Epilogue. Examples of Digital Trends Accelerating the Digital Revolution

There are a number of great science fiction authors who always write, quite accurately, about the future of technology, decades—or even centuries—before it appeared. Call them visionaries or modern-day prophets, but they have an eerie knack for envisioning the future of technology. They’ve done a remarkable job of predicting where the Internet and various technologies are going to go.

Jules Verne may have missed the total picture when he wrote about ships being shot out of cannons going to the moon but he was writing about space travel in 1865. Then there was Isaac Asimov who is credited with introducing the word “robotics” into the English language. He served as a scientific consultant for “Star Trek” and was sought after by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which he refused to work with for fear that his work with them would be restricted under a governmental secrecy clause that would forgo his being able to write his science fiction stories. Next, consider Rudyard Kipling’s 1905 short story, “With the Night Mail,” was written only 2 years after the Wright Brothers succeeded in their first short flight, yet Kipling’s story described airplanes delivering packages around the world.

Finally, there is Neal Stephenson whose books envisioned a world where everyone was coexisting vis-á-vis avatars in a digital world. His 1995 novel, “The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer”, introduced many of today’s real-world technological discoveries. The novel introduced extensive modern technologies, from robotics, cybernetics, and cyber cities to weapons implanted in characters’ skulls. His next novel, Cryptonomicon, written in 1999, focused on codebreaking and cryptography as well as a data haven—something we call “the cloud”—15 years later.

Whether you look to science fiction, or follow the futuristic practices of the gaming industry, or any of the dozens of trendspotting websites, like trendhunter.com, it is possible to catch a glimpse of the future, or a strong probability of what the future could become.

We already know, based on the past, that digital as it continues to evolve will eliminate, redefine, and even do away with some existing jobs. At the same time, these revolutionary changes brought about by digital technology will create more jobs, and better paying opportunities across the employment strata. Just as Henry Ford’s cars ultimately eliminated the existing demand for stable hands, it created new jobs for mechanics, engineers, and repairmen. We are better able to predict the future than the great science fiction authors of our time, but, we are eager to share with you the top ten trends we see emerging over the next decade. Paying close attention to these trends will help your organization get ahead of the curve to realize the benefits of early adoption when you apply them to digital endeavors.

Known as “smart factories,” industrial centers of production are using the IoT to manage factory activity. Through the use of purely machine-to-machine communication, and requiring no human intervention, these networks of objects collect and analyze data about factory activity and automatically make changes to maximize efficiency. The systems identify “dead time” and change the order or duration of certain aspects of the production process, prevent raw materials from being wasted, and detect product bugs before they’re reproduced. In short, they change in the way that factories behave and manufacture.

For example, the rise of wearable technologies like the Apple Watch represents the IoT’s best opportunity to access data directly from consumers. A device that’s strapped directly to a person’s wrist should be able to track his or her needs in a way that’s more efficient than devices like smartphones or tablets, just by virtue of the fact that the device is always within reach. What’s more, these devices could be tracking information that’s literally vital: a user’s heart rate. With companies like Fitbit offering watches that track your heart’s BPM, your location, and the number of steps you’ve taken in a day, there are some pretty exciting implications for what wearables and the IoT could do for the healthcare industry. Giving whole networks access to data like this could alert physicians when their patients have a pending heart attack or stroke, for example, ensuring that they’ll never be alone if disaster strikes.

For retail businesses, the IoT’s potential value is in minimizing risk. If you’re operating a brick and mortar location, machine-to-machine communication can do that by systemizing every aspect of the sales process and collecting data that could be used to improve them. For example, a company like Payless could place a digital signature on each pair of shoes it sells that’s only activated if the purchaser returns it. This gives Payless more information about what shoes people are returning and why, thus helping them reduce the risk of more returns in the future. But this also applies to strictly online retailers. A company like Amazon might use it to add value to the supply chain by monitoring data storage warehouses. If their systems’ capacities are being pushed to the limit and overheating, sensors in those warehouses could be automatically alerted. Those temperature sensors could then activate the facility’s fans, keeping the processors cool and ensuring that the company’s services don’t crash at vital moments.

A new generation of sensors that can measure moisture in the air gives Southwest’s airline better data than the U.S. government’s twice-a-day weather balloon system. While dozens of other airlines were canceling Thanksgiving flights based on the U.S. government’s weather reports one year, Southwest kept their planes flying. Based on readings from 87 of their sensor equipped planes, Southwest’s chief meteorologist said conditions were too warm to produce the ice storms the government service was predicting. Southwest was right. Late flights cost airlines as much as $8 billion a year, so every advantage counts.¹ Sensors are now saving airlines millions of dollars in detecting the need, or not, to de-ice planes, or to ground or fly them based on weather conditions.

¹ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-19/airliners-become-weathermen-as-sensors-upend-forecasting

While most companies today are still struggling to understand and implement digital transformation, companies that are already well on their way to digital maturity will be light years ahead of their non-digital competitors once they implement IoT into their strategies. As big as consumer IoT (connected cars, smart homes, wearables, etc.) is, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will create new and more complex jobs and industries, and ultimately dwarf the consumer side of business with its socioeconomic impacts.² The number of sensors (a critical part of IoT) shipped has increased more than five times from 4.2 billion in 2012 to 23.6 billion in 2014,³ signaling the changes about to occur. The IIoT could impact more businesses than the Industrial Revolution, dramatically altering every possible sector of the economy, from manufacturing, energy, transportation, and agriculture to every niche of the current industrial sector.⁴ You might be using some aspects of the IoT today, but is it providing you all the value it could be? Is your value chain prepared for the massive shifts that the IoT will bring to the world of digital service?

² http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_IndustrialInternet_Report2015.pdf

³ http://blogs.cisco.com/ioe/the-internet-of-things-capturing-the-accelerated-opportunity

⁴ https://www.accenture.com/us-en/technology-labs-insight-industrial-internet-of-things.aspx

IoT also extends to pay-per-use models. For example, we could see insurance companies creating apps that allow drivers to purchase pay-as-you drive insurance for their automobiles.⁵

⁵ http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2867917

Big data visualization helps you effectively communicate your most important findings so that your executives and customers spend less time trying to piece together the big picture and more time deriving insights and taking action.

The goal with big data visualization is to integrate it into analytics tools. This will enable multiple users to better interpret the data. It will also give them better predictive capabilities. Tools can include social media, videos, and so on.⁶ The challenge will be to make these simple, self-service tools that can be used whenever needed.

⁶ http://www.slideshare.net/HorizonWatching/data-visualization-horizon-watch-2015-trend-report-client-version-28jan2015

Additionally, data visualization done well with customers will foster a more intimate business-consumer relationship. The more digital engagement you foster, the more you can learn about your, creating a feedback loop that will continue to inform your strategies for both content marketing and data analytics.

Future trends in this area will look like real-time, app-centric reporting that enables users to make better decisions faster.

Streaming media has impacted more than one company and more than one industry in the last decade—proving to be the powerful lever Netflix used to unseat Blockbusters, and that Spotify and other streaming music services provide as an alternative to downloadable music.

Having transformed the music industry once, with iTunes, Apple recently launched streaming music service, Apple Music, will attempt to differentiate itself from Spotify and other services by having playlists chosen by people rather than algorithms and technology that makes it easier to search for songs. Apple’s not one to let unknown music makers escape. They’ll also be following SoundCloud’s lead, seeking out unsigned acts in order to promote their music to music-lovers. The new, 24-hour radio station, “Beats One,” is hoping to attract its already huge fan base to yet one more big Apple service.⁷

⁷ http://www.economist.com/news/business/21654090-having-transformed-music-business-once-apple-trying-do-so-again-second-revolution#4j7huq73BXKv3fDW.99

Meanwhile, Hulu.com has changed how people watch the television, Netflix streaming has changed how people “rent” movies, Kindle Unlimited is changing how people “take out” books from the library, Google has changed how people “pick up” the news.

Having chest pain? The Heartcheck Pen, a handheld device which monitors heart rhythm and sends the results to your doctor for analysis, is now available for heart patients. Physicians must still interpret the results, but the Heartcheck Pen is the first of many more devices to come that will be able to monitor more heart and health conditions outside of a medical setting and send real-time results to your doctor’s office.

Telemedicine is already using high-tech cameras and diagnostic devices to connect with patients in rural areas, or to allow people traveling around the country or the world to phone home to their own doctors.

Smartphones and other appropriate apps and devices have already been cleared to monitor and diagnose a variety of health conditions from thyroid disorders to Malaria. Researchers in Jamaica are already using embedded sensors in smartphones to detect early symptoms of exercise-induced asthma—eliminating the need for external monitoring sensors attached to the body. Results can be sent to other mobile devices worn by caregivers and physicians.⁸

⁸ http://nuviun.com/content/digital-health-in-action—smartphones-turn-into-pointofcare-diagnostic-tools-for-mhealth#sthash.KxxSYHHg.dpuf

Neuroscreen is a smartphone app that monitors Neurocognitive Impairment (NCI) in HIV-infected patients. NCI has serious medical and functional consequences, but screening for it is not routine and the condition often goes undiagnosed. Now patients can monitor their own health and NCI detection in time to address it with their doctors.

The Scanadu is a smaller-than-a-hockey-puck device that measures your heart rate and body temperature, performs an ECG, measures your blood oxygen levels, and twelve different signals in your urine to help you monitor your health effectively. Doctors or technicians are needed only to interpret the data and prescribe treatment. Reminiscent of the “Tricorder” from Star Trek, the Scanadu and devices appear to be the beginning of a technology revolution of the medical profession.

The medical field is also exploding with robot technology that targets cancer. Medical trials using nano-robots in humans have already started on leukemia patients. These robots are actually devices made from DNA and are injected into a patient’s bloodstream with an ordinary medical syringe. The robot delivers a microscopic payload of drugs to kill cancer cells, repair spinal cord tissue, or seek out and alert your doctor to the presence of cancer cells before any other test can pick them up.⁹

⁹ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3000904/Nanorobots-trial-begin-humans-Microscopic-DNA-devices-injected-leukaemia-patient-bid-destroy-abnormal-cells.html

What industries should pay attention to this trend in Internet-based medicine? Manufacturers of home testing kits and devices that must have samples taken and snail mailed in for diagnosis could see major changes in their industry. Companies who require drug-testing, on-site could process tests faster, or companies who offer mobile testing at a company’s job site could expand their territory and offerings. Rural communities where people are often two to three hours away from a doctor’s office could use their smartphones to get better, faster, more affordable care.

¹⁰ http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21650593-banks-are-thinning-their-branch-networks-more-drastic-cuts-may-come-great?frsc=dg|a

More customers are dependent on ATMs, smartphones, and banking online than they are on visiting a brick and mortar bank to talk to an agent. If bankers decide to imitate Apple, by having a few flagship stores around a region, and use technology to issue loans, approve mortgages and answer investment questions and transfers, how will your company be affected?

From merchant-oriented businesses like Square and PayPal to tech giants dabbling in payment services like Google Wallet and Apple Pay, there’s increasing incentive for companies to offer money transfer services that exclude traditional banks entirely. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the too-big-to-fail banks on Wall Street are still facing blowback from consumers everywhere. This kind of reception had to be something that giants like Citibank and Bank of America expected—what they couldn’t have foreseen was the rise of the mobile payment system.

What started as a single, limited alternative to physical banking with PayPal has become a full-blown industry trend. Now that immensely familiar companies like Apple and Google are establishing direct relationships with customers over convenient, simple money transfers, what’s to keep the banking industry from falling out of favor with American consumers?

Many of these services, like PayPal, effectively replace the function that banks serve in customers’ lives. When you put money into accounts on these platforms, the money is left in that account and can be pulled back out from it — it’s never handed off to a bank at any point for safekeeping.

And it’s not just the business of hosting accounts that’s being taken over, but the business of lending as well. Online services like Prosper let people lend money and take out loans without ever removing money from its completely online payment vehicle.

With trust in banking institutions rapidly declining and a youthful population that’s more than comfortable turning their money over to companies without big metal vaults, it’s hard not to see the threat this poses to the giants of Wall Street.

As BBVA’s recent purchase of the banking startup Simple suggests the banking and finance sector is finding ways to integrate FinTech into it’s traditional business.

The most important priority for companies in this industry should be enhancing and streamlining the consumer’s digital experience of their brand. The average bank customer is getting less dependent on physical branches, so your company should do the same.

If banks can’t assure that each of their clients will have just as easy of a time navigating their services from their homes as from one of their locations, they’re going to struggle in the coming years.

Elon Musk, the CEO and product architect for Tesla Motors, has announced that Tesla’s much-hyped autonomous car will be ready to hit the pavement around 2020. Tesla expects these cars will be 10 times safer than those operated by actual people. If this estimate proves accurate, then we’re talking about revolutionizing the way we get around every single day, a revolution Tesla will no doubt be driving front and center.

As simple as Musk makes it sound, however, there is no magic potion for a self-driving car, nor a simple process for making it a reality. Even once the necessarily amazing technology is fully developed and readily available, it will still take at least a few more years to overcome the inevitable legal obstacles. Someone needs to approve these driverless cars before we see them on the road. And that someone is inevitably the federal government. If competitors want even a puncher’s chance at staying in the game, companies need to invest now in both the technology and the talented developers necessary to keep up with the top-notch innovation going on over at Tesla.

Autonomous driving will not only be applicable to individuals driving but also to public transportation such as buses, taxis, trains. The benefits to traditional businesses are already being realized including examples of Australian mining companies where driverless trucks are already being used to move coal in their operations.

America has 3.5 million truck drivers who account for an average of 5,000 deaths a year, almost 100 percent due to driver error.¹¹ What’s not to like about that once the legal issues are resolved?

¹¹ http://zackkanter.com/2015/01/23/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-by-2025/

Few traditional automakers appear to be making moves towards the autonomous driving space which could leave them in a vulnerable position once driverless cars take off.¹² Autonomous driving will also have an impact on other traditional businesses tied to human driven cards, such as parking lots, automobile insurance, the automotive aftermarket, and autoparts stores as well as many forms of public transportation.

¹² http://zackkanter.com/2015/01/23/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-by-2025/

Until recently regulations and cost hampered the ownership of private drones. But regulations and the price of drones is changing. Predictions are that the number of private UAS owners will jump into the millions of owners range in less than a year, with various applications and disruptors to follow.

Look for personal drones to disrupt the real estate and property assessment markets, photography, and inspection of property and accident scenes, and agricultural markets. Drones will be able to spread pesticides, track escapees, look for lost, or missing persons and add law enforcement. Amazon is experimenting with drones for delivery of packages and the messenger bike services in large cities may also be impacted. Drug dealers are already using drones to cross the borders, but border patrols also use drones for monitoring such activity.¹³

¹³ http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/world/drug-drone-crashes-us-mexico-border/

¹⁴ http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-war-for-our-digital-future/

The interesting challenge with virtual reality will be how to offer users natural ways to interact with virtual worlds. Consumers will want to handle objects and perform tasks like pointing, touching, grabbing, changing options, selecting, and purchasing. Therefore, companies in this space will need to think about things like motion, gesture, gaze, and voice recognition which will play important roles of offering natural users engagements.

The new VR/AR platforms will allow companies to dream up new interaction paradigms for content presentation, commerce, entertainment, educational, productivity, customer service, social and collaborative applications. This exciting experiential-immersion factor also introduces new ways for companies to envision how they can present users with engaging user experiences without the glass barriers of the current screens (i.e., computer monitors, mobile and tablet screens). Companies can also think about new interactions to trigger stronger emotional connections and more successful results between consumers and brands.

Another virtual reality opportunity is the virtual retail shopping experience. Imagine shoppers will soon be able to walk through virtual stores, even pick up and examine merchandise, all from the comfort of their homes, and without having to stand in a line to check out. Knowledgeable clerks can even be available at the touch of a button to join the virtual walkthrough.

¹⁵ http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-war-for-our-digital-future/

Currently about 85 percent of customers find themselves unhappy and frustrated with their customer experiences connected to passwords. With customer services agents averaging one failed authentication every hour, a simple task turns the customer experience into an annoying, frustrating experience.

Enter voice biometrics (VB) and ballistocardiology. VB involves the identification of a person based on the unique characteristics of his or her voice and speech. Ballistocardiology is the study of the activity of the heart and the body’s movement. Such movement creates unique data and a biometric print that could be used as a unique password.

Both ballistocardiology and voiceprints are more distinctive than fingerprints, with more than 90 percent accuracy. Customers who experience a more positive interaction with a company because of VB are more likely to use self-service options again rather than turn to a live operator for assistance. Expect to see different kinds of biometrics used for everything from voter registration to ATM or bank withdrawals, to check-ins at work, airports, or for security purposes. “By 2017, passive biometric analysis will become a standard feature of at least 30 percent of one-stop fraud detection solutions - up from less than 1 percent today.” wrote Gartner analyst, Avivah Litan in Gartner’s Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection.¹⁶ This is definitely a trend to be watching.

¹⁶ https://www.gartner.com/doc/2756017/market-guide-online-fraud-detection

The common belief is that people resist paperless because it is the default option for so many people and organizations that grew up with it. Experts say paperless hasn’t fully taken hold because of a lack of rock-solid, secure technology—especially at the signature or date stamping layer. The technology must be able to date-stamp data and verifying its authenticity, something that has only recently become available in what is called Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) which allows for the security and verifiable signing and dating of financial, legal, and medical files.¹⁷

¹⁷ http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/dematerialization-with-disrupt-all-industries#axzz3hw2mriwO

It’s probably not going to be a law that will change our monetary system. More likely it will be the use of wearables, biometrics, and smartphone technology that turns our phones into electronic wallets that may hasten the demise of cash.

Acuity Market Intelligence (AMI) reports that mobile biometrics, with or without a mobile device or wearable, will generate $34.6 billion in annual revenue in 2020, significantly disrupting the global payment market by providing alternative means of securing and processing mobile transactions. Biometrics will lower both the risk and cost of payment processing. AMI projects biometrics will be used to authenticate nearly 65 percent of all m-Commerce (mobile commerce) transactions in 2020. This represents 126 billion biometric payment transactions generating more than $1.1 trillion in consumer mCommerce purchase value.

Banks take note. Biometric-based real-time risk assessment will also transform payment processing allowing consumers to withdraw funds directly from consumer bank and mobile money accounts via their mobile devices while enabling merchants to issue direct consumer credit on demand. This has the potential to totally disrupt traditional payment methods, such as credit and debit cards. Acuity forecasts that the total biometric transaction volume, including both payment and nonpayment transactions, will exceed 800 million annually by 2020 with 35 percent of these transactions authenticated via biometrics embedded in mobile devices and 65 percent via biometric apps downloaded by consumers.¹⁸

¹⁸ http://www.acuity-mi.com/

Philips, the large electronics manufacturer, has demonstrated a cordless food processor powered by a coil sunk into a counter, and other companies, like Starbucks and McDonalds, are already offering wireless charging for customers.¹⁹ Charging smartphones will be a major convenience for consumers; however, the opportunity for wireless power will have a dramatic impact at the industrial level.

¹⁹ http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21656134-electronics-has-already-cut-data-cord-can-it-now-cut-power-cord#c1wuOhKlJbWZQ3kZ.99

A commercial-grade wireless charging product capable of replacing the numerous wired power connections for sensors and monitors in sensitive facilities like oil and gas refineries is on the horizon.²⁰

²⁰ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/cota-by-ossia-wireless-power/

Wirelessly powered devices in commercial applications decrease fire and explosion risks by minimizing the number of potential opportunities there are for generating sparks. With fewer live cables lying around the workplace is safer. Wireless charging will disrupt the battery industry and potentially the power cord industry as wireless power, like Wi-Fi, can go through walls and around corners.²¹

²¹ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/cota-by-ossia-wireless-power/

While wireless charging will make mobile devices more reliable, the growth in Wi-Fi could be the perfect compliment to this trend. Smartphones aren’t going away, but cell towers might. A string of wireless startups are betting that over the next few years, mobile phones will switch to sending most calls, texts, and data via Wi-Fi hotspots, relegating the cellular network to being a mere backup. Once the 5G networks that can latch onto Wi-Fi roll out in the coming year, there’s likely to be more attention paid to Wi-Fi over cellular.²²

²² http://www.economist.com/news/business/21654602-wi-fi-first-technology-will-be-great-consumers-disruptive-mobile-firms-change#5GKeo7L9yrUYRqVg.99

Industrial robots, which have been replacing workers in manufacturing environments for years, are now starting to take an extreme foothold around the world. They are becoming more cost effective than ever, and as a result have experienced a dramatic increase in adoption worldwide by many manufacturers and distributors. They can also provide more sophisticated functionality than ever before—like picking and packing, and most recently sewing.

Until now sewing has been a uniquely human task, requiring hands and people to perform the surprisingly complex actions needed to sew two pieces of material together. It’s been impossible for machines to align, feed, and constantly adjust fabric to prevent it slipping and buckling, while all the time keeping the stitches neat and the thread at the right tension.²³

²³ http://www.economist.com/news/business/21654602-wi-fi-first-technology-will-be-great-consumers-disruptive-mobile-firms-change#5GKeo7L9yrUYRqVg.99

Enter the robotic sewing machine—changing how we produce clothing, but more importantly eliminating millions of jobs and thousands of sweatshops around the world. Nike is already using a machine that weaves polyester yarn into the shape of the upper part of its running shoes. It was just a matter of time before technology was devised to sew jeans, pants, shirts, and skirts.

Expect worldwide replacement of sweatshops, transportation, manufacturing, retail, and even in the design and fabrics industry as machines will be able to create intricate clothing designs that will push high-end fashion into the affordable range. New fabrics and combinations of fabrics that adapt better to sewing robots will disrupt the fashion industry.

There has also been a new generation of “collaborative” robots recently integrated into manufacturing facilities that work and train with humans on a daily basis. They can actually learn from their “human coworkers” by observing physical demonstrations of tasks.

Robotics may be the one of the ultimate manifestations of digital transformation. As robots become increasingly accepted in society they will contribute to the acceleration of digital transformation that occurs in our lives at work and at home. How far and how fast digital technology will change society, the economy, and the environment is still unknown, but as robotics, AI, big data, and the Internet continue to converge, be aware that nothing is impossible.

Technology will continue to evolve, and so will the things people will need and want. We will always want to be clothed, fed, sheltered, entertained, and connected. And technology will continue to advance to ensure that happens faster, cheaper, better, and with the most amazing customer experience possible. Remember, the Industrial Revolution began from a desire for something as simple as providing a way to make fabric faster and cheaper. We’re still finding ways to clothe ourselves faster and cheaper. Digital transformation and industrial revolutions are ultimately about people, not just technology. It takes technology to achieve the advances, but ultimately it all comes down to the consumer’s experience and your ability to provide the best experience ever. Are you ready to do that?