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Danny Whitehouse, editor at Into Forward, looks towards the future to see how technology will evolve and impact our lives.
There is one question that pops in the minds of so many people. What will the future look like? While it is hard to predict what will truly happen, it is somewhat fun to make assumptions, taking the way things are now and how that will affect the future.
We have continuously developed and improved so that things that were considered to be science fiction a couple of decades ago are now a reality today. This shows us that nothing is impossible after all because the world has brilliant minds that turn things into reality.
How might things be looking in the future? Let’s have a look at the top 5 tech trend predictions.
1. Shifting towards improving lives than gadgets
You are probably very used to being very close to your smartphone all day long, downloading and using apps, reading the news on the Internet, watching movies and listening to music.
There is a large part of this world that has never seen a smartphone, not knowing what a mobile app is. In fact, in these areas of the world, the quality of life (by comparison) is low due to the lack of electricity, proper medical services and generally a poor or emerging economy. But due to the development of solar panels and LED light, together with the use of mobile technology, things will start to change in the underdeveloped countries.
In Africa, for example, entrepreneurs are attracted by the possibilities of creating new business, fuelled by the innovations in the financial sector.
Practically speaking technology is being developed and is on the rise in poorer countries and emerging economies.
2. Cleaner energy
As mentioned before, we are interested in having a cleaner air and water, which means that we should do whatever we can to use sustainable power sources.
Solar energy is one such power source being already widely exploited around the world, both by businesses and homeowners. The demand for this type of energy will only mean one thing, which is even cheaper solar energy.
The efforts for stopping climate change and air pollution are driven in the private sector by finding more affordable raw materials for creating solar panels, which will make renewable energy more affordable and efficient at an industrial and manufacturing level.
We can only hope this goal is achieved to keep the sky blue and be free of thick pollution that will prevent a disaster of global proportions.
3. Healthcare influenced by analytics
Information is extremely important to all in this day and age including analytics that is proving to be of great help when trying to make predictive scenarios for healthcare.
It’s assisted by the private sector with innovations slowly moving over to healthcare. With the help of large data packages and the ability to perform analytics in no time is enabling healthcare providers to be able to come up with customised and more efficient treatments for their patients.
Not only information about our health is collected but this new method will also include data about the environment, genetics, behaviours, and others, making the results being more accurate and complex.
4. Organs are about to be printed
The constant crisis for organ donors is driving innovation. 3D printing is already available, for creating lifeless objects, but printing organs is not that far off.
The ink used is bio-ink that can actually created cells, which can eventually produce living tissue inside a lab. There is hope that the tissues will be used with more success for testing drugs instead of traditional animal testing, which is considered cruel by so many people.
But scientists dare to think even further, already picturing the possibility to print real-life human organs, which may save lives.
5. Wastewater will end up on the valuable resources list
Polluted water and scarce clean water are both major issues in many countries around the world. It is believed that the present infrastructure that distributes water and treats the waste is not up to the strong enough to cope with the challenge therefore creating pollution problems instead of solving them. The challenge in the coming years is to find a solution to these problems.
A key point is the development of technology will be to produce energy out of wastewater while providing clean and reliable water to everyone. So instead of being an inconvenience, wastewater will become an important resource. And clean water, which is considered to be a rather scarce resource, will be available out of abundance being a part of a cleaner environment.
Such a solution will not only solve the issue of providing water but also cut the costs of managing wastewater, costs that currently are very high indeed.
Danny Whitehouse is the editor of Into Forward
www.intoforward.com
