TECH SPECIAL................. 10 IMPORTANT TECH TRENDS FOR 2016

10 IMPORTANT TECH TRENDS FOR 2016   The future is all about software rather than the hardware it powers. Here's how software will change your life in 2016 Forget drones, FinTech and (especially) apps that claim to be 'digitally disruptive'. The big tech trends that will have a sig nificant impact in 2016 and beyond range from machine learning and neuromorphic computing architectures to a growth in sensory and contextual information and  more ambient user experiences. Could 2016 be the tipping point when the physical and virtual worlds finally merge? INFORMATION OF EVERYTHING It's chaos out there. Smart devices of all kinds are producing and sending  text, audio, video, sensory and contextual information. “The Information of Everything addresses this influx with strategies and  technologies to link data from all these different data sources,“ say analysts at IT research company Gartner. Whether you call it the Internet of Things, the Internet of Data or the Information of Everything, we know one thing 2016 will produce more and more big data. It's what we do with it that could change. THE DEVICE MESH The smartphone is just the start.The era of the device mesh means accessing information and apps via all kinds of devices, from phones, watches and wearables to smart TVs, sensors in homes and even the dashboard in a car. “The device mesh is innately part of the Internet of Things ...even apps like Waze are part of this trend, turning cars into live traffic data,“ says Mike Crooks, Head of Innovation at Mubaloo Innovation Lab.  “The device mesh is the trend of moving to the interconnected ideal of the Internet of Things.“ 3D PRINTING As the materials that can be 3D printed increase, so do the practical applications for 3D printers, with aerospace, medical, automotive, energy and the military all destined to benefit. “Open hardware and democratised production methods like 3D printing can be seen as ushering in a third industrial age,“ says Dr Kevin Curran, Technical Expert at the IEEE, who sees food printing as the imminent trend for 2016.ChefJet can print in chocolate and sugar, Choc Edge creates on 2D3D chocolate decorations, ChocoByte prints custom 3D solid chocolate bars, and Natural Machines' Foodini can print pasta and pizza. A major research area is bioprinting, where food is printed dot by dot to build up edible meals. The mission is to eliminate the production chain for food. AMBIENT USER EXPERIENCES Here we're talking about a longterm future of immersive environments with augmented and virtual reality, but for now it's about continuity between devices and location. Mobile is becoming more about short, fast interactions with minimal user input. “It's different from the simple  sensor-based apps on smartphones today,“ says Curran. “Instead of the user having to go and look for something like hotels, the device would  already know what kind of hotel they are looking for based on what hotels they have picked in the past.“ Context comes from both human and physical elements the former is emotional state, habits, interests, etc, while the latter is the user's positions, light, pressure, noise, etc. ADVANCED MACHINE LEARNING In advanced machine learning, computers automate data processing by learning and adapting. The end result is artificial intelligence. Handling complex datasets requires deep neural nets (DNNs) that allow computers to both act autonomously and perceive the world on their own. “DNNs enable hardware or software-based machines to learn for themselves all the features in their environment, from the finest details to broad sweeping abstract classes of content,“ says Gartner. VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS Hardware is dead it's software that's increasingly the agent of change, so think of virtual personal assistants as the future faces of tech. Google Now, Cortana, Alexa and Siri are just the beginning. “Over the next five years we will evolve to a post-app world with intelligent agents delivering dynamic and contextual actions and  interfaces,“ says David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “IT leaders should explore how they can use autonomous things and agents to augment human activity and free people for work that only people can do. However, they must recognise that smart agents and  things are a long-term phenomenon that will continually expand their uses for the next 20 years.“ ADAPTIVE SECURITY ARCHITECTURE With more digital businesses come more hackers, and with the birth of a new threat landscape we're seeing the death of antivirus software.  “The Volatile Cedar malware takes great strides to remain under the  radar of leading antivirus solutions,“ says Curran. As well as a 'stealth mode' where it lies dormant to evade detection, Volatile Cedar is capable of sophisticated monitoring of system processes  as well as a custom-built remote access Trojan. BLUETOOTH BEACONS Bluetooth-powered beacons AKA 'lighthouses' are now being installed in shopping malls, museums, hotels, air ports and even offices that can track the exact loca tion of a smartphone or smartwatch wearer, and send them real-time noti fications. So far it's been rather lamely talked up as a way of texting vouchers to passing shoppers, but beyond mobile commerce the spread of intelligent, wireless Bluetooth beacon hardware also means indoor mapping and more. Think notifications of gate changes and train delays at airports and train stations, handsfree payments, and multi-room music that follows you around. IOT PLATFORMS Not a day goes by without some company stating that it's the best platform  for the Internet of Things, but IoT devices will have an increasing need for management, security and integration. “IoT platforms constitute the work IT does behind the scenes from an architectural and a technology standpoint to make the IoT a reality,“ says Gartner. ADVANCED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE With the digital mesh and smart machines about to go ballistic, enter the latest powerplay ­ ultraefficient neuromorphic architectures underpinned by field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which will allow computers to run at speeds of over a teraflop. “Systems built on GPUs and FPGAs will function more like human brains that are particularly suited to be applied to deep learning and other pattern-matching algorithms that smart machines use,“ says Cearley. The result? Advanced machine learning will be present anywhere that Internet of Things devices hang out, such as in homes, in cars, on wristwatches... and even in humans.

Jamie Carter

MM23NOV15