My Top 10 Hotlist of I.

T trends in 2015

1)

Social Platforms:

Nowadays, it is considered out of the ordinary if you are are not apart of some social network. This is
evidenced by the fact that "74% of online adults use social networking sites." (PewResearchCenter,
2015). We live in a world where some of our closest friends are the ones we meet over the Internet.
They have similar hobbies to us, same likes and dislikes. Social media has also risen significantly over the
years. From 2005 about 7% of people used social networing sites, now it has risen to an amount of 73%
(on average). (PewResearchCenter, 2015)
We also loke at Laura Roeder, a blogger and self proprietor became famous for firstly, being an amazing
blogger and secondly for creating a business that shows people how to go about promoting themselves
on social media. She would not be famous if there were was not a significant amount of people out that
are trying to promote themselves on social media. It can be looked at as the equivalent as lessons.

2)

Internet of Things (IoT):

To truely understand the IoT we have to understand when the internet was actually born. According to
Internet Society, in 1962 J.C.R. Licklider came up with the concept of the "Galactic Network" and then in
1968 ARPANET was implemented. At that time only there were only 3 operational networks. In 2012 it
was reported that 8.7 billion physical objects were connected to the internet (Soderbert, 2013).
Closely overlapped by social platforms, the Internet of Things (IoT) is basically. connecting most physical
devices to the internet in some way. A cool example would be egg dispensers. Nowadays there are
sensers on some egg dispensers to actually count how many eggs are left and this can be viewed on a
persons cellphone. Another example would be a fridge being able to tell you that you are running low on
milk. This is the concept behind the IoT. It is about connected more physical devices to the Internet.

3)

Cloud Based I.T. Services:

Nowadays, it has become the norm for companies to shift from an inhouse I.T infrastructure to
outsourcing because the storage of data has become such a norm commodity. This can be seem in the
usage of cloud based I.T. services. This is well expressed by what Alan pullinger said, "spend more time
on the things that make you different." In this context, all companies have to store data, so why not let
someone else do it for you? Many companies nowadays are outsourcing all those processes that they
need to do and are inhousing those processes that differentiate them to their competitors.

What makes Cloud Based I.T services a part of the list is its obvious advantage which is the ability to
increase memory size instantly. All that needs to be done is "top up" the capacity of the servers that you
are using. Physically going and hiring people to install more memory, buying the memory and
implementing it is all erased, as well as the need to continuously repair data centers. The outsourcer
handles all these worries.

4)

Digital Money:

Recently, it is possible for citizens to purchase items from online sales service companies such as:
e-bay, treehouse and many others with bitcoin. It is still beginning to take shape as people are coming
on board with using them. We see that about 2.5 million people owned bitcoins in 2014 and only half of
them had an amount that was considered not dust (greater then a milibit) (Hurst, 2014). We do not
know how many people own bitcoins to date, although the information can be sifted out as all bitcoin
transactions are taken down.
Digital Money does poses both advantages and disadvantages but as I see it the advantages are in
favour. As taken from an article it avoids all froms of traditional international wire services (Bitcoin,
2015). The middle man is basically skipped and transactions can, in theory, be done alot quicker. The
disadvantages are that the bitcoin price is highly volatile due to its newness and payments are
irreversible.

5)

Smart machines:

Simply put, smart machine are beginning to take the place manual labour work. The benefits of this is
the reduction of staff costs and a more efficient processing of instructions. In more simple terms it can
be looked at as Artificial Intelligence (AI).
What each business aims to do is "identify the most pressing business domains for an automotive
initiative." (Davenport, 2015). Each organization out there is always worried if their competitors are
gonna beat them to the chase. Which will in turn give them some advantage. Which makes businessses
continuously analyse each unit.
This cause an impact on job opportunities. Nowadays, manual workers are becoming obsolete as they
are easily replaced by machines. "Unskilled foreigners will mostly end up in the permanent underclass
where many will engage in crime and welfare use." (Limits to Growth, 2012) As explained, many of these
people will have no alternative and will most likely be driven to poverty and crime.
Other more fascinating examples of Smart Machines would be the Google Car and computerized
doctors.
6)

Electronic sports (Esports):

One of the most amazing events to take place is the inclusion of esports as an actual sport. It has been
recognised as a 2nd-level olympic sport. To give some sort of perspective, The PGA prize pool for first
place is R1.206 million. First place for the International Dota 2 is 6,603 million split between 5 people.
This shows the amount of investment the community of esports actually contribute to the prize pool. Of
a total of 18 million , 16, 400 million was from people from the gaming community (Dota2, 2015).
The hype was so well received that even a professional basketball player was placed on the panel
(Jeremy Lin) so as to explain a similar situation that the players would be experiencing, the nerves, the
glory and more importantly, how they should go about spending their prize money. The tournament was
even shown in a Macdonalds in Malaysia.

7)

Context Rich Systems:

This is sifting through a large data pool in order to find out the essentials. In some cases, it can even be
used to deal with "personalized websites, context-rich systems can adjust content, display, and input
methods based on the users current situation." (Ashri, 2014).
Most of the applications in the world today are generic and serve the same purpose for everyon.
However, as stated, "applications that have the ability to understand their users and respond
appropriately to their requests " (Cheung, 2014) provide more superior advantages. These are tailored
so that the app prioritizes the work that the user does. In particular, this deals with security in delivering
messages as seen by the Echoworx OneWorld system

8)

3D printing:

3D printing is where any real object is created from a 3d design" (3ders, 2015). It is quite an interesting
concept that can be used in numerous fields. As an example, is it possible for doctors to replicate an
organ of a patient that needs to be operated on. This makes it possible for doctors to practise on a
surgery to increase the chances of a success.
In essence, the main focus is on prototyping before the final release. " It's used for prototyping and in
distributed manufacturing with applications in a variety of industries, such as architecture and
aerospace and construction" (3ders, 2015). This will greatly increase the speed and accuracy of any
physical 3d model, such as a new building.

9)

Citizen e-ID:

Today most of us still have identity documents in order to distinguish who we are. But now with recent
technology improvements, what is stopping the introcution of electronic identity docuemnts (eID). e It
has been a long-standing yet elusive goal of many government planners to provide citizens with

integrated and seamless access to all government services. However, the problems around security and
hiding private details still need to be resolved.
Estonia seem to be far ahead of the rest of the world. Having established a highly -developed national ID
card system, citizens are able to have health insurnace, provide digital signitures and even travel just
from the use of the card. (e-estonia.com, 2015) A Simpler way to handle government regulations.

10)

Big Data:

In Kenneth Cukier's talk he explains that big data is the digitizing of more aspects of our life. He explains
how you can collect data on a person's sitting patterns, and in that way are able to identify if the person
sitting is you or somebody else.
As explained, big data means more information, which means the ability to analyse alot more choices.
James Powell gives a business example where wish lists and adverts can be specifically desgined to
match a customers buying patterns. Knowing what they want and then catering for it (James, 2012).
This concept is highly important as it shows what businesses are gowing through. They have access to all
of this data, which needs to be analysed, interpreted and converted into some form of Business
Intelligence which is why it is part of I.T trends list.

References:
PewResearchCenter, (2015), Social Networking Fact Sheet,
http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/
http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/what-internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet
Soderbert, R, (2013), How Many Things are Currently connected to the "Internet of Things" (IoT),
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/01/07/how-many-things-are-currently-connected-to-the-inte
rnet-of-things-iot/
Hurst, B (2014), How many People really own Bitcoins and does it really matter,
https://bitscan.com/bitnews/item/how-many-people-really-own-bitcoins-and-why-does-it-matter
Bitcoin, (2015), Some Things you need to know, https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know
Davenport, T, (2015), Onslaught of the Smart Machines,
http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/onslaught-smart-machines-tom-davenport
Limits to Growth, (2012), Public Broadcasting Notes Smart Machine's Effect on Employment,
http://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2015/05/22/public-broadcasting-notes-smart-machines-effecton-employment/

Dota2, 2015, Overview, http://www.dota2.com/international/overview/

Ashri, R, (2014), 5 Technologies to Focus on in 2015,
http://www.bluespark.com/blog/5-technologies-focus-2015
Cheung, Kai, (2014), Context-Rich Systems on Gartner's Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends of 2015,
http://www.echoworx.com/2014/10/context-rich-systems-gartners-top-10-strategic-technology-trends2015/
3ders, (2015), 3D Printing Basics, http://www.3ders.org/3d-printing-basics.html
e-estonia.com, (2014), Electronic ID Card, https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-id-card/
James, E, (2012), Big Data: Benefits, Challenges, and Best Practises.
https://tdwi.org/articles/2012/06/26/big-data-best-practices.aspx