[ITAL] Emerging Technologies
3D Printing
- Creates an object designed in CAD software
- Works by building from thousands of cross sectional area of the model, from bottom to top.
- https://www.3dhubs.com/knowledge-base/introduction-fdm-3d-printing/
Advantages
- Able to create forms that is impossible to create with traditional manufacturing methods (CNC, laser cut etc.)
- Able to create internally hollow structure, which results in lighter parts (for aircraft)
- Can produce parts of different materials, in medical, can produce organs with tissues and blood vessels
- Very large printer is already printing houses
Disadvantages
- Very slow to print large objects
- (currently) limited selection of materials, although it is expanding
- Mot common material is plastic - environmental issues
4G and 5G
- 4G is the current generation of mobile communication - much faster data transmission (aka Internet) than 3G
- 5G is not only much faster than 4G, but improve a lot in terms of latency
- One issue for 5G is the very low coverage (a few hundred meters, and even worst for dense area) for each cell tower, thus required much more tower to cover compare to previous generations
AI
- Computer simulate human "think"
- in 1980s, deep blue beats human in chess
- in 2010s, alpha go beats human in game of Go
- Many applications including:
- Voice assistants (Siri, Alexa etc)
- Self-driving vehicles (Tesla e.g.)
- Auto translation
- Image recognition
Cloud computing
- Remote, shared computer server that provides "Computation" services to users
- e.g. a researcher need to perform a complex simulation, instead of getting such hardware, he can get services from those cloud computing, which he provides the program and data, and the calculation will be run on the provider's hardware
- example: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure
Adv/Disadv
- No need to purchase and host expensive hardware
- No need to maintain those hardware
- Access data and software from anywhere
- Issue may includes security and privacy concerns, since data is stored online
VR and AR
- VR - Virtual reality
- AR - Augmented reality
- VR usually refers to wearing headset which the user is "immersed" in a completely virtual world
- AR usually "modify" or put "overlay" on top of real world video / image
Application
- Game (e.g. Pokemon Go) or simulations
- CAD - visualize or even interact with the product or design process
- Social or online conferencing
Quantum cryptography
- "Safest" way to Encryption of data
- Traditional Encryption relies on encoding data such that you need a "key" to decrypt, such that even during transmission the ciphertext is stolen, the original data is not easily exposed
- Quantum encryption is done in photon, which the message will be corrupted if anyone try to intercept
- i.e. theoretically impossible to intercept
Holographic Data Storage
- Traditional data storage is 2-D, data bits store one next to another
- Holographic data storage can "stack" data on multiple layers
- Advantages:
- Obviously large amount of storage
- longer lasting compare to optical or magnetic
- Disadvantages:
- The drive is expensive (and since might not be very popular, the price won't drop much)
4th-generation optical storage
- 3rd generation storage refers to the current one, which is Blu-Ray (prev. CD, DVD)
- 4th-gen optical will allow much larger capacity (1TB) per disc
Wearable Computing
- Computing devices that put on human body
- e.g.
- Smartwatches
- Fitness trackers
- https://www.jccpa.org.hk/en/facts_on_dementia/dementia_mobile_app/index.html
- Most currently relies on Bluetooth - low power, longer lasting but short range
Ultra-high definition TV
- Full HD is about 2000x1000 pixels in resolution (1920x1080) to be precise
- 4K and 8K is referred as UHD, which is 4 times and 8 times the pixel compare to full HD
- 4K is almost standard for those higher end TVs while 8K is still very expensive
- There are 4K TV broadcasting in some country and the Tokyo Olympic game / Beijing Olympic already aired some 8K live video
- Main drawback for higher resolution is both content creation, production and streaming will be more expensive and bandwidth demanding
Vision enhancement
- Technology to assist visually impaired
- Some amplified the light received by the eye
- Glasses to help color-blind people to see:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6QuYiY1EJg
- Other examples:
- https://www.nanalyze.com/2017/04/6-vision-enhancement-devices/
[ITAL] Emerging Technologies
By Andy tsui
