Deloitte Global released their Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) predictions for 2017 in a bid to identify the trends which could have effects on enterprises and consumers for 2017 and beyond. These prediction provide an understanding into what may offer disruption and growth opportunities across the technological, media and telecommunications industries for the next few years.
1) Biometric Security: The active base of fingerprint reader-equipped devices will top one billion for the first time in early 2017. Fingerprint sensors are likely to have been worked into a range of other devices, from laptop computers to remote control devices, for identification and authentication purposes. This is all likely to happen by the end of 2020. Deloitte Global is also expecting many apps and websites to start using fingerprint scanning as a form of password. This could even extend to online subscription services that would use fingerprint scanners to help authenticate users who are buying online content. This would also prevent the illegal sharing of ID’s and passwords. Biometric security could usher in a new era of cyber security.
2)DDoS attacks enter the terabit era: Deloitte Global predicts in 2017, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, a form of cyberattack, will become larger in scale, harder to mitigate and more frequent. In the last few years these attacks have not been able to cause too much damage as the security in place prevented it but this might change in 2017 due to the rise of IoT. There will suddenly be an abundance of insecure IoT devices and the fact that large-scale attacks which exploit IoT devices’ vulnerabilities have become simpler to execute.
3) Safety first: the road to self-driving starts with a stop: Motor saftey technologies to take center stage in attempt to cut down vehicle fatalities all over the world. Although there will be many motor vehicle safety technologies that are likely to contribute to this reduction, the single greatest factor will be automatic emergency braking (AEB) technologies.
4) 5G driving new connections: 5G offers significantly higher speeds, lower latency, and support for low-power low-bitrate Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors.
Deloitte Global predicts that significant tangible steps towards the launch of 5G will happen in 2017, the fifth generation of cellular networks, will take place in 2017. IoT is expected to be one of the most significant new applications for 5G and one of the major drivers of new connections. 5G is expected to be the culmination of many works upgrade on the 4G system. 5G will allow for faster, lower-cost downloads and with larger capacity smart phones connect to this new system usage habbits are likely to change. Global deployment of 5G networks will take many years to complete in full. Deloitte Global predicts that 5G may only roll out in some markets by the end of next decade. As a core enabler of the modern economy, enhanced connectivity is set to disrupt a significant slice of economic output throughout all sectors in the coming years.
5)Brains at the edge: machine learning goes mobile. In 2017, over 300 million smartphones will have on-board neural network machine-learning capability. This functionality will enhance applications including indoor navigation, image classification, augmented reality, speech recognition and language translation even where there is little or no cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity, such as in remote areas, underground or on an airplane. Where there is connectivity, on-board machine learning may allow tasks to be done better and faster, or with more privacy.
6)The great indoors: the final frontier for digital navigation. Have you ever got lost inside a shopping mall, where you just cant seem to find that shop you are looking for? Well by 2022 Deloitte predicts that at least a quarter of all uses of precision digital navigation will include an indoor leg or be for an entirely indoor journey. Growth will be stimulated by sustained improvements in the accuracy of indoor navigation over the medium term. Precise indoor navigation’s potential is significant, is likely to benefit most vertical sectors, and have impacts on government, businesses and consumers alike.
7)TV advertising in the US: flat is the new up. Deloitte Global predicts that US TV advertising revenue in 2017 will be flat with 2016. For an industry widely thought to be following the sharply negative trend of other traditional media, flat is the new up. Although traditional TV advertising is not growing as rapidly as it used to and is losing share to digital, it still remains an important advertising medium
8)Have we reached peak tablet? Tablets burst on to the market and soon became an easy alternative to laptops with many people making the switch, better looking, smaller , easier to use what wasn’t to like about the table, that could be changing. In 2017, Deloitte predict that sales of tablets will be fewer than 160 million units, suggesting that they have passed the peak demand for these devices. Tellingly, there is no dominant compelling use case for these devices. Across a range of online activities, tablets have their fans, but there is no single activity where tablets are the preferred device anymore.
9)Vinyl: the billion-dollar nostalgic niche. Deloitte Global predicts that vinyl will continue its resurgence and may approach $1 billion globally in revenues for the first time this millennium. The need for a physical copy something that buyers can hold and play in an alternative way has seen the record become a collectible, a memento, a proudly physical format and an expression of individuality in an increasingly digital world.
10) IT-as-a-Service: the half trillion dollar ‘niche’. Deloitte Global predicts that by the end of 2018, spending on IT-as-a-Service will be just under $550 billion worldwide. For many companies whether they are large and small, IT-as-a-Service is appealing for several reasons. It avoids significant capital expenditures and provides a predictable expense based on actual use which is easily scaled up or down, based on business needs.
Staff Writer
