Technology is constantly moving, either on a fast forward pace
or backwards, but never still. The rapid advances in technology, coupled with
accelerating innovation, are transforming our lives every day. And as we
entered 2017, expect that existing trends such as the AR (Augmented Reality),
VR (Virtual Reality), and AI (Artificial Intelligence) will step up to the next
level. We've become increasingly connected to our devices, smart machines
getting smarter, and a new IT reality has surfaced.
The thing about trends, whether tech or otherwise, is that you
might be able to start one, but you can't end one. They are a reflection of
society's growing needs and desires. Still, that doesn't keep us from trying to
get rid of a few trends every year that we think need to die. Here are some of
them:
One of the most disastrous cyberattacks in the US happened
September of last year, when a vast network of infected baby monitors and other
IoT devices took down a DNS provider, knocking dozens of major websites offline
for a few hours, including Spotify and Twitter. According to security experts,
the devices' poor security is as much to blame as the hackers who target them.
There's not much you can do but to make sure that you create a very strong
password for your next router or wireless baby camera.
Apple's iOS offers app developers the power to decide how
frequently they'll track your location. You, the smartphone owner, can
completely turn off location tracking anytime, but it's up to the developer
whether or not you see the option to only share your location when the app is
running. This year, Uber stirred quite a bit of controversy when it announced
it would track locations until five minutes after a trip ends. The privacy
implications of allowing dozens of apps track your current location whenever
they want to is quite worrisome, and we're all for giving device owners more
control over how their location is shared.
Don't get the wrong impression -- Augmented Reality is a
promising new horizon for the video game industry. The problem is that people
frequently try to multitask when they shouldn't. For instance is the Pokemon
Go. After recent multiple reports about traffic accidents this past summer,
some of which were fatal, Niantic, the game's creator, added a pop-up message
that warns players when the app detects it's being used in a moving car.
Texting while driving is illegal in most states, but no state bans all mobile
phone usage for all drivers, so it's mostly up to AR gamers to regulate
themselves. There's also the risk that people will walk into lamp posts,
fountains, and traffic. So see to it that you stay safe while you're enjoying
your AR game.
The unencrypted Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) needs to go
away. Major tech companies, such as Google, agree with this idea that even next
year they are planning to make it obvious if you're visiting a website that's
not switched over to HTTPS. Most commerce sites already use HTTPS to secure
credit card information and other sensitive data of its users. Even Netflix and
Wikipedia are encrypted now. However, other major sites like the New York Times
are still 'encryption-free' so be cautious about that.
Can
Twitter finally get itself together and do something about all the trolls
firing tweets with reckless abandon? There's also that YouTube comments
section, which is a good breeding ground for negative and bashful comments. To
compound the problem, much of the most trolling activities come from bots,
including pro-Donald Trump fake accounts that spent much of the 2016 US
presidential election spreading lies. Trolls even transformed Microsoft's
artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot Tay into a racist monster that
eventually had to be turned off.
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