As we know technology is a backbone for science which touches each and every part of our lifestyle.
It affects the economy, politics, improves medicine, or influence our culture. Some of the technologies are presently available to us and others will take to materialize in a decade or more.
Technology has advanced with years and it has changed the way we purchase products, the way we live, the way we communicate, the way we travel, the way we learn and so many changes have been brought about by these continuous technological advancements.
According to MIT Technology review which was published in their March/April 2017 issue, some of the following life-changing technologies which we must know!
Reversing Paralysis:
We saw some amazing technologies like brain-controlled computer cursors or robotics arms with their thoughts using brain implant wired to machines in recent years.
A model of a wireless neurocommunication device sits on a skull
Grégoire Courtine holds the two main parts of the brain-spine interface.
Image credit: HILLARY SANCTUARY | EPFL
Now scientists are progressing in the field of reversing paralysis once and for all.
The brain-reading technology directly connects the brain wirelessly to electrical stimulators on the body, creating a “neutral bypass” and it helps people to move their limbs just by their thoughts.
Paying with Your Face:
A tech start-up ‘Face++’ in China selling service products related to face recognition that can be applied to huge platforms, even banking security to authorize payments, provide access to facilities and track down criminals.
Employees simply show their face to gain entry to the company’s headquarters
It’s a simple system, once a picture is uploaded into the system your access to buildings, payment confirmations or identity verification goes immediately in place by itself.
The software of this device can track as much as 83 different points on the face simultaneously with an impressive accuracy!
Practical Quantum Computers:
If all goes well, you will see the magic of quantum computers in 4-5 years. You might have given up waiting – after all, it's been more than 30 years since physicist Richard Feynman came up with the idea.
He wanted to harness spooky quantum effects to seriously surpass the processing power of any normal computer.
This blue refrigerator gets down to just above absolute zero, making quantum experiments possible on tiny chips deep inside it. (Images credit: MIT)
Technology advances at Google, Intel, and several research groups indicate that computers with previously unimaginable power are finally within reach.
The Canadian company D-Wave Systems has been selling machines it calls quantum computers for a while, using a specialized technology called quantum annealing. The approach, skeptics say, is at best applicable to a very constrained set of computations and might offer no speed advantage over classical systems.
A professor, Leo Kouwenhoven of The Delft University of Technology at their applied sciences building is developing the world’s most advanced work on quantum computing.
Hot Solar Cells:
With growing number of solar panels across the world, it is paramount to enhance the efficiency of its power generating ability.
Based on the underlying principle, by converting heat to focused beams of light, a new solar device could create cheap and continuous power; the scientists at MIT have built a solar energy device that uses inventive engineering and advances in material science to capture the sun’s energy.
Black carbon nanotubes sit on top of the absorber-emitter layer, collecting energy across the solar spectrum and converting it to heat (Image credit: MIT)
The technology first converts sunlight into heat and then back into the light, but now focused on the spectrum that solar cells can use. You will have to wait for 10-15 years for this innovative technology to materialize.
MIT team has also mentioned some of the astonishing technologies which include:
Self-Driving Trucks
Image credit: BBC
Tractor-trailers without a human at the wheel will soon barrel onto highways near you. What will this mean for the nation’s 1.7 million truck drivers?
The 360-Degree Selfie
ALLie Camera
ALLie camera uses Qualcomm Snapdragon processors similar to those that run Samsung’s high-end handsets.
Inexpensive cameras that make spherical images are opening a new era in photography and changing the way people share stories.
Gene Therapy 2.0
Scientists have solved fundamental problems that were holding back cures for rare hereditary disorders.
Image credit: MIT
Next, we’ll see if the same approach can take on cancer, heart disease, and other common illnesses.
The Cell Atlas
Biology’s next mega-project will find out what we’re really made of.
The objective of the research is to construct the first comprehensive “cell atlas,” or map of human cells, a technological marvel that should comprehensively reveal, for the first time, what human bodies are actually made of and provide scientists a sophisticated new model of biology that could speed the search for drugs. This technology could be available in less than 5 years, according to MIT.
Botnets of Things
Advances in the Internet technology and computer system, making it vulnerable to hacker and spammers across the world. We need to protect our technology gadgets more than expected earlier.
Image source: ecommerce-iitd.org
The relentless push to add connectivity to home gadgets is creating dangerous side effects that figure to get even worse.
Botnets will get larger and more powerful simply because the number of vulnerable devices will go up by orders of magnitude over the next few years.
Reinforcement Learning
By experimenting, computers are figuring out how to do things that no programmer could teach them.
Image Source: Jordan Times
Reinforcement learning is the problem of getting an agent to act in the world so as to maximize its rewards.
For example, consider teaching a dog a new trick: you cannot tell it what to do, but you can reward/punish it if it does the right/wrong thing.
Whether it’s early man’s first use of fire or the birth of the space shuttle, innovations have always been the major catalysts behind humankind’s success.
The relentless parade of new technologies is unfolding on many fronts. Almost every advance is billed as a breakthrough, and the list of “next big things” grows ever longer.
Not every emerging technology will alter the business or social landscape—but some truly do have the potential to disrupt the status quo, alter the way people live and work, and rearrange value pools.
It is therefore critical that business, policy leaders and people in general, understand which technologies will matter to them and prepare accordingly.
We must mitigate and restore the capabilities of our environment to sustain us and future generations. In how fast, widespread and effectively these new technologies are deployed lies much of the answer to the challenge.
As an ultimate goal, we must ensure that creation of new technologies helps mankind and planet in general. (Source: MIT)
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