The Best Tech Innovations Of The Last Three Years
Forbes Technology Council
Successful CIOs, CTOs & executives from Forbes Technology Council offer firsthand insights on tech & business.
Technology moves extremely quickly. It seems like there is a new innovation produced nearly every day. Technology has changed the way business is done and has enabled many people to reach goals and try new things that they’ve never done before.
So which recent technological innovations are the most impressive? Eleven members of Forbes Technology Council shared their responses. The answers varied, but there is a consensus that high technology has transformed our lives and made many new businesses and achievements possible.
1. Practical Augmented Reality
Augmented reality stands to be the most immediate tech development that will affect our lives in the near term. With microdisplays becoming reasonably priced, we will see personal wearables becoming available to the masses. This will provide us with a whole new avenue of information retrieval use on a daily, minute-by-minute basis. – George Heimel, Square360
2. Generative Adversarial Networks
Generative adversarial networks (GANs) are a new type of neural network that is semi-supervised and enables companies to learn more from less labeled data. Let’s say you would like to identify customers who are likely to churn but only have labels of actual churn after X days for a handful of customers. GANs enable this and succeed where other fully supervised neural networks fail. – Anand Sampat, Datmo
3. Real-Time Language Translation
Driven by voice recognition technology coupled with AI, real-time language translators allow single-language speakers to have real-time conversations. It’s impressive both on the usability front (earphones) and on the level of complexity insofar as getting both the language and accent right. – Michael Gurau, The Beacon Group
4. Chatbots
5. Artificial Intelligence In Mobile Apps
A year ago, building AI into mobile apps would have been extremely difficult and costly. Today, it’s a lot less expensive, and we can incorporate Microsoft Cognitive Services, Google services, or Amazon services that use AI to make a mobile experience more intelligent, anticipate users’ desire and needs, and present information in context. Artificial intelligence, particularly in mobile devices, has transformed the user experience in the last few years as cognitive services have advanced exponentially. – Sanjay Malhotra, Clearbridge Mobile
6. Inexpensive, Fast Storage
The cloud, AI, VR and other buzzwords are often considered the hottest tech trends. However, the rapidly declining cost and increasing performance of flash-based storage powers these trends. Without the modern, low-cost solid-state drive (SSD), VR and AI would still be inaccessible to most businesses. Cloud providers rely on SSDs. Innovation in the storage industry builds a foundation for new tech. – Jason Gill, Attracta
Today, developers have to worry not only about building their application but deploying and hosting it as well. It is a large portion of their workflow and requires them to commit resources in time and money up front. Serverless computing makes launching applications cheaper and faster by letting companies focus on the customer value without having to worry about deployment and scaling. The possibilities this will unlock are endless. – Nikhil Hasija, Azuqua
Brain scanners can translate your thoughts into textual words. Discussions about these devices have been around for some time; however, they could only map a handful of commands. Imagine if only by wearing a ball cap you could think, “How deep is that river?” and have the answer read back into an earpiece. The next step is to get the information back directly into your brain. – Jere Simpson, KITEWIRE/Steel-Talon
10. AI And Machine Learning Applications
The most impressive piece of tech that has come out in recent years is the practical application of AI and machine learning. Whether it is modeling data, analyzing speech or driving a car, we are starting to see real-world applications of these technologies. It may have taken a few of decades, but the field is making good on the promises that were made back in the 1980s. – Chris Kirby, Voices.com
11. The Cloud
No doubt that the cloud service is one of the great technologies that happened in the last three years. SMBs that need to concentrate on the business do not have the right knowledge or the teams in place to maintain their systems or are not willing to spend the money in that direction. The cloud offers a unique and flexible option for them to make sure they will be able to concentrate on business execution. – Ofer Laksman, Correlata Solutions
