nature
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
The World Wide Mind
In 15 years time, technology could enable a mind to search for, or “Google” for, the answer to any question, information about which, or the solution, is available in connected minds across the world.
Mind reading and thought control could be creepy topics. On the one hand, they conjure up images of black magic where adepts can look into a victim’s mind and then hurt him or otherwise control his behaviour without his knowledge, and on the other hand, we remember Pink Floyd and their defiant call to evade thought control in the classroom. Even Uri Geller’s celebrated demonstrations of bending spoons by thought, in the 1970s, was viewed very suspiciously by the scientific community. In fact this whole business of reading and controlling the mind is seen as being based on superstitions and beyond the reach of the science and technology that is taught in our schools.
But strangely enough, today, there is a bioinformatics company, Emotiv, that sells commercial mind reading equipment starting at $350 and the OpenBCI initiative (where BCI stands for Brain Computer Interface) manufactures equipment that allow students to build thought-controlled robots!
What kind of volte face in the technology community can turn a superstition into consumer product?
Read the post
Mind reading and thought control could be creepy topics. On the one hand, they conjure up images of black magic where adepts can look into a victim’s mind and then hurt him or otherwise control his behaviour without his knowledge, and on the other hand, we remember Pink Floyd and their defiant call to evade thought control in the classroom. Even Uri Geller’s celebrated demonstrations of bending spoons by thought, in the 1970s, was viewed very suspiciously by the scientific community. In fact this whole business of reading and controlling the mind is seen as being based on superstitions and beyond the reach of the science and technology that is taught in our schools.
But strangely enough, today, there is a bioinformatics company, Emotiv, that sells commercial mind reading equipment starting at $350 and the OpenBCI initiative (where BCI stands for Brain Computer Interface) manufactures equipment that allow students to build thought-controlled robots!
What kind of volte face in the technology community can turn a superstition into consumer product?
Read the post
Monday, 8 February 2016
Week in Numbers -- 7th Feb 2016
RBI hits pause on rate cuts
Sensex-sentiment gap widens
Auto Expo takes centre stage
Credit growth rises for fifth fortnight in a row
Baltic Dry Index on a downward drift
Net profits up in results season
Falling rupee, rising debt worries
Alphabet overtakes Apple, temporarily
India importing corn
TeamLease IPO oversubscribed
Read the highlights
Sensex-sentiment gap widens
Auto Expo takes centre stage
Credit growth rises for fifth fortnight in a row
Baltic Dry Index on a downward drift
Net profits up in results season
Falling rupee, rising debt worries
Alphabet overtakes Apple, temporarily
India importing corn
TeamLease IPO oversubscribed
Read the highlights
Sunday, 7 February 2016
India needs home-grown GM food to stop starvation
Indian scientists must develop domestic genetically modified crops rather than rely on unsuitable foreign technology, says a biotechnologist with the National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms in Kushmaur, India.
At the beginning of this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a road map to guide India’s science and technology over the next two decades. Launched during the Indian Science Congress at the University of Mysore, the plan signalled a cautious approach to techniques such as genetically modified (GM) crops, noting that “some aspects of biotechnology have posed serious legal and ethical problems in recent years”. That is true, but a different and much larger problem looms for India. According to the 2015 United Nations World Population Prospects report, India will surpass China by early next decade as the most populous country on Earth, with the most mouths to feed. India is already classed as having a ‘serious’ hunger problem, according to the 2015 Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute. There is a danger that many of these new Indians will not have sufficient food.
Where can additional food come from? Grain production is stagnant, and rapid urbanization is reducing available land. To increase food production, India needs to invest in modern agricultural methods, including GM crops.
Read the column in Nature
At the beginning of this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a road map to guide India’s science and technology over the next two decades. Launched during the Indian Science Congress at the University of Mysore, the plan signalled a cautious approach to techniques such as genetically modified (GM) crops, noting that “some aspects of biotechnology have posed serious legal and ethical problems in recent years”. That is true, but a different and much larger problem looms for India. According to the 2015 United Nations World Population Prospects report, India will surpass China by early next decade as the most populous country on Earth, with the most mouths to feed. India is already classed as having a ‘serious’ hunger problem, according to the 2015 Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute. There is a danger that many of these new Indians will not have sufficient food.
Where can additional food come from? Grain production is stagnant, and rapid urbanization is reducing available land. To increase food production, India needs to invest in modern agricultural methods, including GM crops.
Read the column in Nature
Friday, 5 February 2016
Here are some bizarre futuristic technologies that we can expect by 2030
Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that in our lifetime, we will experience 20,000 years of progress, based on how fast technology advances and affects human life. Experts say that in the next 20 years alone, we will experience more changes than in all of human history.
Anti-Aging Treatments (Extension of Human Life)
Digital Contact Lens
Implanted Mobile Device
Exoskeletons
Pillows to Share Dreams
Artificial Intelligent Personal Assistants
Augmented Reality
3D-Printed Liver Transplants
Read the post
Anti-Aging Treatments (Extension of Human Life)
Digital Contact Lens
Implanted Mobile Device
Exoskeletons
Pillows to Share Dreams
Artificial Intelligent Personal Assistants
Augmented Reality
3D-Printed Liver Transplants
Read the post
16 employee engagement trends that will shake up IT in 2016
Employee engagement trends for 2016
In an era of Glassdoor-driven transparency, every corporate decision can now be put on public display for all employees and potential employees to view and consider. This kind of exposure is pushing organizational culture and employee engagement into the spotlight and making engagement a major competitive advantage, according to a recent Bersin report by Deloitte, "Culture and engagement: the naked organization."
To grasp how this emphasis on employee engagement will affect organizations in 2016, survey and peer-to-peer recognition platform TINYpulse reviewed data from the more than 400,000 employees worldwide that use their solution. We spoke with TinyPulse leadership teamto find out what this data means, highlighting 16 trends to watch for in the employee engagement space for 2016.
In an era of Glassdoor-driven transparency, every corporate decision can now be put on public display for all employees and potential employees to view and consider. This kind of exposure is pushing organizational culture and employee engagement into the spotlight and making engagement a major competitive advantage, according to a recent Bersin report by Deloitte, "Culture and engagement: the naked organization."
To grasp how this emphasis on employee engagement will affect organizations in 2016, survey and peer-to-peer recognition platform TINYpulse reviewed data from the more than 400,000 employees worldwide that use their solution. We spoke with TinyPulse leadership teamto find out what this data means, highlighting 16 trends to watch for in the employee engagement space for 2016.
Wednesday, 3 February 2016
9 predictions for the future of programming
Some scientists say time moves forward at a constant rate. The clever ones argue that everything changes near the speed of light. But none of this explains the increasing rate of change in the world of tech. It keeps accelerating a bit more every time you look.
If you’re wondering where to place your next development bet, looking five years out can seem like mere guesswork. Anticipating tech’s future is nearly impossible, much less the skills and tools that will be relevant given the impact of innovations to come. But there are inklings that can be gleaned from the tea leaves of today’s tech landscape -- glimmers of the future of programming through the fog.Here we gather a list of projections for programming’s future based on today’s most intriguing evolutions in tech. Not all are guaranteed to come true; not all are even guaranteed to be new. Many are trends that started unfolding several years ago. And if you compare this list to our previous foray into prognostication, you might find a bit of backsliding. Despite this, these predictions offer a solid road map that will help us plan for the future as it unfolds before us, faster and faster.
Prediction No. 1: REST rules IoT -- at first
Prediction No. 2: Binary protocols rise again
Prediction No. 3: Video kills the HTML star
Prediction No. 4: Smartphones will do everything but phone calls
Prediction No. 5: Bigger, better databases will dominate
Prediction No. 6: JavaScript will dominate, but no one will write it
Prediction No. 7: PHP will battle back against Node.js
Prediction No. 8: Everyone will know how to program -- but few will write “real code”
Prediction No. 9: The pointy-haired bosses will be even more insufferable
Read the post
If you’re wondering where to place your next development bet, looking five years out can seem like mere guesswork. Anticipating tech’s future is nearly impossible, much less the skills and tools that will be relevant given the impact of innovations to come. But there are inklings that can be gleaned from the tea leaves of today’s tech landscape -- glimmers of the future of programming through the fog.Here we gather a list of projections for programming’s future based on today’s most intriguing evolutions in tech. Not all are guaranteed to come true; not all are even guaranteed to be new. Many are trends that started unfolding several years ago. And if you compare this list to our previous foray into prognostication, you might find a bit of backsliding. Despite this, these predictions offer a solid road map that will help us plan for the future as it unfolds before us, faster and faster.
Prediction No. 1: REST rules IoT -- at first
Prediction No. 2: Binary protocols rise again
Prediction No. 3: Video kills the HTML star
Prediction No. 4: Smartphones will do everything but phone calls
Prediction No. 5: Bigger, better databases will dominate
Prediction No. 6: JavaScript will dominate, but no one will write it
Prediction No. 7: PHP will battle back against Node.js
Prediction No. 8: Everyone will know how to program -- but few will write “real code”
Prediction No. 9: The pointy-haired bosses will be even more insufferable
Read the post
Thursday, 28 January 2016
Digital Oilfields: Redefining Pipeline Operations
While oil and gas pipeline operators are investing heavily in new technologies for better control, inspection and maintenance of assets, an increasing number of devices are linked to the industrial internet, the global network connecting people, data and machines. These trends foreshadow the future for the pipeline industry.
Read the full findings and analysys
Read the full findings and analysys
Sounding the Alarm on a Future Epidemic: Alzheimer's Disease
We’re living longer. The number of U.S. adults 65 and older — roughly 40 million as of the 2010 census — is expected to nearly double to 71 million by 2030 and to reach 98 million by 2060. In much of the rest of the world, the story is the same. But if the aging trend illustrates the success of public health strategies, it also raises the specter of a major public health crisis — a sharp rise in the number of people living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Ron Brookmeyer, a professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics, has called attention to the looming Alzheimer’s epidemic through widely cited studies in which he has employed sophisticated computer models to project the number of cases, as well as the potential positive impact of future therapies and other strategies to prevent or delay the onset and progression of symptoms.
Brookmeyer’s work in this arena began nearly 20 years ago with a paper he wrote in the American Journal of Public Health projecting that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States would nearly quadruple by the middle of this century, by which time approximately 1 in 45 Americans will be afflicted. His 2007 study also projected that 1 in 85 persons worldwide will be living with the disease by 2050, with nearly half of them requiring a level of care equivalent to that of a nursing home.
Brookmeyer’s development of statistical models to make forecasts on epidemics began in the late 1980s with HIV/AIDS, but after becoming involved in a study on aging, he turned his attention to the threat posed by Alzheimer’s disease. “Obviously it’s not a transmissible epidemic like the ones I had been looking at, but with the aging of the population, it was clear that the numbers were going to explode,” he explains.
As part of his modeling, Brookmeyer and his colleagues consider both demographic trends and the severity of the progression of the disease. “This is a long illness,” he says. “Once you’re diagnosed, you might live with it for 10 or more years, and the intensity of the care required will vary during that time. From a public health point of view, it’s very important to look at where people will be in different stages of the disease and the needs we will be facing as a society.”
Read the full story
Ron Brookmeyer, a professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics, has called attention to the looming Alzheimer’s epidemic through widely cited studies in which he has employed sophisticated computer models to project the number of cases, as well as the potential positive impact of future therapies and other strategies to prevent or delay the onset and progression of symptoms.
Brookmeyer’s work in this arena began nearly 20 years ago with a paper he wrote in the American Journal of Public Health projecting that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States would nearly quadruple by the middle of this century, by which time approximately 1 in 45 Americans will be afflicted. His 2007 study also projected that 1 in 85 persons worldwide will be living with the disease by 2050, with nearly half of them requiring a level of care equivalent to that of a nursing home.
Brookmeyer’s development of statistical models to make forecasts on epidemics began in the late 1980s with HIV/AIDS, but after becoming involved in a study on aging, he turned his attention to the threat posed by Alzheimer’s disease. “Obviously it’s not a transmissible epidemic like the ones I had been looking at, but with the aging of the population, it was clear that the numbers were going to explode,” he explains.
As part of his modeling, Brookmeyer and his colleagues consider both demographic trends and the severity of the progression of the disease. “This is a long illness,” he says. “Once you’re diagnosed, you might live with it for 10 or more years, and the intensity of the care required will vary during that time. From a public health point of view, it’s very important to look at where people will be in different stages of the disease and the needs we will be facing as a society.”
Read the full story
Trends, Facts & Figures
According to WHO, 285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision. Source
Each village with 5k people to have a bank by Mar 2017. Source
Each village with 5k people to have a bank by Mar 2017. Source
Wearable Technology and Customer Service: 10 Innovative Examples
Remember watching cartoons and movies as a kid and seeing all of those awesome tech devices and wishing you could have one (or two, or all of them)? Well, the future is now, as wearables are becoming more mainstream and technology advancements are made every day. And, consumers are paying attention, as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reported in their Consumer Intelligence Series, The Wearable Future report: 53% of millennials and 54% of early wearables adopters say they are excited about the future of wearable tech, including the potential benefits of improved safety, healthier living, and simplicity and ease of use. PwC also found that 72% of people find it very important for wearable technology to improve customer service, and 76% of busy parents want wearable tech to make shopping a more pleasant, efficient experience. Similarly, 50% of millennials say they would be strongly motivated to don a wearable if it “has apps/features that reward those who frequently use it.”
The capabilities of wearables are just beginning to emerge for retail, enterprise, and consumers. While their sales are not expected to compete with those for smartphones and tablets for some time, their impact on technology is far greater. As Multichannel Merchant points out, wearables “will become the interface between body, apps, data, and last not but not least, services. This creates the opportunity especially for local retailers.” Wearables have the ability to collect personal information such as biometric data, location data, spending data, and more. Scott Bauer, PwC’s U.S. retail and consumer practice partner and omnichannel leader imagines wearable technology will “shift retail conventions as retails will be able to connect the dots between pre-store and in-store behavior, and reach a new level of interconnected retail. How consumers pay for purchases and interact with the retailer while in store is expected to be radically redefined by wearable technology and retailers cannot afford to ignore the impact it could have on their bottom line.”
But, wearables will not just impact retail and its customer service. We have found companies that already are utilizing wearables to impact the enterprise, as well as those that are piloting wearable programs to impact customer service, customer satisfaction, and the customer experience. These innovative examples (and possible examples) of wearable tech in customer service are inspiring, and we share them below so that you can get inspired, too. The possibilities for wearables are potentially limitless, and it’s just as exciting now as it was when we were watching those cartoons and shows all those years ago.
Read the full post
The capabilities of wearables are just beginning to emerge for retail, enterprise, and consumers. While their sales are not expected to compete with those for smartphones and tablets for some time, their impact on technology is far greater. As Multichannel Merchant points out, wearables “will become the interface between body, apps, data, and last not but not least, services. This creates the opportunity especially for local retailers.” Wearables have the ability to collect personal information such as biometric data, location data, spending data, and more. Scott Bauer, PwC’s U.S. retail and consumer practice partner and omnichannel leader imagines wearable technology will “shift retail conventions as retails will be able to connect the dots between pre-store and in-store behavior, and reach a new level of interconnected retail. How consumers pay for purchases and interact with the retailer while in store is expected to be radically redefined by wearable technology and retailers cannot afford to ignore the impact it could have on their bottom line.”
But, wearables will not just impact retail and its customer service. We have found companies that already are utilizing wearables to impact the enterprise, as well as those that are piloting wearable programs to impact customer service, customer satisfaction, and the customer experience. These innovative examples (and possible examples) of wearable tech in customer service are inspiring, and we share them below so that you can get inspired, too. The possibilities for wearables are potentially limitless, and it’s just as exciting now as it was when we were watching those cartoons and shows all those years ago.
Read the full post
Why and How this Indian Realty Portal Exploits Data Science
While banks and ecommerce companies have tried their hands at data science and are benefitting from their initiatives around it, real estate appears to be the next big vertical that intends to leverage data science.
Housing.com, the Mumbai-based startup, is one among the top Indian online businesses that bet on data science and machine learning algorithms as a core priority. The realty portal, which raised $190 mn from Japan’s SoftBank, has come up with many tools such as Traffic Flux, Heat Maps, Listing Decay, and more in their efforts to present information to users in a visually appealing way that is more interactive than traditional plain listings.
Read the article
Housing.com, the Mumbai-based startup, is one among the top Indian online businesses that bet on data science and machine learning algorithms as a core priority. The realty portal, which raised $190 mn from Japan’s SoftBank, has come up with many tools such as Traffic Flux, Heat Maps, Listing Decay, and more in their efforts to present information to users in a visually appealing way that is more interactive than traditional plain listings.
Read the article
India by the numbers -- Highs and lows in the country’s research landscape.
Indian science is a study in contrasts. With its vast population and rapidly expanding economy, the country has ramped up scientific production at an impressive rate. India started the twenty-first century well behind Russia, France, Italy and Canada in terms of yearly publications and it now leads them all by healthy margins. It is quickly closing in on Japan.
Despite those gains, India is not yet a major player in world science. Its publications generate fewer citations on average than do those of other science-focused nations, including other emerging countries such as Brazil and China. Relative to its size, India has very few scientists; many Indian-born researchers leave for positions abroad and very few foreign scientists settle in India. The country invests a scant portion of its economy in research and development (R&D), and it produces relatively few patents per capita compared with other nations.
But there are bright spots. India boasts several world-class centres for science education, particularly the highly regarded Indian Institutes of Technology. Businesses in the country are investing more in R&D, which bodes well for future innovation. And more women are participating in science, although their numbers still fall far below those of men.
Read the feature published in Nature
Despite those gains, India is not yet a major player in world science. Its publications generate fewer citations on average than do those of other science-focused nations, including other emerging countries such as Brazil and China. Relative to its size, India has very few scientists; many Indian-born researchers leave for positions abroad and very few foreign scientists settle in India. The country invests a scant portion of its economy in research and development (R&D), and it produces relatively few patents per capita compared with other nations.
But there are bright spots. India boasts several world-class centres for science education, particularly the highly regarded Indian Institutes of Technology. Businesses in the country are investing more in R&D, which bodes well for future innovation. And more women are participating in science, although their numbers still fall far below those of men.
Read the feature published in Nature
Indian bioscience: The anti-bureaucrat
On 12 April, Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan posted an update to his more than 2,500 Facebook friends. It announced a bold plan from India's Department of Biotechnology (DBT) — the agency that VijayRaghavan leads, and the country's largest funder of biomedical research — to establish a new marine-biology institute and research stations along India's vast coastline. Within hours, 500 people had 'liked' the post and more than 60 had left comments of congratulations.
Only one offered a critical note. A graduate student said that starting programmes is all well and good, but the DBT must hold the researchers whom it already funds accountable for the quality of their science. Shortly after, VijayRaghavan replied: “Your words are very wise and correct! Thank you. We must keep your points in mind if we are to get maximum for our Rupee and have quality science.”
It is rare for a public official to be so responsive and open to criticism, especially in a country as steeped in bureaucratic hierarchy as India, says biologist Inder Verma at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla, California, who has served as a scientific adviser to the Indian government since the 1980s. Yet almost anyone who contacts VijayRaghavan by Facebook, Twitter or e-mail gets a personal response in minutes. “Vijay is a breath of fresh air,” Verma says.
VijayRaghavan is more than that. He is a respected fly geneticist and administrator who helped to build the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, one of India's most prestigious institutions, from the ground up. In January 2013, he left his job as NCBS director and moved to New Delhi to lead the DBT. He says that he wants to inject rigour into Indian science and train scientists to work together on tractable problems. As grand visions go, his can seem muted, almost modest. “I'm not going to be stupid and try something completely nutty; I'm going to try something within my grasp,” he says.
Researchers are optimistic about what he might be able to achieve. “It's very rare to have a scientist of Vijay's calibre heading a government department,” says Jyotsna Dhawan, a stem-cell biologist who worked with VijayRaghavan for seven years. “So I think all of us in the scientific community have very high hopes.”
But they also recognize the challenges, which include wrangling with New Delhi's murky politics — known for ensnaring plans in red tape — and the DBT's long, painful grant-review process. In the past couple of years, the Ministry of Finance has made it difficult for the agency to honour even approved grants. And although the DBT is a major funder of extramural research, the money that it actually gets each year — a little more than 14 billion rupees (about US$225 million) — is a fraction of that commanded by analogous agencies elsewhere, such as the US National Institutes of Health.
Given the challenges, even the most ardent well-wishers are holding their applause. “It's not entirely apparent to me what an individual, even one so dynamic and forward-looking as VijayRaghavan, can do to cut through the red tape,” says Dhawan.
Read the full article published in Nature
Only one offered a critical note. A graduate student said that starting programmes is all well and good, but the DBT must hold the researchers whom it already funds accountable for the quality of their science. Shortly after, VijayRaghavan replied: “Your words are very wise and correct! Thank you. We must keep your points in mind if we are to get maximum for our Rupee and have quality science.”
It is rare for a public official to be so responsive and open to criticism, especially in a country as steeped in bureaucratic hierarchy as India, says biologist Inder Verma at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla, California, who has served as a scientific adviser to the Indian government since the 1980s. Yet almost anyone who contacts VijayRaghavan by Facebook, Twitter or e-mail gets a personal response in minutes. “Vijay is a breath of fresh air,” Verma says.
VijayRaghavan is more than that. He is a respected fly geneticist and administrator who helped to build the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, one of India's most prestigious institutions, from the ground up. In January 2013, he left his job as NCBS director and moved to New Delhi to lead the DBT. He says that he wants to inject rigour into Indian science and train scientists to work together on tractable problems. As grand visions go, his can seem muted, almost modest. “I'm not going to be stupid and try something completely nutty; I'm going to try something within my grasp,” he says.
Researchers are optimistic about what he might be able to achieve. “It's very rare to have a scientist of Vijay's calibre heading a government department,” says Jyotsna Dhawan, a stem-cell biologist who worked with VijayRaghavan for seven years. “So I think all of us in the scientific community have very high hopes.”
But they also recognize the challenges, which include wrangling with New Delhi's murky politics — known for ensnaring plans in red tape — and the DBT's long, painful grant-review process. In the past couple of years, the Ministry of Finance has made it difficult for the agency to honour even approved grants. And although the DBT is a major funder of extramural research, the money that it actually gets each year — a little more than 14 billion rupees (about US$225 million) — is a fraction of that commanded by analogous agencies elsewhere, such as the US National Institutes of Health.
Given the challenges, even the most ardent well-wishers are holding their applause. “It's not entirely apparent to me what an individual, even one so dynamic and forward-looking as VijayRaghavan, can do to cut through the red tape,” says Dhawan.
Read the full article published in Nature
Saturday, 23 January 2016
The Dalet Newsroom: The Convergence of Television, Radio and Web News Production
In the past, there was a clear division between television, radio and print news. In a media conglomerate, it was very common to deploy several teams to cover a single event, with different stories produced for radio, television, print and, more recently, digital news outlets. This division caused both inefficiencies in terms of human resources and inconsistencies in terms of news production. Obviously, synergy was not part of the equation…
Let’s take a step back, shed light on recent IT (r)evolutions and explore the business benefits of the media convergence enabled by Dalet media management solutions!
As we mention above, until recently, when covering events, media conglomerates that owned television news stations, radio stations and newspapers would send three reporters out to cover one story: one for the newspaper, one for radio news and another for television - all managed from three different, siloed systems. The three reporters would read the same wires from agencies like Reuters, gather clips from footage taken of the press conference, and write three different stories – the on-camera script for a TV anchor, a script for the radio anchor, and an article for the newspaper. Over a morning coffee, the news consumer would read the newspaper to get the news of the day, then listen to the news in the car to and from work, and finally return home to watch the evening news – consuming more or less the same bits of news from any given media.
Read the full post
Let’s take a step back, shed light on recent IT (r)evolutions and explore the business benefits of the media convergence enabled by Dalet media management solutions!
As we mention above, until recently, when covering events, media conglomerates that owned television news stations, radio stations and newspapers would send three reporters out to cover one story: one for the newspaper, one for radio news and another for television - all managed from three different, siloed systems. The three reporters would read the same wires from agencies like Reuters, gather clips from footage taken of the press conference, and write three different stories – the on-camera script for a TV anchor, a script for the radio anchor, and an article for the newspaper. Over a morning coffee, the news consumer would read the newspaper to get the news of the day, then listen to the news in the car to and from work, and finally return home to watch the evening news – consuming more or less the same bits of news from any given media.
Read the full post
Friday, 22 January 2016
The arrival of Algorithmic business
What happens when 30 billion things connect with business and 3 billion people with smartphones? All these things and people generate vast amounts of rich data, and what companies do with that data – how they turn it into proprietary algorithms – will determine how well they maximize the opportunity presented by digital business.
“Algorithms are where the real value lies,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research, in the opening keynote to more than 8,500 CIOs and IT leaders at the sold out Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando. “Algorithms define action.” Digital revenues have risen, IT organizations have gone bimodal, and the increased density of connections promises smart agents and algorithms that can do very complex things, including spawning their own, new algorithms and agents.
In today’s digital era, dynamic, digital algorithms are at the core of new customer interactions. Back in the day, Coco-Cola created a secret recipe; essentially, an algorithm; for a fountain drink that would build an empire.
Today, Amazon’s recommendation engine prompts people to buy more products, or the Waze algorithms give cars better routes based on thousands of independent inputs, changing traffic patterns dynamically in real time. Moving forward, companies will be valued not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions and impact customers.
Companies will be valued not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions and impact customers.
“Algorithms are where the real value lies,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research, in the opening keynote to more than 8,500 CIOs and IT leaders at the sold out Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando. “Algorithms define action.” Digital revenues have risen, IT organizations have gone bimodal, and the increased density of connections promises smart agents and algorithms that can do very complex things, including spawning their own, new algorithms and agents.
In today’s digital era, dynamic, digital algorithms are at the core of new customer interactions. Back in the day, Coco-Cola created a secret recipe; essentially, an algorithm; for a fountain drink that would build an empire.
Today, Amazon’s recommendation engine prompts people to buy more products, or the Waze algorithms give cars better routes based on thousands of independent inputs, changing traffic patterns dynamically in real time. Moving forward, companies will be valued not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions and impact customers.
Companies will be valued not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions and impact customers.
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