Gartner has come out with its 2012 Hype Cycle Report. The report provides an overview of emerging technologies.
The report identifies tipping point technologies that will have a huge impact on mobile and internet space in 2012-13. It provides strategists and planners with an assessment of the maturity, business benefit and future direction of more than 1,900 technologies. According to the report some of the fastest-moving technologies are 3D printing, activity streams, internet TV, near field communication (NFC) payment, cloud computing and media tablets.
According to Gartner these technologies have moved noticeably along the Hype Cycle since 2011, while consumerisation is now expected to reach the plateau of productivity in two to five years, down from five to 10 years in 2011. The report identifies bring your own device (BYOD), 3D printing and social analytics as some of the technologies at the peak of inflated expectations.
Commenting on the report, Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow, said, ?Gartner?s Hype Cycle for emerging technologies targets strategic planning, innovation and emerging technology professionals by highlighting a set of technologies that will have broad-ranging impact across the business.?
The report encourages enterprises to consider the technologies in sets or groupings, because so many new capabilities and trends involve multiple technologies working together. As per the report, often, one or two technologies that are not quite ready can limit the true potential of what is possible.
The 2012 Hype Cycle Report lists out following technologies/scenarios as tipping points for enterprises –
Any channel, any device, anywhere – Bring your own everything
The technology industry has long talked about scenarios in which any service or function is available on any device, at anytime and anywhere. This scenario is being advanced further by the consumerisation trend that is making it acceptable for enterprise employees to bring their own personal devices into the work environment. The technologies and trends that will make this real include bring your own device, hosted virtual desktops, HTML5, the various forms of cloud computing, silicon anode batteries and media tablets. Although all these technologies and trends need to mature for the scenario to become the norm, HTML5, hosted virtual networks and silicon anode batteries are particularly strong tipping point candidates.
Smarter Things
Once connected and made smart, things will help people in every facet of their consumer, citizen and employee lives. There are many enabling technologies and trends required to make this scenario a reality. These technologies are autonomous vehicles, mobile robots, internet of things, big data, wireless power, complex-event processing, Internet TV, activity streams, machine-to-machine communication services, mesh networks: sensor, home health monitoring and consumer telematics. The technologies and trends that are the tipping points to success include machine-to-machine communication services, mesh networks: sensor, big data, complex-event processing and activity streams.
Big Data and global scale computing at small prices
This broad scenario portrays a world in which analytic insight and computing power are nearly infinite and cost-effectively scalable. Once enterprises gain access to these resources, many improved capabilities are possible, such as better understanding customers or better fraud reduction. The enabling technologies and trends in this space include quantum computing, the various forms of cloud computing, big data, complex-event processing, social analytics, in-memory database management systems, in-memory analytics, text analytics and predictive analytics. The tipping point technologies that will make this scenario accessible to enterprises, governments and consumers include cloud computing, big data and in-memory database management systems.
The human way to interact with technology
We are moving towards a world in which people interact a lot more naturally with technology. The will be made possible by technologies like human augmentation, volumetric and holographic displays, automatic content recognition, natural-language question answering, speech-to-speech translation, big data, gamification, augmented reality, cloud computing, NFC, gesture control, virtual worlds, biometric authentication methods and speech recognition.
What payment could really become
This scenario envisions a cashless world in which every transaction is an electronic one. This will provide enterprises with efficiency and traceability, and consumers with convenience and security. The technologies that will make this scenario a reality include NFC payment, mobile over the air (OTA) payment and biometric authentication methods. Related technologies will also impact the payment landscape, albeit more indirectly. These include the internet of things, mobile application stores and automatic content recognition. The tipping point will be surpassed when NFC payment and mobile OTA payment technologies mature.
The voice of the customer is on file
Humans are social by nature, which drives a need to share – often publicly. This creates a future in which the ?voice of customers? is stored somewhere in the cloud and can be accessed and analysed to provide better insight into them. For this, the industry will need following enabling technologies and trends: automatic content recognition, crowd sourcing, big data, social analytics, activity streams, cloud computing, audio mining/speech analytics and text analytics. Amongst these the tipping point technologies are privacy backlash and big data.
3D print it at home
3D printing will allow consumers to print physical objects, such as toys or housewares, at home, just as consumers print digital photos today. Combined with 3D scanning, it may be possible to scan certain objects with a smartphone and print a near-duplicate. 3D printing will take more than five years to mature beyond the niche market.
