Our world to day is so driven by technology that it’s easy to stay on top of the major changes and developments. We know when there’s a major new innovation in personal electronics; we know that the 5G network is rolling out this year; we track the progress of smart cars, learning thermostats, and interactive home speakers. We even tend to care about how major tech companies around the world are performing! However, as “plugged in” as we all seem to be to the world of technological development, there are also plenty of pretty big things happening that we tend to overlook.
To that point, I wanted to illuminate a few ways that modern technology is impacting us today without our even realizing it.
Supply Chain IoT
When you think about the IoT’s effect on your day-to-day life, you probably consider smart home features and our increasingly smart cars. In your home, the IoT may play a role in helping appliances and systems act according to your preferences. Regarding cars, our piece ‘How IoT is Challenging the World of ‘Smart’ Cars’ explored how some IoT features are bringing about smart-car benefits in ordinary vehicles. While smarter homes and cars are exciting and easy to talk about though, the IoT’s biggest impact on us may well be in supply chains.
Supply chains are largely invisible to consumers. We interact with them at the point of sale, either online or in person — but we don’t see products being manufactured, shipped, and stocked, and we don’t see that process being organized and managed. That means we also don’t see how much IoT technology has changed things. Today, across industries, companies are implementing IoT sensors to improve all aspects of the supply chain. These sensors monitor production equipment, track products, simplify shipping and improve fleet vehicles, and even keep tabs on in-store inventory. All of this contributes to a quicker and more exact process, and makes it more likely that the products we shop for are in stock when they appear to be.
3D-Printed Products
If you’ve read up on 3D printing before, chances are you’ve encountered some specific examples of applications. You might have seen ornate figurines printed by individuals, medical devices designed for use in healthcare, or perhaps even the creation of edible food. 3D printing’s biggest impact on most of us, though, is largely unknown. The technology is being used to print parts for any number of consumer products (not to mention for some of the machines that make those products).
While we tend to think of 3D printing as regards one-off projects and designs, its industrial utility has advanced substantially. A look at manufacturing methods by Fictiv supports this notion, suggesting that 3D printing and some similar methods can help companies to “get high quality mechanical parts at unprecedented speeds,” whether at the prototype stage or in mass production. Those products might include anything from a piece of your smartphone or camera, to the center console in your car, to a piece of the machine that made the shirt you’re wearing.
Advanced Data Analytics
“Data analytics” is just about the ultimate modern tech buzz term. We’ve all heard it over and over again, we all get the general idea, but most of us don’t really consider specific applications. That’s just as well to some extent, because said applications are all over the place. But as a consumer, you may be interested to know that advanced data analytics are likely responsible, in part, for what products are available to you (and whether or not you see them).
Entrepreneur examined data analytics with an aim to explain how they can drive sales, and essentially explained the impact on consumers in the process. The article stated that data-driven insights can help a company to understand customers’ needs, not only for the purpose of marketing to those needs, but also with the goal of driving product development. In other words, the data companies are gathering on your browsing and spending habits and general preferences is likely to impact not only what ads you see or what products are pushed toward you, but possibly even what products your favorite companies produce next.
AI in Cities
Last but not least, artificial intelligence is another modern technology we don’t tend to grasp fully. We think about it in sci-fi terms, and we get excited about consumer applications (such as smart speakers that can interact with us) or fun stories (such as an AI system beating a human in chess). But AI is also starting to impact us on a day-to-day basis in a relatively invisible way — primarily through the slow-but-sure progress toward smart cities.
In an AI write-up by Hackernoon, smart cities and healthcare were highlighted as perhaps the two most significant areas to watch. Regarding the former, the article discussed smarter cars and automated vehicles simplifying public transit and reducing the need for parking. It’s implied that less congestion will improve liveability. There could be less pollution, more space for pedestrians and cyclists, and less potential for accidents. We aren’t quite living in that reality yet, but the truth is this only covers one of many aspects of what the modern city is slowly transitioning toward. AI will ultimately affect everything from public transit to city waste management, helping us to live in cleaner and more efficient environments without really having to do anything.
