Three Important Technology Trends

It is good to take a good look at the trends in tech once a year. Because the developments are going very fast. Technology that was promising last year may now be obsolete. And what seemed hopeless a few months ago may now be possible in everyday life.  Change happens rapidly in the digital age. For example, in the past, we had to go to a physical smoke shop to buy bongs and vapes.  Now one can find a good online smoke shop that provides everything for us.  The same is true with banking, groceries.

Here we list three of the most important trends that we see for you:

Test automation: there is no room for manual testing
Do you want to speed up your time-to-market by releasing new functionalities at a fast pace? Then engineers build a so-called “continuous delivery pipeline”. A deployment technique in which both the deployment of (cloud) infrastructure and software, as well as all necessary tests are automated. After all, manual operations give a higher chance of errors and frustrate lead times. Interesting and highly relevant are new developments for testing visual changes largely automatically. An example of this is Argus Eyes. This tool maps visual differences of two application versions early so that you can quickly assess whether changes are desired or not.

Internet Of Things: 25 billion connected devices in 2020
Wireless – low energy standards ensure that more and more devices are connected to the internet, the internet of everything. New applications are increasingly finding their way. For example, Ikea recently introduced a smart LED lamp based on the Zigbee wireless standard. We also see plenty of interesting developments on the network side. KPN recently launched LoRa (Long Range Low Power), a nationwide network for IoT applications. Sensors can exchange data via this network with extremely low power consumption. The downside of this is the limited amount of data, but that is not a major issue for IoT applications. These developments ensure that companies are better able to deliver value. Thanks to real-time sensor data and machine learning, for example, industries can optimize their maintenance processes.

But also closer to home we see IoT in home automation applications, integrations are becoming easier. For example, the Amazon Echo voice interface can now be connected to a multitude of devices. From your chair, for example, you can use your voice thermostat to control your smart thermostat or order a pizza. Moreover, thanks to IoT applications, companies can get to know their customers better and adjust their services accordingly.

With the IoT development, Ubiquitous Computing seems to be a step closer. Ubiquitous Computing is a scientific concept where computing is present everywhere, everyday devices and objects become “smart” and are able to communicate via the internet and users.

Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality: technology is becoming mainstream
Several Pokémon Go hotspots have been installed in the Kijkduin beach district in The Hague. The municipality of The Hague takes developer Niantic to court for the alleged nuisance caused by players of the mobile augmented reality game. A nice proof of the adoption and maturity of Augmented Reality, where overlays are projected over the visible (real) world. Thanks to Pokémon, AR has become mainstream. The technology is not particularly new: Layar was a precursor, but never really broke through. Inspired by the success of Pokémon, new applications will soon be released.

The development of technology is increasingly rapid and we do not know whether a time machine is impossible for several decades.