Walking into an electronics store to touch and feel all the gizmos and gadgets you can add to your collection has many of us feeling like kids in a candy store, but do we really need all these things that are sold to us? These days we endeavour to use one piece of technology, which is the internet, to save time and money shopping of other pieces of tech, so you don’t even need to leave your house for all those gizmos and gadgets you want to arrive at your door.
The question however, remains that of whether or not we really need all these things which are classified as technology. For starters, consumerism culture seems to have made us narrow our definition of what technology is to clever little electronic toys as well as the software that runs those toys. If you were to scour the web or watch the tech section of a televised news piece, chances are they’d be discussing something like the latest app to hit the app stores or perhaps even a new digital platform which effectively disrupts the market it seeks to get its own slice of.
Let’s shift the discussion to what the real meaning of technology is though, so that we beat out a clearer path to spotlighting that technology that will actually do what technology is meant to do – improve our lives!
What is technology?
The most concise definition of what technology is I could find is: “The practical application of science to commerce or industry.”
In many respects, art is a science as well, so I’d include art in this definition and transcend it to technology being “The discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems.”
Now obviously the outcome of that is manifested mostly through physical tech items such as smartphones, cars which are evolving into smart cars, computers, etc. If, however, we include the broader scope of what technology is in its true essence, technology extends way beyond the physical manifestation of devices and machinery.
It is the fuel that runs the engine of humanity. It drives change, improves different processes, simplifies tasks, and makes things easier. And as we progressed through time, technology as an application brought about the changes necessary to bring us where we’re at now, ranging from advanced applications of AI to modifications to anything that can be termed as a machine.
Take healthcare for example; with the advancement in medicine and the introduction of modern medical practices, technology has helped increase the life expectancy of the average human being and developed solutions for a multitude of diseases, ailments and health issues. Likewise, it has helped improve home care agency communication and collaboration which has, in turn, helped streamline and optimize the different processes involved in home care organizations.
If we are to list down where you see the applications of technology, you would likely find it endless, because it is woven into the very fabric of the modern world. With it, we, as humans, are able to drive changes to not just our species, but others as well.
Re-inventing the wheel
It doesn’t help anybody to effectively seek to re-invent the wheel through something like discussing the albeit real technological applications of something like a peg though, so we we’ll turn our focus onto some of the tech which is likely to influence major buying decisions as a proposed set of solutions to the “problems” we face in this day and age.
That said, the Goldcast attendee management solutions, rooms (you can see this here), and event management software could be some of the best examples of technology as they can influence major buying decisions and help businesses and entrepreneurs to hit the road to success. These solutions can permit seamless attendee registration, allow small groups to communicate privately during the event, and ensure that the event is hosted without hassle.
Besides this, the Internet of Things (IoT) comes to mind as perhaps a practical application of another piece of tech that’s undergoing rapid development, which is of course Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI perhaps encompasses deep learning too, but what we’re getting at here is that the technology that will improve your life in the years to come is that technology which makes your daily life easier and fits into your lifestyle to free you up to pursue other elements of your life, like catering to your health, up-skilling yourself for some career advancement, etc.
One technological advancement on the horizon is the driverless car. That horizon is approaching rapidly, however, with hundreds, if not thousands, of tech engineers across the globe working to turn science fiction into reality. Fully driverless cars are already on the road in the US and UK where trials have been taking place, and whilst we might still be a way of them going mainstream, many new cars have autonomous capabilities, such as parking assistance and lane departure systems that park your car for you and help you to stay in lane. You can see here to see what Torc, an autonomous vehicle tech company, is doing to develop its own technology for use in driverless cars.
Another interesting fact about IoT is that for devices like autonomous vehicles to work efficiently, they are required to have a continuous exchange of data from the main data center. Without seamless connectivity to the source of data, a self-driving car would not be able to make real-time decisions like parking or dodging an accident. However, since data centers are located in one physical location, it can be difficult for every IoT device to be able to exchange huge amounts of data without being affected by increased bandwidth or latency. This is why Edge Computing is necessary. According to the concept, local data servers can be placed within the vicinity of different IoT devices, acting as the initial pitstop for data to be collected and analyzed. These data servers, connected to the main data center, can provide enough data to devices to let them make real-time decisions without experiencing any delay in response time. If you want to learn more about the need for edge computing with respect to autonomous cars and other such devices, you can do so by heading to vantiq.com/what-is-edge-computing/ or similar websites.
Whilst self-driving cars are real, albeit still in development, think about other things that haven’t even been developed yet. In the future, you could quite easily get a blood sample analysed by a microchip that is connected to your smart fridge and your online shopping account to perhaps have a drone deliver foods to your door that are rich in the specific nutrients you might be deficient in. It’s only a matter of time!
