Technology is forcing changes upon us faster and faster with the result that we barely remember the world we used to live in a mere short time ago. Although this frenetic pace is certainly bringing great challenges in how we deal with each other, our planet and ourselves, there is little chance of stopping the course we are on. For those who follow technology and its impact on all of us, like Haris Ahmed, the plan should be to both understand technology and control it so that it does not control us. What are the big things that will being the most potential benefit and cause the most change? Here are a few that are on their way to becoming parts of our daily lives.
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Wired Cities
Most people in the world today are aggregated in large cities and this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. As cities become more and more overpopulated, and the need for each to provide more and more services to its, residents becomes a reality, their inefficiency is revealed. This is why there is a growing trend toward smart cities. A smart city will integrate multiple solutions to the challenges inherent in a city. These technologies include: information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of things (IoT) solutions that work in concert to manage a city’s assets. The solutions will be secure and functional and become integrated into the major and minor processes of the city’s operations. On a practical level, a smart city will be able to directly manage all functions and information systems at waste management, law enforcement, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, and other city services.
There will be a net of technology thrown over all of these services allowing for direct monitoring of everything from scheduling services, to turning on and off lighting, to billing and budgeting to allocation and redistributing resources to each of these departments on the fly. The result will be a vast improvement to improve in the quality of life for city dwellers and efficiency and effectiveness is vastly increased. Many elements of smart cities have already been adopted, with things like traffic lighting that changes based on traffic conditions and trains that automatically adding additional cars when more riders travel being implemented in some cities. But there is not yet a fully functional smart city. Some think it will emerge out of Asia, perhaps in a country like Singapore because it is so organized. Others feel that the US city of San Francisco with its strong tech base will be the first. Others point to places like Helsinki because of the ease with which new initiatives can be pushed through government. Whatever guess is correct, what is sure is that there will be many cites that quickly follow close behind eventually leading all cities to become smart cities.
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Autonomous Vehicles
We take for granted today that when we reach a certain age we will have to learn how to drive all of the rules of the road. But this will probably not be the reality in 50 years because of autonomous cars. Fifty years from now human occupants in a car will all be passengers and will only opt to drive if they want to entertain themselves, because cars will do it so much more efficiently than a human ever could. This new world will men safer roads and less accidents and deaths from motor vehicle accidents. Currently the first few autonomous vehicles are being tested and the results have been extremely encouraging. There is no doubt that we are speeding quickly toward and autonomous car filled world.
Where you live and work and how you travel sit at the apex of how we spend our lives today. This is why these technologies will become so important tomorrow.