Over the years, *instinctools, a software consultancy company, has witnessed many technological changes in almost every industry and sector we can think of, from food to health to transport and communication.
However, it was not until the early 90s that we noticed a rapid uptake of technology in different industries like we have seen since 2020 with the advent of COVID-19.
The period has brought bittersweet memories permanently into our lives. The digital landscape underwent abnormally rapid changes as governments, industries, and individuals not only struggled to sustain life but also to keep business and conveyor belts running.
With the start of the pandemic, humankind had to embrace technological advancement to ensure physical separation did not affect the normal operations of organizations.
As people crawled back to normalcy, edgy elaborate decisions had to be considered from the technology sector standpoint. For example, businesses needed to embrace remote working, remote collaboration, the digital exchange of information, cloud storage, etc.; they were required to choose what traditional practices to ease, and new choices to make.
All these changes pointed to two things, flexibility and resilience. An organization’s ability to adapt to changes without restructuring and maintaining an undisrupted workflow would survive the struggles. As organizations embraced remote sharing and collaboration, issues such as overall security came into play. VentureDive embraces all of these characteristics by providing its diverse team as a service, which is an ideal example of collaboration, resilience, and remote sharing.
Cloud
As companies struggle with Covid-19 and embrace flexibility and resilience in the same breath, there is a real need for cloud services. In addition, organizations are now strategically working towards or forced to embrace hybrid offices – offices that incorporate remote and traditional office setup – the work-from-home (WFH) model. This model brings about a paradigm shift of more physical and time freedom.
Brace yourself for the next-new-normal. A report following research by Xerox indicated that 72 percent of the respondents were not fully prepared technologically for the abrupt transition to remote work at the pandemic onset.
But now, 56 percent are expanding their budgets geared towards technology in anticipation of embracing fully WFH model or hybrid arrangements.
But you ask yourself, how can people who require each other’s services collaborate remotely? Won’t it be a daunting task? Not at all. Technologies that have been sitting around for a while, just waiting to be tapped. Even several organizations have been utilizing these technologies for quite a while.
Cloud computing has been utilized among software development technologies with different benefits such as SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. Cloud solutions assist companies in maintaining clean and sustainable processes and data management practices. This is because they offer dynamic scalability, enhanced collaboration, improved transparency and accountability, and reliability.
That being said, before companies move their infrastructure to the cloud, they need to ensure the data is safe. Security protocols guarantee that every process is verified, applications are monitored and secured individually. In addition, data analysis and machine learning algorithms constantly check for anomalies and report on health.
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DevOps and Business Intelligence
Integrating people, processes, and technology ensures a seamless flow of activities between two teams through collaboration. A ‘wall’ is removed between the developers (Dev) and system administrators who run the operations (Ops). The two teams are unionized to work independently.
The model may be further developed to integrate security which will address reliability assurance and code quality. This can then be described as DevSecOps. Since all businesses are becoming data-driven, DevOps and Business Intelligence (BI) can work together to serve the greater good.
Applications & Continuous Integration and Deployment
Applications both standalone or web-based form an integral part of today’s business solutions. They assist users in performing specific tasks such as desktop applications; Word, Mozilla, Safari, or mobile applications, such as WhatsApp, Gmail, and Instagram.
Unlike traditional hand-coded applications developed purely through coding, a low-code development platform (LCDP) allows developers to create apps utilizing aspects of coding and graphical user interface (GUI).
As if that’s not enough, programmers and non-programmers can now use a No-code development platform to create apps purely using GUI. These two methods accelerate the development process of applications.
Both continuous integration and testing of each change help avoid instances where the software may work on different developer’s machines but fail when different developers integrate their codes.
On the other hand, continuous deployment seamlessly incorporates the different codes from individual developers that have been accepted in the CI/CD set into the production environment.
Big Data
‘Data is the new gold,’ they say. And true to their word, organizational decisions are now guided by data. Big data enables organizations to obtain and analyze large data sets to reveal trends, patterns, and associations.
New software technology currently can run algorithms and process large amounts of data on the go. It operates on 3vs, receiving large Volumes of Varied data at high Velocity.
The high-volume data is mainly low-density and unstructured. The unstructured data may be highly varied such as video, text, audio, which may need further processing to derive meaning. All this data may be received at high velocity.
A company like Twitter can receive data streams in the above formats from over 200 million subscribers as of Q1 2021.
Cybersecurity
It is vital to take the appropriate measures to ensure Big Data obtained through computer applications is processed and stored in the cloud and does not fall into the wrong hands.
Cybersecurity safeguards from cybercriminals whose intent is to either steal, change or destroy sensitive data through digital attacks. Critical infrastructure, network, application, information, and cloud types of security are some areas of concern here.
Governing user access, firewalls, data and apps security, data analysis techniques, and machine learning algorithms are also used to facilitate the cybersecurity framework.
Compliance
Technology compliance involves developers utilizing several services to stay up to date with standard and regulatory requirements. Governments and other regulatory bodies have developed regulations and procedures to keep up with the ever-changing technological field.
Rules such as how businesses collect and use data, updates, and standards help to reduce data access risks.
Emerging Technologies in Software Development
New technological advancement is shaping the way we use technology in our daily lives. Tech facilitates ease of inventions, meets challenges, and brings out an overall simplified life. The new software has become a man’s best friend from stocking the fridge and traveling to solving different business challenges.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Ten years ago, you may not have heard of autonomous vehicles and smart electronic devices, but now you may have tried using this technology. The knowledge in AI has increased in recent years and changed our lives.
Now we enjoy having non-human personal assistants such as Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, self-driving vehicles, like Tesla equipped with autopilot.
We expect more consumption of AI technology even as The State of AI in 2020 survey by McKinsey indicated that 50 percent of respondents believe that their organizations had already adopted AI function at a minimum.
Human Augmentation
Technology came to make human life better and more manageable. Some technologies now can enhance or complement the natural abilities of humans. This may be in the form of sensory implants and limb prosthetics built into the body to restore sight or assist in walking.
They can also be built outside like a robotic exoskeleton to improve human capabilities. A US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) member stated that they are incorporating AI and human augmentation, which he believes will help humans reach “superhuman” potential.
Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT is a network of smart objects designed to communicate with each other without human interventions. For example, a smart fridge will allow users to see the status of food inside using a phone app while they are away, remind them what needs to be restocked, play music when they are preparing meals, and so on.
From smart home security systems to Bluetooth health trackers, IoT is being integrated everywhere. As 5G continues to roll out, we expect more integration in the health, security, manufacturing, and transportation industries.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality uses digital visual elements, auditory, and other physical stimuli to bring out the effects of the real world technologically. AR recreates a virtual image of the physical world on phones and computers, then feeds users with virtual information to enhance the experience.
We expect an increase in AR usage in medicine and design. It is also very likely to be seen in many other industries even as its cost reduces. Some early adopters such as Google have made it possible for a 3D view of streets and live view on google maps.
Marketers too in social media are also embracing AR in their Ads. AR is expected to continue growing since it helps every industry to give potential targets a feel of what they are looking for.
5G
The dust has finally settled on the much buzz about the 5th generation (5G) network and its effects. It is the new global wireless standard replacing 4G with speeds up to 100 times the predecessor. New gadgets are now built with 5G capabilities.
The high-speed network will provide never-before-seen opportunities. The new entrant is the most crucial in attaining all the other spectrums of technological advancement. It will form a baseline for faster transfer of data, with ultra-low latency and higher bandwidths.
Day-to-day experiences, robotic activities, remote working, technology in health will soon be a reality. Consumption of 5G is expected to rise drastically as service providers continue to roll out worldwide.
Quantum Computing
For a long, we have relied on classical computers in carrying out logical operations using binary. Binary has only two positions: either 1 or 0, up or down, called a bit. Quantum computing uses the quantum state of an object to produce a qubit (the basic unit of quantum information).
Quantum computers in today’s world will be able to solve complex problems by creating multidimensional spaces to represent substantial problems that current supercomputers cannot solve.
Following recent breakthroughs that will enable quantum computers to be small enough to be used as a laptop, embedded in a satellite or the phone, it is likely that it will no longer be a pipedream in the coming days.
Blockchain
Blockchain is a type of database that stores information in blocks chained together. New data (ledger for transactions) is entered into a new block and chained to the previous block. Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency transactions on three pillars: decentralization, transparency, and immutability (data irreversibility).
Different companies such as Tesla declared that they would accept Cryptocurrency purchasing. Blockchain technology will provide a solid glass panel view for moving the inventory from manufacturer to distributor to retailer.
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Summary
Engineers are working tirelessly to develop new tech to satisfy the insatiable demand for newer and advanced technological offerings. Consumers also are very knowledgeable, so this is another push for the ever-changing technical environment. In the coming days, we may witness great strides in updates, integrability, and autonomy of new inventions.