Zone’s Mark Sylvester handpicks and shares the five best stories on digital trends, experiences and technologies…
1. 5G could be the smarty-pants of the future
The pace of modern life is set to become a whole lot pacier as the lip-smacking potential of 5G rolls out before an eager world. At the rapier-edge of the paradigm-shifting tech is San Diego-based mobile chip monolith Qualcomm where, in a lab to make James Bond’s Q drool, 5G is being poked, prodded and tested to breaking point.
The ability to send massive amounts of information at speeds up to 10 times faster than 4G really is a game changer, transforming real-time shopping experiences, street lighting, emergency response, robots, cars, connected cows and more! For industry it’s been described as ‘the central nervous system in the factory of the future’, and the possibilities for healthcare are one door down from limitless.
2. Check out this vision of the future
Ever since some Neanderthal accidentally put on his wife’s slippers, short-sightedness has been variously pitied and lampooned. But that could all change. Scientists at the University of California have developed contact lenses with built-in zoom. Which is cool. Incredibly clever tech means the lenses react to small eye movements, allowing a double blink to trigger the zoom function.
But, before the myopically-challenged among us pull out the ta-dah emoji, it could be a while before zoomable contacts are commercially available. As with much brilliant tech R&D, the science behind the lenses has a plethora of possible applications both in vision technology and advanced robotics. We’ll keep an eye on developments in a field where seeing really is believing.
3. Getting emotional over AI
Let’s — er — face it, machines know who we are. From our phones to airport security systems, we are facially recognised. But now things could be going a step further, with AI that can do it once more with feeling!
Researchers in the US are working on models that can already detect 11 emotions behind facial expressions, with craving, sexual desire and horror the easiest to predict. There’s still a lot of refining to be done, and there are some who question the fundamentals of AI emotional recognition. But, if the bumps can be ironed out, it’s technology that could become a useful tool in supporting mental health patients.
4. Unlock the secrets of your genes collection
We are, to some degree, what we eat. But what’s pretty clear is that we are way more what our genetics make us. And the latest developments in genome sequencing are opening up exciting possibilities to understand our predispositions to certain conditions and how we will react to treatments. Genuine personalised medicine for ‘the patient of one’ could be much closer than you thought.
Medical advances are often those most beset by moral minefields, and genomes are no different. It’s been suggested that a time will come when sequencing babies at birth is the norm. Kári Stefánsson, founder of Decode Genetics, answers the question with the simple response, ‘why wouldn’t we?’ Let the debate commence.
5. The tech that needs more airtime
If you’ve never seen the Back to the Future franchise, go stream it now. Ok, you’re back. Hoverboards are great aren’t they? Of all the futuristic tech that Hollywood promised us, hoverboards seemed the most fun, and certainly the most attainable.
They’ve been flying around for a while, but now the Holy Grail of hoverboarding is within grasp as Flyboard Air inventor Franky Zapata takes a second tilt at crossing the Channel after an earlier, minor, cash. Maybe hoverboards will find some real-world use. Or maybe they’re part of the future we’ve been promised where some stuff is just for plain old fun. I hope it’s the latter.
