A glimpse into the future

Last class we had the opportunity to hear from amazing guests from different companies such as Sony, Tesla and AT&T.

Thinking of these incredible companies I got myself wondering in what projects could their companies be investing in the future?

Hence, I put together my presumptions for some products and technologies that could be associated with these three companies.

The future of smart homes

When we think of smart homes we usually go to that futuristic vision of The Jetsons or Iron Man where the whole house can be controlled with a voice command and it might even interact with you.

We are not far from that reality, actually most of the smarthome products we currently have available in the market already have some of these “futuristic” features, such as: voice control, being able to interact/communicate verbally and answer any question you might have.

But what are the future expectations for this industry?

The prospects for the future, towards smart homes, is that these products will achieve a certain intelligence to the point where they can recognize who is a family member and who is a guest in the house.

Another feature that could possibly be coming is that the device can recognize its user by their heartbeat. This way, besides the fact that it recognizes the owner of the property, your home can adjust the temperature, lights and automate everything regarding your immediate needs.

Self-Driven Cars

Theoretically self-driven already exist. It is possible to see some Google driverless cars around California and some other places.

Technically there are 5 levels of self-driven cars according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s system: “Five levels of autonomy, where 0 means the driver is in full control of steering and speed at all times and where at level 4 there is no option for the human driver to control the car.”

There are a lot of options of level 1 cars available in the market. These types of cars are equipped with sensors, cameras that can break incase they detect an obstacle in proximity, self-park and do some “auto-piloting”. Tesla already has some options that are level 2 cars, like the model S and the model X. Google is one of the companies making the effort to release a level 4 self-driven car, which is expected in 2020.

Tesla is also working on this technology, however they are focusing on solving easy driving problems that driverless vehicles face on highroads. They are leaving the hardest challenges, such as adapting the technology in a way that the cars will be able to cope with city traffic,.. for later.

Moreover, there is this assumption that when this technology is well developed, cities will flip from human controlled cars to self-driven cars really quickly.

Quantum Network

The principle of Quantum Network can be associated to the principle of Quantum Teleportation. In essence, Quantum Teleportation is the idea of getting some information on one side and let it reappear on the other side. The most interesting part of this, is that the information will not travel from one source to the other. Instead, it will disappear on one side and reappear on the other side.

This principle is the main action that could be done with Quantum Internet.

This idea seams really futuristic and far from reality. However, Physicists have created a prototype that was able to link two separate labs. The network was able to send, receive and store quantum information. Linked by a fiber-optic cable, information could go from one side to another on a single photon.

If this prototype gets refined and implemented, it could be scaled-up and create a new channel of communication. One of the things we could best benefit most of from Quantum Network would be towards security. Making information go from on source to another, without having to “travel”, makes the hacking/stealing of this information/data almost impossible.

References:

https://medium.com/the-sound-of-innovation/when-it-comes-to-smart-homes-the-future-is-already-here-b900cbaace0a

https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/10/smart-homes-of-the-future/

https://combatgent.com/post/self-driving-cars

http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-dixon-future-of-self-driving-cars-interview-2016-6

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-quantum-network/

https://phys.org/news/2017-05-envisioning-future-quantum-internet.html