What will the future look like? Though the answers may not be definite, IBM's annual Five in Five list does its best to answer this pressing question. The list, which enumerates five predictions about technological breakthroughs that may happen in the next five years, gives people an overview of how technology will develop in the future.
What will the future look like? Though the answers may not be definite, IBM's annual Five in Five list does its best to answer this pressing question. The list, which enumerates five predictions about technological breakthroughs that may happen in the next five years, gives people an overview of how technology will develop in the future.
Most of the visions that were included in the list seem impossible to achieve. But what most people don't know is that some predictions have already came true. For example in 2006, Five in Five have stated that real-time speech translation will become the norm in the near future. Fast forward a year later, IBM have started work on n.Fluent, a breakthrough technology that translates English and 11 other languages in real-time.
This year, it's all about the senses. IBM believes that the gadgets of the future will have the ability to feel, see, hear, taste, and smell. This innovation will surely leave a huge impact on how we use devices like smartphones and tablets.
Touch
Through the use of infrared, vibration, and other haptic technologies, a smartphone's display will be able to render the texture and feel of physical surfaces. Imagine being able to feel the softness of a cotton sheet through a smartphone's display instead of just reading about it.
See
IBM thinks that today's visual recognition technologies can be taken one step further. For example, future systems would have the capability to detect minute details and anomalies in a patient's MRI scan which could help doctors do their work more efficiently.
Hear
Aside from merely recording audio, sensors will have the ability to analyze patterns and frequencies from the sounds that it picks up. Future audio technologies will be able to judge the structural integrity of a bridge through the use of sound data alone.
Taste
It may not sound that appetizing, but digital tastebuds might become a technological norm in the near future. This could help people keep up with their diets and/or everyday nutritional needs.
Smell
Computers might soon be able to distinguish odors from various substances. A person's breath can be analyzed for data that might reveal something about that person's health
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