The new process, called 4D printing, relies mostly on shape-memory polymers, which can form complex structures when exposed to heat, moisture, light, or, for example, kinetic energy. While still in it’s infancy, 4D printing has already been demonstrated by several universities.
Zhen Ding at the Singapore University of Technology and Design and his colleagues are using standard commercial 3D printers to rapidly print rigid 4D objects which change shape when heated to 45°C. Inspired by natural structures like plants, team of scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University unveiled 4D-printed hydrogel composite structures that change shape when immersed in water.
Skylar Tibbits, a co-director and founder of the Self-Assembly Lab housed at MIT’s International Design Center, “sees all kinds of future applications for 4D printing. They range from sneakers that change how they fit on your feet based on what activities you are doing to how clothing changes composition based on the weather,” reports All3DP.
It will still take some time before the technology moves past the stage of research and development, and it will take even longer before consumers will be able to walk into a store and buy a 4D printer, but the wide range of examples how the technology could be used in the future shows just how much potential it has to transform fields like manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and others.
The cloud, the technology that has made it possible to move processing for large in-house data centers and individual devices to infinitely scalable infrastructures owned by third-party companies, such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, isn’t without its limits.
Privacy conscientious enterprises don’t like sending all their data outside their premises with no control over what exactly they send and what they keep to themselves or delete altogether. Developers of data-driven intelligent applications require nearly real-time data processing with a single-digit latency—something that the cloud and the current wireless technologies can’t easily provide.
A new enterprise infrastructure is emerging, and industry experts expect that it will become the most preferred architecture for IoT solutions. “The next big thing for enterprise IT comes in the form of edge computing—a paradigm where compute moves closer to the source of data,” writes Janakiram MSV, an analyst, advisor and an architect at Janakiram & Associates.
“Edge computing is a new paradigm in which substantial computing and storage resources—variously referred to as cloudlets, micro datacenters, or fog nodes—are placed at the Internet’s edge in close proximity to mobile devices or sensors,” explains The Emergence of Edge Computing paper by Mahadev Satyanarayanan from Carnegie Mellon University.
The edge is an exciting place full of sensors, modules, actuators, including GPS receivers, valves, motors, temperature and light sensors, and others. These devices receive instructions from applications running in the cloud, and they, in turn, gather various data, creating a complete feedback loop.
With edge computing, the data gathered by edge devices is sorted into two broad categories: hot and cold. Hot data are critical and should be processed as soon as possible. On the other hand, cold data can be processed with a substantial delay because they contribute only to long-term analytics based on historical trends moves.
Because hot data should be processed instantaneously, it makes sense to leverage the computational power of the edge itself, instead of sending them to a public cloud. The processing could be performed by a smart car, a smartphone, or a home automation system. It will be up to complex event processing engines to decide whether to process data locally or let the cloud infrastructure handle it.
Benefits of Edge ComputingEnterprises currently face many problems when running data-centric workloads in the cloud. Even with a direct fiber optics connection, latency is limited by the speed of light. For systems where a few milliseconds could mean the difference between life and death, such as self-driving cars, edge computing is the obvious way how to minimize latency as much as possible.
When the bulk of data generated by edge devices is processed locally, at the edge, the overall bandwidth demand into the cloud is considerably lower. Security video cameras tend to be extremely bandwidth-demanding even though the video footage they capture is usually stored only for a few hours and rarely seen by a human being. This video footage could be stored and analyzed locally, with only metadata being sent to the cloud.
Because edge computing allows enterprises to retain sensitive data on-premises for as long as they want, it addresses growing concerns over data privacy arising from IoT system centralization. It would be up to each enterprise to set privacy policies that govern the release of the data to the cloud.
Finally, the ability of the edge to function independently of the cloud makes it much more resilient to network outages and malicious denial-of-service attacks. As more cities around the world become smarter than ever, they will have to make security one of their priorities to ensure safety and privacy of their residents.
ConclusionThe benefits of edge computing are numerous, but so are the technical challenges. The current edge comprises of countless devices with distinct roles, and managing them in a centralized way seems almost impossible. More realistically, a new generation of connected devices will emerge and make the old generation obsolete.
This presents us with the classic chicken and egg problem: How to convince companies to develop solutions for an infrastructure that’s not here yet. Just like with the web, the technology itself will have to be sufficiently appealing on its own to attract enough early adopters to reach a certain critical mass.
Behshad Behzadi, principal engineer of Google Now, says, “There’s an element of AI in everything we do. It’s just a way to interpret correctly either what the user is saying right now, or what they might need in the future.” Thanks to the advances in cognitive technologies, we can now accurately recognize natural human speech, automatically translate texts, and provide end users with relevant answers to their questions. These capabilities allow us to interact with computers in a conversational way.
If we take a step back and look at the history of computing, we can see how it’s intertwined with the various ways users interact with electronic devices. Just like Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), which were popularized during the 1980s by Apple, Microsoft, and Xerox, removed the steep learning curve of Command-Line Interfaces (CLIs), so can Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) make computers more accessible for the average person.
Deloitte analysis based on CB Insights data revealed that Conversational User Interface startups raised over $200 million in 2016. According to a report by Luxury Daily, 22 percent of consumers have used a Conversational User Interface to interact with banks. Gartner predicts that customers will manage 85 percent of their relationships with enterprises without interacting with humans by 2020.
Clearly, some of the largest industry players see Conversational User Interfaces as the future of how people interact with electronic devices, perhaps because millions of individuals around the world are already using Conversational User Interfaces on a daily basis in the form of Chatbots.
Meet ChatbotsChatbots are arguably the biggest trend coming to social media sites and instant messaging apps. “Advancements in artificial intelligence, combined with the proliferation of various messaging apps, is fueling the development of Chatbots which can carry out different kinds of tasks such as scheduling a meeting, reporting temperature, assisting users with buying new gadgets, and so on. This has led businesses to invest heavily in the chat economy. The bot revolution is still in an early phase, but the enthusiasm is clearly growing rapidly among customers and businesses,” argues Ashish Kumar, an alumnus of International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.
What exactly is a Chatbot? One widely accepted definition describes a Chatbot as an interface that enables users to complete a task through conversational interaction with a machine. Simply put, Chatbots are very smart programs that you can message to get answers. An e-commerce bot can help you order the right pair of shoes for your graduation ceremony, a banking bot can help you open a bank account or check your current balance, and a hospital bot can guide patients to the correct ward.
Most of these bots live inside various messaging apps, such as Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp. “Messaging apps seem to become the bridge between today and tomorrow. They are the most frequently used apps today. Their increasing usefulness is the number one cause for the mass extinction of the single-purpose apps,” explains Radek Jezbera from Black Pine Executive Consulting, adding, “There are becoming platforms themselves enveloping services which in the past we needed to download, launch, and register within a separate app.”
In 2015, more than 1.5 billion people used chatting apps, which constitute 75 percent of the time people spend on their smartphones. In China, WeChat, a social media application developed by Tencent, is already considered the most powerful app in existence, incorporating functions like online shopping, sending payments, buying movie tickets, or getting a taxi. Soon, Western instant messaging applications could be just as powerful because of the high demand for instantaneous responses.
A 7 study, titled A Retailer’s Guide to Chatbots, Live Chat, and Messaging found that 25.8 percent of 1000 customers preferred to communicate with a Chatbot, instead of a real human being, while purchasing goods or services. This figure is surprisingly high given the current state of Chatbots, and it will certainly grow larger as Chatbots become more capable.
From the point of view of consumers, the advantages that come with living entirely inside instant messaging apps are clear: fewer installed apps, less time spent learning how to navigate various user interfaces, and better integration. Developers also greatly benefit because they can quickly reach a large number of users, instead of struggling to gain visibility in various app stores.
Chatbot LandscapeMost Chatbots in existence live in a few ecosystems that grow around popular instant messaging apps. Facebook launched Chatbots for Messenger at Facebook F8 in 2016, an annual conference held by Facebook. The company wants to partner with businesses to build deeper interactions with their customers on Facebook Messenger in a way that is contextual, convenient, and delightful, with control at its core, states the official press release. “[Bots for Messenger] can provide anything from automated subscription content like weather and traffic updates to customized communications like receipts, shipping notifications, and live automated messages, all by interacting directly with the people who want to get them.” Facebook is also testing its own personal assistant, called M. The assistant should compete with Apple, Google, and Microsoft, who all have their own smartphone-based conversational personal assistants.
Telegram, an instant messaging application with over 100 million users, has recently made it easy for users to interact with Chatbots by adding support for custom buttons that exposed Chatbot features in a contextually-aware way. Telegram bots help users get up-to-date weather information, browse Wiki directly in the messenger window, plan tasks and set reminders, find relevant stickers or GIF animations, and much more.
With their Bot Framework, Microsoft is helping developers build capable Chatbots by providing various cognitive micro services that help bots understand natural language and intelligently respond to questions. Chatbots created using Bot Framework can be seamlessly integrated with a range of platforms, including Slack, Telegram, Skype, Facebook Messenger, SMS, email, and others. They can even run in a serverless, scalable environment thanks to Azure Bot Service.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google is working on a messaging service that will deliver services through Chatbots, similar to those already found in popular instant messaging applications like Kik and WeChat.
All widely used instant messaging services see Chatbots as the right opportunity how to become just as important for consumers and businesses as the largest social networks in existence. It’s not just those companies and businesses that strive to stay at the forefront of the technological innovation, but also emerging startups without the resources required to gain visibility on the web who can greatly benefit from embracing emerging Chatbot platforms. The current small degree of competition in the Chatbot landscape is akin to the early days of the web, when anyone could get at the very top of Google’s search results page.
Social Implications of ChatbotsIn his article titled Chatbots And the Future of Conversation-Based Interfaces, Daniel Newman predicts that Chatbots could permanently change the way humans interact with the digital world. In the day and age of social media, community outreach and real-time interaction with customers can make or break a company. Instead of hiring a small army of social media experts, 62 percent of organizations will be using AI technologies by 2018, according to Narrative Science.
This may lead to a complete disruption of the customer service industry. “There’s no doubt that Chatbots and their real-world counterparts, robots, will kill the customer service industry. They’re cheaper, can work any and all times of the day and can be trained up instantly. You can also replicate them cheaply, without added costs,” says Madhumita Murgia.
Right now, anyone in the UK can order a pizza from Domino’s through the company’s Facebook Chatbot, instead of placing an order on the phone. The Chatbot provides customers with up-to-date tracking information as well as the option to ask for the customer care representative should any problems occur. It’s easy to see how similar Chatbots could make certain human agents completely redundant, but it’s unlikely that all customer service occupations will be affected to the same degree.
Experts predict that there’s a 75 percent likelihood that the profession of a call center worker will be automated in the near future. As frightening as this number can be, we must bear in mind that call center workers are constantly rated as the most unhappy and isolated group of office workers. A 2013 survey found that call center workers experience the poorest interpersonal relationships compared to other professions, and that they are twice as likely as other groups to report breakdowns in home relationships because of workplace problems.
If there’s one thing we can learn from history, it has to be that humans always find new ways how to apply their talents every time a technology renders certain roles obsolete. There might be some period of adjustment, but just as typesetters were replaced by graphic designers, so will call center workers and customer service employees find other, more meaningful work.
“In the short to medium term, the main effect of automation will not necessarily be eliminating jobs, but redefining them. As the skills and tasks required in the economy change, our response should not be alarmism or protectionism, but a strategic investment in education,” writes Tony Andrews, a multi-media journalist.
That being said, there’s one implication of Chatbots that needs to be addressed: security. The machine-learning algorithms that make Chatbots tick rely on vast amounts of information collected from users. All data collected by Chatbots must be secured to the highest degree and deployed only on encrypted channels. Because Chatbots are designed to behave like humans and operate on popular instant messaging services, users must be protected against phishing schemes and social engineering hacks.
The biggest problem that businesses need to overcome is the fact that their Chatbots run on third-party platforms that they have little to no control over. As soon as a business decides to deploy a Chatbot on Telegram or Facebook Messenger, they are immediately at the mercy of the security measures employed by the chosen platform.
However, some may argue that the centralized approach is better than leaving security to individual businesses and organizations who may or may not have the experience necessary to protect themselves and their customers against the latest cyber threats. Even if a security vulnerability would be discovered, the owners of the Chatbot platform could immediately patch the security hole across the network, protecting all existing Chatbots at the same time.
Regardless of how these concerns will be addressed at the end of the day, it seems that Chatbots are attractive enough as they are that most current users are willing to overlook any potential issues, enjoying Conversational User Interfaces and everything they have to offer.
ConclusionRight now, AI-powered Chatbots seem to be the next big transformative technology that will fundamentally change the way we accomplish daily tasks, such as shopping, contacting customer service support, or asking for the current weather information. Just like every innovative technology, Chatbots can end up causing major security and privacy nightmares, both for the organizations who deploy them and for end users. Considering how willing most internet users are to let social networks track every click they make, it’s highly unlikely that the same users would perceive Chatbots as a potential privacy threat.
The Long and Winding Road to Smartphone-PC ConvergenceThe main thing that attracts people to convergent smartphones is their convenience. Instead of managing data and applications across several devices, everything would reside in one place. Modern cloud storage services completely remove any storage space constrictions, and responsive applications designed to support a broad range of screen sizes and resolutions take care of the software side of things. In 2013, Canonical, a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects, had made big waves when they accounted the Ubuntu Edge. This high-concept smartphone designed as a hybrid device, which would function as a high-end smartphone or be able to operate as a conventional desktop PC running Ubuntu. “The company had claimed to put the fastest multi-core processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB flash storage, had the incredibly tall task of raising $31 million been successful,” writes Raju PP, the founder-editor of Technology Personalized. Unfortunately for Canonical and thousands of their backers, the project flopped, raising only less than $13 million. The fundamental challenge that Canonical didn’t manage to solve is that of apps. Despite their efforts to make it easy for developers to jump on board and write a single app with responsive interfaces that allow it to run on any Ubuntu device, the total number of apps for the Ubuntu Phone platform is still abysmally low. Most apps are either too superficial to benefit from a large screen and full-size hardware keyboard in the first place, or the user experience (UX) is too cumbersome to be comfortably used on anything besides a full-fledged PC.
Continuum Could Change the GameAt the Build 2015 Developers Conference, Microsoft announced the launch of Windows 10 with the Continuum feature. This feature allows users to use their phones like a PC. “… it’s designed to take advantage of new universal apps that run across Windows 10 on phones, PCs, tablets, and the Xbox One. If you’re running a mobile version of Excel on your phone it will magically resize and transform into a keyboard- and mouse-friendly version for use on a bigger screen. It feels like the future,” writes Tom Warren. Continuum smartphones can be either connected to a wired dock or paired using Miracast, a standard for wireless connections from devices to displays. So far, Microsoft’s implementation is severely limited by the small number of Windows phones. The official website lists only three models—HP Elite x3, Alcatel IDOL 4S, and Lumia 950—which is abysmal by any standards. Despite this immense hurdle to overcome, the company is very ambitions. “We actually envision a world where the phone powers many more screens and experiences, where every screen can become a PC,” said Keri Moran, a Windows program manager at Microsoft. In the future, we could see a broad range of Windows tablets and laptops that are nothing but a display and battery, all powered by a continuum smartphone. To make this happen, Microsoft needs to do is convince developers to build new universal apps, hardware manufacturers to create attractive Windows devices, and consumers to choose Windows-powered phones over Android and iOS. If they succeed, the road to smartphone-PC convergence will be open.
What about iOS and OSX?As iOS begins overshadowed OSX in everyday usage and adoption the pressure of convergence has reached Apple as well. iCloud was an initial step to ensure data access across the Apple ecosystem of products, however, does not currently address passing app states across devices. Any cloud-based approach will also be limited by large file applications such as graphic design tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and video production suites like Premiere, After Effects and Final Cut. One route many technologist and researchers are pointing to is a powerful smartphone that would be dockable into larger form factors such as an iPad, MacBook, or iMac. If Apple can build a phone that is capable of being the source of computing and storage for all form factors, then seamless application state flow would be enabled as the source would be moving with the user as they switch devices throughout their day. Apple recently applied for this patent which indicates this concept is being explored extensively. One thing for sure is the road to convergence will be paved with intermediate building blocks like cloud-based data sharing while progressing to the final destination of seamless device convergence.
What is Voice Recognition?“Voice recognition is the process of taking the spoken word as an input to a computer program,” defines voice recognition Jim Baumann from the University of Washington. As explained by Gary Pearson, Co-Founder of Verbyx, voice recognition relies upon two components to generate the accuracy levels that are reported: a language model and acoustic model. Together, these two models provide an internal representation of how people using a specific language from a specific country or region speak.
Because voice recognition software relies on generalizations and rough approximations, individual variations in accent, tone of voice, pitch, and so on affect its accuracy and reliability. Some users are likely to have close to zero issues with certain voice-controlled devices, while others will fall on the opposite end of the accuracy spectrum.
Disadvantages of Voice ControlAs Carol Finch writes, “Programs cannot understand the context of language the way that humans can, leading to errors that are often due to misinterpretation.” People are surprisingly great when it comes to filling in missing information and subconsciously correcting for speakers’ errors. Homonyms, complex deixis, and even complete omission of entire words or phrases seldom prevent us from understanding one another. While modern AI-powered voice-control systems are much better than the technology from 10 years ago, true natural communication with real-time feedback is still impossible.
With errors also comes the necessity to invest more time to correct them. This can turn a quick Google search into a minute-long order, which isn’t all that bad unless you add up how much extra time it takes you to get things done over a long period of time. “Most of the time it really would be just as easy to press the button for the desired action (or macro of commands) on a button panel or graphical user interface. Saying the voice command, waiting for it to be acknowledged and the command sent is simply slower than pressing a button,” writes Aaron Green.
Another major disadvantage of voice control over graphical user interfaces is background noise interference. For voice control systems to work properly, you need to be in a quiet environment, undisturbed by ambient noise and people talking. Such conditions may not always be possible to achieve, although headphones with noise-cancelling microphones do help to some extent.
Despite the obvious shortcomings of voice control systems, Vlad Sejnoha, chief technology officer of Nuance Communications, a Burlington-based company that dominates the market for speech recognition with its Dragon software, believes that “within a few years, mobile voice interfaces will be much more pervasive and powerful,” according to MIT Technology Review. “I should just be able to talk to it without touching it,” Sejnoha says.