4 technologies every business should use to achieve their goals effectively in 2021

What are 4 technologies every business should use to achieve their goals more effectively in 2021?

1. Digital Automation

What is automation? Automation is the elimination of all manual labour through the use of automatic controls that ensure accuracy and quality.

The term automation was first coined in the 1940s at the Ford Motor Company and was applied to the automatic handling of parts in metalworking processes.

The industrial revolution leveraged the power of machines to produce goods at scale. The digital revolution began in the late 1970s and ushered in a new way to manage business processes.

The benefits of automating business processes are many, ranging from efficiency boost, reduced costs to increased productivity.

Automation in business means using technology to replace manual effort and repetitive tasks allowing employees to tackle creative tasks or other projects where they can add real value.

In October 2020, leading Robotic Process Automation software (or RPA) UiPath’s survey on automation skills found that 70% of senior executives want non-technical employees to have automation and AI skills.

Here are 6 examples of business automation tools:

• ServiceNow is a cloud-based workflow automation platform that enables enterprise organizations to improve operational efficiencies by streamlining and automating routine work tasks;
• ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform, combining advanced email marketing features and an enterprise standard CRM;
• Hootsuite automates your social media marketing;
• Grammarly automates proofreading and spell-checking;
• Agile CRM automates workflows across sales channels;
• Zoho Recruit helps HR managers source, track, and hire the best candidates;

The global marketing automation market size alone was valued at USD 4.06 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow with 9.8% from 2020 to 2027 (source).

Is your business automating its processes? How much of your employees’ tasks are automated to reduce time, cut costs and increase productivity? Is your organization going through digital transformation?

2. Robotics

In 1947, science fiction author Isaac Asimov devised the Three Laws of Robotics, a set of rules created to protect humans interacting with robots.

The robots that we see now are yet to achieve the sophistication level of the robots that Asimov has imagined seventy-three years ago.

Our robots come in many shapes and sizes. From standard robotic arms working in factories to Amazon’s cobots packing orders five times faster than a human warehouse worker and Sophia, the humanoid AI Robot who can simulate a full range of facial expressions, look people in the eyes and conduct natural conversations with them.

The robotics industry market is predicted to exceed USD24 billion by 2030, an increase with a CAGR of 28.6%. Find other interesting robotics industry statistics and the latest challenges in robotics.

The latest innovation in robotics comes from Mos Burger, a Japan-based burger chain which tested the OriHime robots in its restaurants. These robots are remote-controlled by restaurant employees from home. Each robot is clad in a trainee uniform and equipped with a microphone and camera, so workers can personally serve customers and answer their questions about the menu (source).

In this example, the robots are not taking the jobs of the restaurants’ employees but act as a replacement, a body double if you will. An innovative solution perfectly adapted to pandemic times.

Farming is another industry with great potential for automation. Spot, the now-famous Boston Dynamics dog-like robot opens doors, walks up and down the stairs, carries payloads of up to 14kg and can haul a truck together with nine of his “siblings”.

Recently this year, a fleet of Spots was deployed to a farm in New Zealand to conduct agricultural tasks: inspecting crops, navigating rough terrain and gathering data in real-time. It was strange seeing the robot successfully herding sheep. Yes, the robot-like dog could prove more useful to any farmer, but it won’t replace a dog’s playful bark and loving eyes any time soon.

3. The surprising use of gaming in business

It’s been almost a year since the pandemic started. At first, we were happy to use Zoom and Zoom was certainly happy to see its stock more than double (up 107.2%) over the past three months and skyrocket nearly eightfold (up 680.2%) year to date (source).

Now we’ve grown increasingly tired of going on Zoom meetings. Mental health experts identified two new work-related conditions: Zoom fatigue and Zoom burnout.

Is there a more pleasant way of conducting team meetings or business meetings?

Gaming seems to be the answer for some professionals. Why stare at your colleagues inside six or nine small screens when you can bond on Red Dead Redemption 2? Why add to your business partner’s zoom fatigue when you can relax first, go shoot some guns in Grand Theft Auto and then discuss business details as this New York Times article points out.

Unilever Russia went even further and designed a career fair in the format of an online game, where users could visit 8-bit versions of company office buildings, learn job details and communicate with virtual representatives.

4. Augmented Reality experiences for a touchless economy

2016 will go down in history as the year the world saw a cultural phenomenon go global, the PokemonGo.

It is estimated that 27 million users played the AR-based game and $950 million in revenues were generated.

The same year, Snapchat bought Augmented-Reality start-up Cimagine Media.

Today Snapchat is synonymous with AR. Recently, the company rebranded itself as a camera company, with the goal of empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.

AR is Snapchat’s unique feature that attracts over 170 million Snapchatters, nearly 30 times every day according to the latest reports by Snap.

This year, the social media company launched Local Lens, a new feature that promised to transform whole neighbourhoods into digital canvases.

Apart from the obvious entertainment opportunity, AR is also a tool that can be used by businesses to drive engagement and fulfil customers’ needs.

Augmented reality firm Moviebill launched Inflight, AR versions of airlines’ safety cards, duty-free magazines, and inflight menus.

How does Inflight work? Passengers can use their smartphones to scan an image (such as an airline’s logo) on their tray table to see the content ‘come to life’ in 3D. The idea is to help airlines get rid of items that are touched by many crew members and passengers, as well as create more engaging customer experiences.

Do you think your business could implement this technology for the benefit of its customers?

Alias Robotics – Building Cybersecurity for Robots

What happens when we become ill? Our immune system kicks in and attempts to isolate and eliminate the alien organism (bacteria, virus etc) causing the disease. The immune system is our body’s defence against infectious organisms and other invaders. Our immune system is essential to our survival.

Just as the antibodies produced by our immune system neutralize pathogens in our organism, so too the antivirus software protects your PCs from malware attacks.

Robots are connected to the internet same as our PCs and smartphones and are equally vulnerable to malicious activities.

So why don’t we provide our robots with protective systems?

Alias Robotics builds cybersecurity systems for robots

Alias Robotics has made it its mission to educate the 4.0 industry environment on this particular security gap and also provide organizations with a patented solution: the cybersecurity system for robots.

Alias Robotics is a highly innovative Spanish company focused on robot cybersecurity. The team at Alias Robotics take a roboticists’ approach to cybersecurity, delivering security solutions based on cutting edge technological advancements.

Mission

The next generation of robots that will be connected, either to each other or the Internet, and with that comes huge risks to cybersecurity. Alias Robotics exists to protect your robots against all third-party attacks.
For years, manufacturers and end-users have been worried about safety, but there is no safety without security. However, security is not an endpoint, it is a process.

Alias Robotics

This cybersecurity company focuses on cobots – collaborative robots.

Cobots combine the benefits of human intelligence and skills with the advantage of sophisticated robotic technical systems. They work alongside human workers in the same workspace.

Having human workers in the same space with cobots puts the first at risk. Unfortunate events have already been recorded:

• In December 2018, at an Amazon warehouse in the US, a robot punctured a can of bear repellent causing twenty-four workers to feel sick and go to the hospital for medical care;
• In June 2016, a woman working in an assembly line factory was crushed to death by an automated malfunctioning machine.

David Mayoral Vilches, CEO at Alias Robotics states that in order to prevent any harm for humans, safety has to become the topmost priority. But to achieve security, one needs to ensure safety first.

Security often disregarded, is a necessary precondition for safety.

David Mayoral Vilches, CEO at Alias Robotics

The question is: whose responsibility is it to ensure security for robots?

Robot manufacturers are completely ignoring it and robot vendors don’t even take it into consideration claiming it’s the end-user’s responsibility.

Security is a process, not a product. It needs to be assessed continuously. {…} As robots get more introduced into joint workspaces, we foresee catastrophes.

David Mayoral Vilches, CEO of Alias Robotics

Threats, risks and vulnerabilities

• Running cobots with no individual security system makes them vulnerable and turns them into risky assets for organizations and dangerous co-workers.
• Technology like cloud computing, data analysis and the Internet of Things can easily exploit the vulnerability of cobots, providing hackers with a way in.
• The organizations which require increased autonomy of their cobots also run a high risk of having their cobots hacked.
• If hacked, the cobots can be remotely controlled which could lead to the compromising of data and production secrets.
• They could also cause damage to the workplace with both human and financial repercussions which can range from destruction of property to physical injuries and death.

Robots are like candy for hackers.

David Mayoral Vilches, CEO of Alias Robotics

Cybersecurity for robots is an interdisciplinary effort. The team at Alias Robotics comprises of outstanding roboticists, security researchers and machine learning engineers with global experience and a passion for cyber-physical systems.

Learn more: David Mayoral Vilches – Cybersecurity for Robots 

To help its clients, Alias Robotics provides the following services:

• Robot security assessments: physical robot hacking, virtual robot hacking and robot code testing;
• Security consulting: robotic software development cycle (RSDLC), robot threat analysis and robotics compliance.

Vision

We envision a future where robots operate securely alongside humans in many different areas of life. In order for this to happen, they must be secure: these machines have to be protected as they go mainstream and become more deeply connected.
Experts agree that security should be at the top of the agenda for robot manufacturers and end-users.

Awards

To acknowledge its innovative work, Alias Robotics has received many awards:

• Selected as one of the best 70 national startups and among the 100 most disruptive startups in Southern Europe by 123emprende, a Spanish platform that helps entrepreneurs create successful and sustainable companies;
• Finalist at BIND 4.0, an acceleration program aimed at startups with tech products or services with application in Advanced Manufacturing, Smart Energy, Health Tech fields;
• Winner of the B2B Enterprise Technologies Competition at the 2018 Spain Startup – South Summit;
• Winner of the first RobotUnion acceleration programme, the 1st European Accelerator fully focused on Robotics startup and SMEs.

Join the Conversation

We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Get in touch with us on Facebook Group and Twitter.

3 Robots Shaping Our Future

Our present is technology-driven.

Our future will be shaped by technology.

And robots will be a major part of it, there’s no doubt about it.

Here are 3 robots making history today while preparing us for the future:

1. Mini Cheetah – the first four-legged robot to do a backflip

Mini Cheetah is a robot designed and built by an MIT team of researchers. It is a smaller version of Cheetah, a larger robot built by the same team.

Mini Cheetah is only 20 pounds heavy and displays a wide range of motion. It is very robust, doesn’t break easily and overall dynamic.

The small robot is fitted with 12 motors the size of a jar lid, three for each leg. The researchers designed it to be lightweight, high-torque and low inertia which allows the robot to execute manoeuvres fast, without breaking any parts.

It is capable of moving very fast, it can bend its legs, it can walk upside down, it can jump in the air, it can switch and stretch as if doing yoga and now do 360-degree backflips.

The robot is able to do a backflip thanks to a program which the team wrote in order to test its performance.

The robot’s designers plan to build 10 more mini cheetahs and then loan them to collaborating groups. The purpose is to give other robotics research engineers the opportunity to come up and test new ideas.

That’s how you accelerate research.

Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering

2. Handle, the robot doing warehouse work

Handle is designed and built by Boston Dynamics, a company which began as a spin-off from the MIT. Handle is one of the four robots developed by the Boston Dynamics team which include SpotMini, Atlas and Pick.

Handle is a robot able to perform various box handling tasks in the warehouse. It is 2 meters high, 105 kg heavy, it is fitted with 10 cameras, it has 10 joints and can lift 15 kg.

A counterbalancing system provides the robot with power and agility which allows it to perform difficult manipulation tasks.

3. Atlas, the robot doing parkour

Atlas is the latest humanoid robots developed by Boston Dynamics.

It is 1.5 meters high, 75 kg heavy, can handle a 11 kg payload, it has stereo vision and 25 joints.

The robot is fitted with a control system which coordinates its arms, torso and legs. It is able to manipulate objects and travel on rough terrain thanks to its amazing balancing system.

Into the future

Science-fiction movies envision a human civilization where robots perform automated labor, assist humans with various tasks and minor jobs and keep them company when needed.

These three robots and others like them are amazing achievements; they represent the building blocks which allow brilliant researchers and scientists to take their work further.

The future will grow from the seeds we plant today.

Join the Conversation

We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Get in touch with us on Facebook Group and Twitter.

Top Technology Trends in 2018

The last decade has been undoubtedly under the sign of technology, each year its imprint being stronger and stronger and blurring more and more the lines between fiction and reality.

From AI and VR to the IoT ,companion robots,5G and smart cars, here are the top 18 trends from CES this year, as related by Forbes. 

According to DXC.technology, there are 6 big trends coming our way in 2018: re-platforming the enterprise, the war for digital talent becoming creative and vigorous, qualified enterprises, cyber resilience,companies growing thanks to digital business extensions and artificial intelligence getting smarter and more practical. The detailed information can be found here.

How will the city of the future look like?

Big data, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), robots, drones, autonomous green vehicles, 3D / 4D printing, renewable energy, virtual reality (VR),leap motion, eye controlled technology are just part of the present and new technologies that are here or will be here in the near future to influence our lives.

The cities are evolving as well, by becoming Smart Cities. From Singapore to Amsterdam and Barcelona, from Dubai to Stockholm,from New York to Manchester and even Alba Iulia in Romania, information and communication technology is used to enhance quality, performance and interactivity of urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption and to increase contact between citizens and government. Smart city applications are developed to manage urban flows and allow for real-time responses.

The smart city concept integrates information and communication technology and various physical devices connected to the network (IoT) to optimize the efficiency of city operations and services and connect to citizens. Smart city technology allows city officials to interact directly with both community and city infrastructure and to monitor what is happening in the city and how the city is evolving.

According to the IESE Cities in Motion Index 2017, quoted by Forbes, which analyses all aspects that make up sustainability and quality of life in 180 key world cities, New York is again the smartest city in the world, followed by London and Paris.

To compile the index, the authors analyze 79 indicators across 10 different dimensions of urban life: the economy, technology, human capital, social cohesion, international outreach, the environment, mobility and transportation, urban planning, public administration and governance. The results show that almost all of the dimension measured in the ranking are led by European and North American cities. The exception is technology, where Taipei rules.

In top 10 are present three other American cities (Boston 4^th, San Francisco 5^th, and Washington, D.C. 6^th), two other European cities (Berlin 9^th and Amsterdam 10^th), and two Asian (Seoul 7^th and Tokyo 8^th).

Moreover, according to CityMetric, Singapore is also a leading example of a smart city, and is constantly evolving its “city brain,” a backbone of technologies used to help control pollution, monitor traffic, allocate parking, communicate with citizens, and even issue traffic fines. “The behavioral aspect is not to be overlooked. Singapore’s “brain” is attempting to modify human behavior – for example, one system rewards drivers for using recommended mapped routes, and punishes those who do not. Ultimately, Singapore’s planners hope to discourage driving, and guide most commuters to making greater use of public transportation. The city is planning for 100m “smart objects” including smart traffic lights, lamp posts, sensors, and cameras on its roadways, which will be used to monitor and enforce laws,” wrote Fast Future for CityMetric.

But how will those smart cities look in the future and what can we expect from them and the specialists living and creating in them? “The number of smart cities around the world is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years and by 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s population will be living in smart cities,” believes Nick Ismail in his piece for information-age.com.

Moreover, it appears that 2030 will bring the introduction of Connected street lights, which will stream data between millions of devices and improve city services such as light, traffic, air quality, public safety and parking. Lighting technology will be at the heart of urban life in 2030 as well, helping deliver more sustainable and better-connected smart cities. “And if that wasn’t enough, by 2050 take-aways will be delivered by drones, replacing motorbikes and cars. One pizza manufacturer has already tested drone delivery and some predict these automated flying machines will fill the skies replacing the couriers of today,” adds Ismail.

Top 10 assistant robots in 2017​

In no particular order, 10 of the best assistant robots in 2017 are as follows:

1. Echo by Amazon

The Echo is a cloud-based device built around the premise that being able to make some impressive noise and respond to voice commands while connected to the internet leads to all kinds of functionality. It’s being advertised as a smart music player that can remind you about different things you want and search the Internet, but if utilized to its fullest it can become the central hub of your smart home, controlling lights and connected WeMo, Hue, and Wink devices. It’s a DJ, a book reader, and a robust calendar, and its functionality is going to grow as Amazon continues development. One recent addition is live traffic reporting.

2. Pepper by Aldebaran

With a very humanoid look, Pepper is designed for companionship. During interactions, Pepper analyzes facial expressions, body language, and verbal cues, honing its responses and offering a dynamic and surprisingly natural conversation partner. Originally created for use in SoftBank Mobile’s retail stores in Japan, Aldebaran released Pepper for home use.

3. Jibo

Jeff Bezos – Amazon, the new robots company

“Everything we have been learning so far on this robot can be applied to solve real-world problems,” the designer previously said on his Facebook page.

Bulgarov is famous for working on film series such as Transformers, Robocop and Terminator.

According to The Telegraph, Method-2 is seen as a test-bed for various technologies that will allow the creators to build any type and size of robot in future.

Less known things that might surprise you about technology in general

One of the first Computer Science Ph.Ds was earned by a nun

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, born in Ohio in 1914, entered the Sisters of Charity in 1932 and professed her vows in 1940. She went on to study at DePaul University, where she received a B.S. in Mathematics and an M.S. in Mathematics and Physics. n 1965, she became the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Afterwards, Sister Keller founded the computer science department at Clarke College in Iowa, which she directed for 20 years. She was passionate about providing access and information to everyone, not just computer scientists. She also envisioned a world in which computers made people smarter and learned to think on their own.

Changing fonts can save printer ink

Some say that if you use a ‘lighter’ font (with a lighter stroke), you’ll use slightly less ink per page. Based on the assumption that you’re only printing with inkjet printers that use the old style cartridges (not ink tanks, and not toner based laser printers), you’ll likely save about 10 per cent ink by switching to one of the lighter fonts.

QWERTY was designed to slow you down

 

There are actually two theories to this. The first one starts to make sense when you look at manual typewriters. If someone typed too fast, the keys would jam. QWERTY placed common alphabets at a distance from each other and slowed typists down. Another theory is that telegraph operators designed the QWERTY layout because it was easier (and faster) to decipher Morse code.

92 per cent of the world’s currency is digital

 

This means that most of the money you earn, transact with, use to buy goods/services and so on exists only on computers and hard drives. Only an estimated 8 per cent of currency globally is physical money. Banks store electronically too and the 92 per cent includes all kinds of transactions done using credit/debit cards and wire transfers.

Russia built a computer that ran on water, in 1936

Before the miniaturization of transistors, computers had a much more visible system of counting: things like gears, pivots, beads and levers were often used and they needed some sort of power source to function. Vladimir Lukyanov built something like this in 1936, but he used water to create a computer that solved partial differential equations. In images of the Lukyanov computer, you’ll see a complex system of interconnected tubes filled with water. It was also called a Water Integrator and was originally designed to solve the problem of cracking in concrete. It’s now found in Moscow’s Polytechnic Museum.

The first mouse was made of wood 

It was created by Doug Engelbart, with the assistance of Bill English, during the 1960’s and was patented on November 17, 1970. According to computerhope.com, the mouse was originally referred to as an “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System” and was first used with the  Xerox Alto computer system in 1973. Using the mouse, Douglas was able to demonstrate moving a mouse cursor on the Alto computer in  The Mother of All Demos. However, because of its lack of success, the first widely used mouse is the mouse found on the  Apple Lisa computer.

A killer may have gone free due to using Firefox

The Florida sheriff’s office that investigated Caylee Anthony’s death confirmed that it overlooked a computer search for suffocation methods made from the little girl’s home on the day she was last seen alive. WKMG reports that sheriff’s investigators pulled 17 vague entries only from the computer’s Internet Explorer browser, not the Mozilla Firefox browser commonly used by Casey Anthony. More than 1,200 Firefox entries, including the suffocation search, were overlooked.

The data can be corrupted by high-energy particles coming from the space

According to makesenseof.com, some scientists have suggested that  Toyota’s unintended acceleration fiasco may have been caused by the interference of cosmic rays combined with inadequate fail-safes for recovering from randomly introduced errors. For most PC users, however, invaders from outer space are not the most likely source of trouble. Good ole-fashioned human error is a more common cause. Corruption usually occurs because of user error (deleting or modifying files that shouldn’t be tampered with), malicious activity (malware) or routine degradation and failure of storage media (mechanical and solid state drives).

The first ever webpage still exists at its place

Invented by Tim Berners Lee, the first website went live at research lab CERN in 1990. Created by 60-year-old British computer scientist  Tim Berners-Lee in 1990, while he was a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the website still exists today. The site’s address is info.cern.ch, and provides information about the world wide web – the platform that sits on top of the Internet, where documents and pages on the Internet can be accessed by URLs, and connected to each other via hyperlinks.

And, on a lighter tone…

• In 2012, at least 17 newborn girls were named Siri
• A red panda is native to the Himalayas and southwestern China. Translated, the English word for red panda is “Firefox,” which is where the browser gets its name.
• The world’s first camera took eight hours to snap a photo.
• About 1 out of 8 married couples actually met each other on the Internet.
• There is a factory in Japan which can run unsupervised for 30 days at a time — it’s almost entirely manned by robots.
• In Mexico City, there are special bins that offer free wifi to people who properly dispose of their dog poop.
• On an average day, a typist’s hands fingers travel 12.6 miles.
• The first banner advertising was used in 1994.
• Two hundred and twenty million tons of old computers and other technology devices are trashed in the United States each year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How will the house of 2025 look like?

The word of the future is smart. Even in the housing and design department. And as the technology is evolving at a huge rate, we wonder how it will look like in the future.

If the third industrial revolution was about using electronics and information technology to change economic systems and the way we live, the fourth will be characterized by disruptions stemming from a merger of the digital and physical worlds.

According to Yoshiaki Fujimori, President & CEO of the LIXIL Group Corporation for weforum.org, what we are seeing now with the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution is the development of cognitive architecture, which enables our living spaces to be tailored for personal and family preferences. This is set to have a profound effect on our quality of life.

“The home will become a natural, intuitive, extension of you. Rather than the occupant adapting to the home, we’ve entered an exciting new phase where the home works for those who live inside it. Development of AI, robotics and other advanced technologies for applications within the living space has been underway for some time, but are gaining increased attention,” said Yoshiaki.

Kevin Foreman, quoted by wired.com, believes that homes will soon become intelligent enough to distinguish between family members and guests within physical spaces and adapt to individual needs based on biometrics like fingerprints, body temperatures and even the rhythm of our own heartbeats. Therefore, in the very near future as you walk through your home, a small device worn around the wrist will authenticate your identity by pairing itself to your specific heartbeat, allowing your home to automatically adjust the lighting, room temperature and play custom music based on personalized preferences and pre-configured profiles.

Meanwhile, companies such as Nest are creating connected products that recognize homeowners’ preferences and adjust settings like temperature automatically or via an app.

In the same way that primary energy use in the home shifted from lighting to more complex devices and appliances, Internet traffic is following a similar pattern. Professor Klaus Schwab’s report on the Fourth Industrial Revolution predicts that the tipping point will be when over 50% of internet traffic delivered to homes is for appliances and devices as opposed to entertainment and communication, and that we can expect this tipping point to have occurred by 2025.

Here are some of the aspects that will make our lives easier:

Robots everywhere

According to the specialists, home appliances will become more self-aware, an example being the iRobot Roomba 780 which can be set to vacuum on a schedule, find its way around furniture, and even stay within a specific zone. In 15 years, devices for cleaning windows, sweeping the floor, and even making minor repairs will do their work inconspicuously. Yet, even the predictive technology in your home – using less energy during one week because the weather forecast says you will need more heat for an upcoming cold spell – has robotic intelligence.

Moreover, the journalists from http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk believe that in 15 years the companion robots will be available as part of team of collaborating robots. They will be able to monitor the wellbeing of their elderly charges, remind them to take their medicines, call relatives or cariers in an emergency, and perform simple tasks. Their owners will be able to give them shopping lists – by voice or by computer tablet – which the companions will convey via a “warden” robot who will pass it on to the outside robot, which will do the shopping. Your children might also benefit by having a “teacher” robot to help with the homework.

Solar photovoltaics on every roof

Over 15 per cent of houses in Australia already have rooftop solar installed, and forecasts show by the 2020s, solar and wind will be the cheapest way of producing electricity. Companies are already combining satellite imagery with algorithms to understand the savings you can make from your rooftop. And given the massive cost reductions of 99 per cent since 1970, and 80 per cent since 2008, it’s easy to foresee that solar photovoltaics will be ubiquitous by 2025.

Still according to plymouthherald, by 2030 the mantra will become “Energy, energy, energy”. Many new buildings will be carbon-neutral, meaning they will produce all of the energy they need without burning fossil fuels, and will even export electricity.

Merlin Hyman, chief executive of Regen SW, said: “For most of us our regular bill is the only time we think much about how we use energy in our homes. However, with the introduction of smart meters that is set to change. In the future we will be flexible to use energy when it is cheapest – for example charging electric cars overnight, or heating our water during the day. We may even export power back to the grid from batteries in the house if there is a surge of demand and a high price.”

Everyone will have to adapt to the future of energy – and that includes the suppliers. Nigel Turvey from Western Power Distribution predicts that the growth of renewable energy will really take off after 2025.

Smart appliances

In the house of tomorrow everything will be connected through technology and the new, smart appliances are a big part of it. The interaction with the user will be easy and smooth, they will increasingly be able to learn what you want and to have it on hand.

source: Emaze

The old-fashioned light switch will eventually disappear, and we will control lighting using smartphone or touchscreen panels – or even voice-activation. Smart thermostats like NEST and Hive allow you manage every minute of your home’s heating schedule from a smartphone, tablet or computer. So coming home from a holiday to a cold house will be a thing of the past.

The days of the chip-stop on the way home when you’re too tired to cook may be numbered too. Your fridge, connected to the Internet of Things, will not even need to ask you for a shopping list: it can tell when you’re running low, and place an order with the supermarket. This technology is actually here in some countries, not in the far-away future.

When it comes to novelties, ” June” is a smart oven, expected to ship this year. Its intelligent system can recognize the dish and know exactly how to cook it to perfection. June can be controlled with your iPhone or iPad, and you can monitor cooking with a live video stream.

Moreover, the appliances in one’s house will operate autonomously and interact with each other and even today one still has to load the washing machine, by 2030 one will just walk away, leaving the machine to decide how dirty the clothes are, and when to switch on to take advantage of the cheapest and most plentiful electricity.

Smart living & content

Virtual reality can turn couch potatoes into globetrotters. And they won’t even have to get up to hunt for a DVD: centralized streaming will give instant access to entertainment. The TV set will no longer dominate the living room: ultra-thin OLED displays will allow us to stick our TV screen to the wall, and holographics will bring characters right into the room.

The future home will be intelligent enough to predict what you want to do with content. Dell spokesperson Chad Andrews told TechRadar about a concept where media knows more about the playback device that we can even conceive today: adaptive music, movies, and photos that change shape and size (and color profiles) based on whether you are viewing them in the living room on an HDTV or on a tablet in your office. Data centers will predict the media you want to use and provide that media in the proper formats and sizes. Moreover, the number of screens in the future home will increase exponentially. To avoid overload, the visual information will integrate better into appliances, mirrors, and even the tools and household items you use. There might be flexible display on your cleaning detergent with instructions for use, or a display in the garage that reminds you about home maintenance.

Speech enabled

Whether you are a fan of Apple Siri or not, one thing is clear: speech tech has finally hit the mainstream. Your home will understand what you say. Already, Samsung and others are developing smart televisions that understand spoken commands. In the future, your home will respond to voice requests for the news, sports, and entertainment. More importantly, your home will use advanced algorithms that determine when you are speaking to the home or to your spouse – sensing a change in your tone, or interpreting a phrase that must be an instruction to change the house temperature. How about that level of smart?

Knowing you better that you know yourself

The future home will be smart enough to know what you want – sometimes even before you want it. Ford has already started experimenting with the Google prediction engine to guess where you want to go at certain times of the day. Your house will also know your preferences: when you start a movie, the lights will dim to the level you normally use. Moisture sensors in your lawn will learn how much you use a sprinkler system and adjust patterns accordingly.

 

Jobs that will be replaced by robots in the near future

source: Industry Week

The future is not that bright for the human race and its abilities to hold a job in front of the future robots and the artificial intelligence that are already or will soon be able to do your job much better than a human being. As seen in an  Oxford study, around 50% of all jobs will be replaced by robots and 35% of existing UK jobs are at risk of automation in the next 20 years. Moreover, Boston Consulting Group, quoted by bbc.com, predicts that by 2025, up to a quarter of jobs will be replaced by either smart software or robots.

This appears to be a very interesting subject, as many publications are already writing about what the future will hold for us. We found great materials on msn.com, wired.com, bbc.com and digitaltrends.com.

According to fastcompany.com, automation, which includes both mechanized robots (whether humanoid or drone-shaped) and artificially intelligent software programs, are predicted to  eliminate 6% of the jobs in the U.S. in the next five years. And it’s not just low-wage employees that need to be worried. Highly skilled, knowledge-based employees in some sectors, including legal and accounting, could see their jobs decimated in the next decade. Deloitte estimates that  39% of jobs in the legal sector could be automated in the next 10 years. Separate research has concluded that  accountants have a 95% chance of losing their jobs to automation in the future.

Insurance Underwriters and Claims Representatives

source: Financial Review

The effects of automation on the insurance industry are already being felt. In Japan, Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance has recently replaced 30 of its medical insurance claims reps with an AI system based on IBM’s Watson Explore,  reports the Guardian. The software can “analyze and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio, and video” better and faster than a human can, and can “drastically reduce” the time needed to calculate Fukoku Mutual’s payouts, according to a company representative.

Medical Staff

Watson is also being programmed to work in medicine, helping physicians diagnose diseases, evaluate patients, and prescribe treatments. Watson would tap into medical journals, textbooks, individual patients’ medical history, and other sources to make a truly informed diagnosis and treat the patient accordingly. With so much information at its disposal at any moment, Watson could be more knowledgeable and less prone to mistakes and oversights than people, making it an invaluable resource for any physician — and a major force for eliminating human workers.

Bank representatives

If first was the ATM that caused some jobs lost in the banking system, followed by the growth of the online and the mobile that made possible for the consumer to have a more hands-on approach to their bank, it appears that in the future it’s likely that many of the remaining human-based teller and representative banking jobs will be finished off by AI (artificial intelligence),  reports CNBC. AI won’t just be able to conduct cash transactions, it will be able to open accounts and process loans at a fraction of the cost and time it takes for human employees.

Financial Analysts

Once thought indispensable to a company, keen-eyed financial analysts could spot a trend before it happened, allowing institutions to adjust their portfolios and potentially make billions of dollars. But human financial analysts can no longer compete with artificially intelligent financial analysis software that can read and recognize trends in historic data to predict future market moves. It’s no wonder that financial analyst jobs could be the worst hit in the estimated  30% of banking sector jobs lost to AI in the next five to 10 years.

source: Express

Construction Workers

As seen in the last few years, manual labor jobs are highly under threat by automation. Robotic bricklayers will soon be introduced to construction sites that enable the machines to replace two to three human workers each,  reports Technology Review. SAM (Semi-Automated Mason) can lay up to 1,200 bricks a day, compared to the 300 to 500 a human can do. While a human is still required to work with SAM to complete the more nuanced tasks, the use of SAM reduces the need for the three other bricklayers it would take to do the same job. Other on-site construction jobs such as crane operators and bulldozer drivers can also expect to see their positions filled by AI-controlled machines in the next decade.

Professional drivers

Driverless cars are here, and they’re already being tested on public streets in a few U.S. states. They’re better than human drivers in just about every way: they don’t have blind spots, they don’t get sleepy, and they don’t get distracted and Google feels confident they can have autonomous vehicles on the road within five years. The availability of this new technology is going to revolutionize companies that depend on professional drivers.  Except in a few very challenging situations, autonomous vehicles will provide safer, cheaper, faster, and more reliable performance than humans.  That means no more cab, bus, or truck drivers.

Call Center Employees

Already, many of today’s telemarketers are not human. In some cases, as you’ve probably experienced, there’s nothing but a recording on the other end of the line. In other cases, you may get a sales call and have no idea that you’re actually speaking to a computer. Everything you say gets an appropriate response — the voice may even laugh. In some cases, there is a human being on the other side, and they’re just pressing buttons on a keyboard to walk you through a pre-recorded but highly interactive marketing pitch. Using soundboard-assisted calling — regardless of what it says about the state of human interaction — has the potential to make individual call center employees far more productive: in some cases, a single worker will run  two or even three calls at the same time.  In the not too distant future, computers will be able to man the phones by themselves.

Accountants

The software becomes easier and easier to use and more consumer-friendly than ever before. For startups and small businesses, automating their accounting needs is an attractive alternative to paying an expensive accountant. The transition from professional accountants to do-it-yourself software solutions like  Freshbooks and  TurboTax won’t happen overnight, and there are a number of situations where human accountants will still be preferred, but most organizations will be perfectly happy to automate it as much as possible. As a result, the demand for accountants will decrease dramatically across many industries in the coming years.

Real Estate Agents

source: The Register

Everything you could possibly want to know is right at your fingertips. Online services like  Trulia and  Zillow provide a comprehensive search of all available properties, and sites like  StreetAdvisor tell you everything you need to know about the neighborhood you’re considering. Real estate agents may have a conflict of interest when it comes to telling you about crime statistics and pollution levels, but you can get all of this information online, reliably and for free.