Technology

The evolving human need has opened the door for technology. In the modern world, everything including our daily house works, office routines, and the way we travel, meet people, etc, centers on disruptive trends. As technology gets more sophisticated, people also feel the ease of giving away labor-intensive and time-consuming jobs to machines. While humankind was already inviting technology trends into their personal space, the breakout of Covid-19 and the lockdown has accelerated the initiative. Besides, office premises are also powered by disruptive trends that are leveraging more time for human employees to engage in intellectual works. Remarkably, the trailblazing innovations of 2020 are also entering 2021 now. Technologies of 2021 are not just leveraging more ideas and opportunities, but they are also planting a foundation stone to the years beyond. IndustryWired has listed the top 10 technology trends that tech enthusiasts can look out for in 2021 and beyond. 

Cloud computing has surged the need for edge computing

Initially, after the pandemic broke out and transformed work from home as the main medium of working, companies started shifting their routine tasks to cloud computing. Cloud computing platforms like AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform were dominating the remote workspace. 

Unfortunately, even after one year of working from home, the business organizations are unable to call the employees back. Some of them are planning to extend the mode of working for a long time. Owing to all the developments, the increasing use of cloud computing has birthed edge computing. Unfortunately, the inflow of data during remote working has limbed cloud computing from operating without disruption. Therefore, companies are employing edge computing to help solve some of the data problems and provide solutions at the closest possible place. Organizations no more need to take data all the way to the data center for analysis. Edge computing can do it near the device where the data is generated and provide quick solutions. 

From machine learning to MLOps

The influence of technology and its benefits have opened the door for many companies, including non-tech companies to employ disruptive technologies at every end. On a positive note, organizations are getting big profits by implying technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics. Remarkably, machine learning models are seeing high adoption. 

But the truth be said, the machine learning models are not easy to install and maintain. They cause delivery management problems and push the company towards a more critical spot. A survey conducted by Deloitte unraveled that ML model delivery continued to be slow and 22% of business decision-makers state that it takes between 1 and 3 months to deploy a machine learning model into production. Henceforth, instead of machine learning, companies are moving to Machine Learning Operations (MLOps). By employing MLOps, organizations are able to maintain the quality and efficiency of their deliverables.

5G is finally reaching mainstream

5G was a long-awaited technology. The hype that telecom providers create for 5G is no joke. Unfortunately, 5G took longer to reach mainstream than how anybody expected. The unraveling of 5G started in 2020. The technology saw high adoption only in 2021, thanks to the continuing remote works and the need for faster internet. 

Following the IoT adoption, about 51% of companies were experiencing improved insights into customer needs, behaviours, and performance. Not just offices, even factories, and manufacturing houses were started partly functioning through remote modes using IoT devices. Instead of visiting the factory floors, supervisors overviewed them through live videos and updates. This accelerated the need for an undisrupted means of network like 5G. All these contributed to the dramatic spike in 5G adoption.

The importance of IoB intensifies

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, no one really cared about behavioral changes. The companies were following the routine of collecting data, analyzing them, and unraveling relative products that best serve customers’ needs. But the lockdowns and suppression of humans in enclosed spaces have changed the direction of tailwind. 

Now, the data that companies collected before the pandemic can’t be used due to change in people’s behavior. This has paved the way for the emergence of the ‘Internet of Behaviour (IoB).’ IoB gathers, combines, and processes data from many sources including commercial customer data, citizen data processed by the public sector and government agencies, social media, public domain deployment of facial recognition, and location tracking. As businesses realized the importance to shift to an updated mode where they can fulfill consumers’ needs, they too started implying it into their core system.

Augmented reality is invading diverse industries

2021 saw a lot of developments in augmented and virtual reality. Human augmentation is a broad term that encompasses innovations that seek to improve human abilities and productivity. Today, augmented reality is laying footprints in healthcare through prosthetics, AR lenses used in surgeries, RFID tags infused inside humans, etc. Besides, AR is being highly used in shopping services to implement touchless shopping. For example, with the help of AR mirrors, customers can pick their choice of dress without using the trail room.