Flexing to keep up: Shape-shifting technology drives big changes

Technology used to be part of our lives until the last decade. Now technology is our life. The decade that was will be remembered for the way technology took over our lives at a pace and manner that has left us gasping even as we thirst for more. 

Before 2010, the internet and mobile were used when we needed them. They were tools for search or connectivity. We found them useful. Now we are dependent on them. 

Work, leisure, relationships, travel, and business are infused with technology. 

Earlier technology enabled everything. Now technology drives it. Among the simplest but deepest of shifts has been our connection with glass. 

In the previous decade, glass was what it had been for centuries before. Now touching a sheet of glass connects and moves us. A touchscreen is the template of our life. It has helped us transcend limits of language and instruction. The touchscreen of an iPhone that was introduced in 2007 had begun to be imitated by other mobile companies. 

From 2010 onwards, a touchscreen has grown to become the most popular form of device interaction. 

The touchscreen is a symbol of the deep shift of the last decade. A suite of technologies, an enabling connectivity changed consumer behaviour and business models forever.   

Cloud and AI

Streaming videos and enterprise software to Internet of Things (IoT). Everything is running on cloud. Personal and enterprise computing moved from being locally stored to being run from remote servers. 

This enabled faster updates to computing devices — large and small — while triggering the app economy. From buying software patches on disks, upgrades were just a download away. This triggered the rise of wearable devices, which tracked health to virtual assistants you could speak to. Search moved from keyboard to voice. 

Behind this magic was the application of artificial intelligence (AI) that anticipated the needs of users. Process automation and IoT was hastened by the combination of cloud computing and AI. The burden of hardware moved to a remote location, while the responsibility of computing fell on quality of connectivity. The world moved from virus protection to cybersecurity. Connected devices and sensors brought AI-driven cybersecurity to each and every consumer.

4G for everything

None of the above would have been efficient, responsive or popular, with the omnipresence of 4G connectivity. Server farms that connect us to everything, instant searches for food and fashion, guides to travel and commute happen because of the megabits of data that zap through 4G mobile networks. Our impatience level with connectivity has reduced to a few seconds. A half a second delay in find direction on Google Maps triggers anger. Such is our dependence on 4G. Launched in the December of 2009, 4G sped across the world in the last 10 years, offering 10 times the speed of third-generation mobile connectivity. Phonemakers rapidly upgraded devices, while traditional business models were decimated as online commerce grew by leaps. From $1.3 trillion in 2014 to a projected figure of $6.5 trillion in 2023. 

4G helped millions of consumers across the world cut the cable as entertainment moved from satellite to streaming. Already the imminent launch of 5G is being anticipated as the next big change

. 

Sharing business

Connectivity created the sharing economy and the sharing society. Uber triggered it and then there was Uber of everything. Ridesharing became an industry by itself, while product and service aggregation has developed into a business model. 

Airbnb brought the next big shift by allowing people to share their homes. Millennials jumped in by preferring to share rather than own. Cars, furniture, homes, and even workspaces are now shared, not owned. WeWork brought busted the concept of cabin-filled offices by creating shared desks. In our social behaviour, sharing is omnipresent. 

The share Icon is an icon by itself. Any online offering without a sharing icon is incomplete. Sharing is not just about services but views, opinion, and ratings. This is driving services and customer engagement across virtually all consumer industries. 

Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and GoodReads allow the democratisation of reviews, moving it from experts to users. Every product and services now are ruled by online ratings which are public and shared by users. The size of the sharing or gig economy is projected to be $455 billion by 2023, where services and assets will be collectively used. The big shifts of the last decade will stay with us for the next century. Concepts of sharing and cloud computing enabled by AI (and related tech) will grow further as connectivity speeds grow by leaps. The future will be 5G. 

The ever-slimming devices may just dematerialise. An X-ray machine may just be an app like a camera on our phones. Laptops may disappear into projected keyboards. The next decade will spring many unanticipated surprises. Hopefully the experience of the last decade would have prepared us for an unimaginable future.