7 technologies that will define 2020

1.5G

The fifth generation of mobile communications offers higher bandwidth than 4G. This will allow us to upload and download files faster and the connection will become more stable. Going forward, 5G will also enable automated systems, robots and autonomous vehicles to collect and transmit more data. This will help the development of the Internet of Things.

Testing of the standard has been underway since the mid-2010s, but it is still far from full coverage of 5G networks. Bernard Marr, a futuristic writer and strategic business and technology consultant, expects 5G to really start flying in 2020, with mobile operators offering affordable data plans that support the new standard.

In Russia, the prospects for technology are still dim. Until 2024, it is planned to spend 244 billion rubles on its development.

2. Unmanned vehicles

In 2020, we will not be able to fully trust autonomous driving, but the field of autonomous driving will actively develop.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that it will be in 2020 that the company will create the first "finished" self-driving car, and systems like automatic braking and lane change will become more common. Also, we will increasingly hear about the self-driving taxi, which is proving its applicability in developed cities. For example, Google Waymo transported 6,200 passengers in autonomous vehicles in 2019 as part of an experiment.

Along with news of success, we will also hear about new laws governing self-driving. There will also be a lot of debate going beyond the realm of technology and related, for example, to the future employment of taxi drivers.

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Service

Bernard Marr, in his book Artificial Intelligence in Practice, said that companies are already exploring how to use AI to improve service and optimize business processes. This trend will continue next year.

However, developing their own systems will not be affordable for most organizations. Therefore, they will have to turn to platform providers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

AI systems are not universal and are not always suitable for the specific tasks of different companies. In 2020, we will see new AI service providers likely to make more specialized offerings for businesses.

4. Personalized medicine

More and more people are using wearable devices that collect data on heart rate, sleep quality, and even do an EKG. Using this information, according to Bernard Marr, will have an impact on the health sector: we will be able to predict, diagnose and treat diseases even before serious symptoms appear.

The author also relies on an individual approach to patients. Individuals carry illnesses and respond to drugs in different ways, so effective treatment must be personalized in the first place.

This is not a new idea: it is already being used in the creation of a cancer vaccine. Scientists at the BioNTech startup are developing an individual drug for each patient, based on data on the mutation of cancer cells. It can be an alternative to chemotherapy.

5. Computer identification

Systems are being actively developed that can recognize objects, places or people from images obtained from cameras or sensors. Similar algorithms are used in smartphones with face identification or Google image search.

In 2020, technologies with computer vision will be used more and more often. For example, Yandex. Taxi is already testing a camera that checks the driver's condition, and at Dubai Airport they use a face recognition sensor to check passengers faster. Sensor-based identification will be implemented in self-driving cars to detect hazards, on production lines, it will help track defective products, and in the city - to track incidents.

Along with the arrival of such systems in our lives, the number of disputes about this technology, in particular about the confidentiality and security of the observed data, will increase.

6. Augmented reality

Augmented reality (XR) refers to virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Virtual provides a full immersive experience when we enter an artificially created world using special headsets. Augmented reality adds virtual objects to the space when we look through the smartphone screen. In mixed, we can not only see, but also interact with virtual objects, such as a holographic piano.

Today these technologies are mainly used in the entertainment industry: we've already heard about the Oculus Rift and Vive headsets, we've seen virtual objects in Snapchat filters and Pokemon Go gameplay. In 2020, everything may change: companies are beginning to understand what opportunities augmented reality technologies provide when interacting with customers, and modeling of the virtual world is becoming more accessible.

Apple can make a big contribution to the development of augmented reality. Bloomberg reports that the company will introduce augmented reality glasses in 2020.

7. Blockchain

Blockchain technologies have been predicting a great future for several years now, but there are a couple of reasons to say that they will enter our everyday life in 2020. This year, it is planned to launch two projects at once, designed to change the approach to payment and money transfer. These are Libra from Mark Zuckerberg and Gram from Pavel Durov. With their help, it will be possible to perform financial transactions directly through the messenger.