Technology Predictions: 2012 -2022
The home revolution
The home will become the focal point of new technologies made possible by a near abundance of bandwidth, processing power and storage space.
Current technologies used in large scale industrial settings will become inexpensive and find their way into your home.
3D printers
By 2020 it is expected that 3D printers will be as pervasive as microwave ovens. Already deployed in the International Space station amongst others, these printers will enable the user to print a range of products based on wide range of materials.
Having difficulty finding a missing piece of equipment? Simply download the blueprints and print the missing piece on your printer.
Waterless, detergent-free washing machines
Advances in Silver Nano technology will mean that you do not need to use detergent to clean your clothes. Smaller garments will also be cleaned using air instead of water. Expect the devices in your home before 2013.
DNA analysis
Dramatic reduction of DNA sequencing costs (Source: NHGRI)
The cost to sequence a genome has dropped dramatically over the past few years, fuelled by innovative sequencing techniques and increased processing power.
Expect to have your own DNA sequencer at home within the next decade to ensure your health is optimally managed.
The internet connected toilet
"Intelligence Toilet", manufactured by Toto (Source: Daiwa House)
Your connected toilet will collect urine and stool samples. In conjunction with your DNA sequencer, your personal health app will give you a daily update of various personal health indicators.
The only problem is how the toilet will identify the user: A bum-print scanner perhaps
The phone / tablet become the centre of the home
With the average middle-income home expected to have 100+ IP addresses by 2020, it was previously predicted that a central home controller would link everything together.
With distributed intelligence and cloud connectivity, your tablet and phone is more likely to become the centre (and remote control) of your house.
The home as an electricity generator
Homes will become the new electricity generators of the new millennium. Generating electricity through solar and wind energy, spare electricity is pumped into the grid during daytime, while using energy from the grid at night.
Video walls
Interactive Video Wall
The window in your kitchen will now be linked to other kitchens around the world as you connect to your children and friends in foreign countries via video links.
Instead of making dedicated calls, expect these video walls to be constantly active, changing the way we communicate with our loved ones as if they are in an adjacent room.
Internet connected garbage bins
Your local retailer will start giving away internet connected refuse bins. You will now have an ordinary refuse bin, and a connected replace bin.
Do you want to replace any product? Simply throw it into the replace bin where the bar code / QR code/ RFID tag is scanned and the product added to your shopping list.
The associated app on your smartphone will either prompt you to request a home delivery or remind you on your next shopping trip to the retailer. Imagine that: Client lock-in can now be achieved via the refuse bin!
Scan the QR code to view images and video clips of the technologies highlighted in this article.
The retail revolution
The retail environment will be influenced by five major factors: smartphone apps, 2D QR codes, social commerce, electronic coupons and contactless payment.
Here are some scenarios how these factors will join forces to create a new retail ecosystem.
The era of transparency – retailers to become Bazaars
With price comparison as easy as snapping a bar code with your phone, stores will have to adapt their pricing strategy to one of personal negotiation with each shopper as the era of price transparency starts permeating the retail environment.
Employees will be required to undertake courses in price negotiation to optimise profit. Expect a number of business trips to Arabia to pick up the finer points of negotiation at a bazaar.
Grocery retailers to roll out apps
Expect a deluge of grocery retailer apps, which will try to create user lock-in mechanisms via variety of innovative features.
New retail apps may include a variety of functions which will centre their apps around bar and QR code scanning. With these apps, you will be able to scan any product anywhere, and add it to your online shopping cart.
By scanning the bar code on a product, or a QR code on a Product wall (as Tesco did in South Korea), you can have it delivered at home, or use the app and find it in store by making use of in-store navigation.
The retailer app will also be used to store coupons or vouchers that you can use in the store. In the next few years a deluge of electronic vouchers and coupons are expected to appear on a phone screen near you.
Expect the app to use your buying history to create recipe proposals, and then create shopping lists and in-store guides from these user chosen recipes.
Contactless payment will become more readily available as Google, Apple, eBay and Amazon start leveraging their strength in the value chain to try and outcompete each other in the digital wallet space.
Say goodbye to Cash and Credit Cards as your handset is all you will need when visiting your local retailer. Expect Google to take the early lead with its Paypass JV with Citi MasterCard.
Revolution for shopping malls
Malls will go beyond the Mall app to create a unique shopping experience, supporting shoppers with high bandwidth access to the ubiquitous Internet.
It is expected that that malls will immerse themselves fully into the mobile Internet revolution, enabling unique communication and information sharing solutions.
Malls will start leveraging their hold on real estate by moving into the wireless communication and Electronic Find transfer space.
Expect malls to manage their own EFT switches, and take a commission from all the financial transactions within the mall.
Malls will no longer allow Cellular Operators to duplicate the wireless infrastructure within the mall.
Malls will start managing their own wireless infrastructure (GSM, UMTS, LTE and WiFi) and create a peering point where all the operators can access a unified infrastructure.
They will start offering free access to their own Mall app via its WiFi infrastructure. It will also offer free WiFi to repeat visitors.
Expect malls will start offering free VoIP calling to friends and family while you are within its building.
Mall apps
Malls will start deploying smartphone apps that will offer a variety of innovative solutions. Features will include 3D mall maps and in-mall navigation and contactless payment for parking tickets to start with.
Mall wide gift registries on the Mall app will become available. This will allow any patron to simply scan a bar code of the desired product in any store within the mall and add it to their Wedding Registry or Birthday Wish List.
You will also be able to scan a QR code within the car park, and the mall app will assist in you finding you’re your car again.
Expect in-mall treasure hunts to start appearing on your smartphone. Bring your friends and family, scan QR codes, visit stores and answer questions to collect virtual prizes that you can exchange for real ones at the end of your quest.
Social networking will be used to drive social commerce as stores start using these tools within dressing rooms to ensure shoppers get instant feedback on their clothing choices.
The future of wireless telecommunication
4 forces will affect the future of telecommunication. They are Spectrum availability, LTE Advanced (4G) network rollouts, Net neutrality regulation and Cognitive Radio
LTE Advanced – The sixth industrial revolution?
The increase in processing power within handsets and wireless modems means that a spectrum efficiency of 30 b/s/Hz is obtainable for LTE Advanced (4G) cellular base stations. This is 40 times faster than current commercial 3G networks.
As the migration of analogue to digital television opens up a range of frequencies, 4G network operators will have access to the 700MHz spectrum, which provides excellent signal propagation opportunities in relation to coverage.
These two preceding factors means that high-speed wireless networks will become available over large geographical areas.
The economics of wireless broadband will therefore undergo a sea change due to these factors. Based on these realities, the following predictions are offered for the cellular environment.
- Expect new business models to emerge, as wireless data-only networks will finally be able to become economically viable.
- In countries where frequencies are sold, expect record prices for the 700Mhz frequencies.
- Expect GSM operators to buy loss making CDMA operators in developing countries, simply to obtain access to the scarce 850MHz frequencies.
- In order to obtain optimal benefit from the 700MHz spectrum frequencies, the frequency blocks allocated per operator should be sufficiently large. (40 MHz blocks preferable). In these cases, expect regulators in a variety of countries to enforce a split between Network Operators and Service Providers. Current Mobile Network operators will have to choose which side of the equation they want to play on. Furthermore, expect Network Equipment companies such as Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE to become Network Operators in a number of countries.
- Expect cellular operators who mainly focus on voice revenue to undergo dramatic changes, as 4G networks will not differentiate between voice and data packets any longer.
- In countries where Net Neutrality is enforced, expect over the top services like Skype to become more prevalent on cellular phones.
Cognitive radio
The IEEE standards have been trying to encroach on the ITU aligned standards for quite some time (WiMAX vs. LTE).
This time round they may be on to something. Cognitive radio technology allows operators to scan for unused frequencies (white space), and then use these frequencies to transmit data without it having an impact on existing transmissions in adjacent bands.
With the IEEE 802.22 standard already verified, expect a number of locations on the planet switching on Cognitive Radio trails to prove the real world functionality of these technologies. Two uncertainties remain.
Firstly, the support of the regulator is required.
Secondly, the wholesale support of the equipment manufacturers are required to create a sufficiently large economy of scale to bring down equipment prices in order to compete with the GSM / UMTS standards.
If these hurdles are passed, expect very an interesting competition emerging between the newcomers and the incumbents.
Source: Moneyweb
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