These days it’s hard to keep up with the emerging technologies as almost every day there’s a new thing invented that can change our lives. Some of them are already widely spread like smartphones and their voice assistants, or contactless payments, but some twenty years ago we could hardly imagine that it’s possible to work, entertain, shop, and communicate with one another without leaving our homes.
While innovations like Artificial intelligence or Machine Learning are already transforming all the industries, there are some technologies being in their infant stage of development or undergoing changes that still possess a big potential to transform our future.
So here we go with the top technologies that are not yet popular, so to say underrated, but are worth attention:
Autonomous driving
While this trend it’s developing at the moment, the autopilot modules have made great progress when it comes to safe driving. There are many videos on the Internet where it helps to avoid crashes prior to any signs of the upcoming incident. Along with developing sensitivity to process information coming from the environment and more accurate analysis of aspects like calculating the distance to other cars, or speed limit control, there are tools already available on the market like Samsara’s truck dash cams that helps autopilot driving can become even more secure. In the future, we can expect separate highways for autonomous cars, trucks, and even robo-taxi services that will help to optimize cargo and people transportations.
XR technologies
Extended reality more commonly known as XR embraces the inventions like Virtual Reality (VR) where users are isolated from the real world and can immerse into artificial world surroundings, Augmented reality, where the elements of the physical world are combined with the digital ones like holograms, and the Mixed reality where these two options are combined. Currently, the technology is associated mainly with the gaming industry, but in fact, it’s applicable not only for gamers but for other industries like education and marketing ( it’s especially valid taking into account the COVID-19 situation and inability of mass events), where their impact will be even more beneficial.
3D and 4D printing
Originally designed for manufacturing industries, where 3-dimensional models are built layer by layer with the help of software and printing machine, 3D printing significantly simplifies the prototyping, molding, and other machinery processes. Now the usage area started expanding to aerospace where it’s possible to build certain parts of spacecraft with 3D technology that allows building the huge monolith structures at once that compared to the separate components that need to be assembled. It also getting more widely used in medicine where it allows to recreate of parts of human bodies to сreate prostheses with a higher level of accuracy. 4D technology that is under the research now brings a huge potential as it adds one more dimension – time, that will make possible 3D objects to be self-transformed into some different ones depending on the temperature, light, and other circumstances.
6G
Already available 5G standard used by mobile networks is 100 times faster than its predecessor 4g. It’s getting common in many countries and is supported by the latest generation devices. Taking into account the demands in stable connection and coverage due to the spread of IoT and smart devices that need to exchange information, currently, 6G is under development. It’s projected to be released by 2030 for commercial use. It will facilitate internet access because the connection is even faster than for 5G reaching up to 1 terabyte per second.
Now the technologies we know from sci-fi movies and books are becoming our new reality, and we are no longer surprised by smart home systems, microprocessors, or voice assistants, thus there is every reason to believe that the future is even more unpredictable and exciting than we can imagine.
