If you need Information, Where and How do you seek it?

How many of you remember how you used to find information about various questions which troubled you 10 years ago? Even 5. Try not to Google the answer for this question! In the early 2000's a technical revolution was brewing due to the fierce competition and rivalry between the tech giant of that time IBM, IT software business magnate & Microsoft co-founder "Bill Gates" and a highly passionate entrepreneur-inventor & CEO of Apple "Steve Jobs". Little did they know that this competition between them would make them industry pioneers and they will change the way of communicating and sharing information(everything) forever!

In this age of digital media and multiple internet connected devices we should take a look at where we came from just to understand where we are heading.

From food and wood gathering, human race has evolved to become information gatherers. Early information gathering methods were mainly listening to stories, writing and reading books, learning from teachers and experienced people. Then there were the early adopters who had access to internet and were scaling it's potential but a majority of people did not trust it and a "Y2K scare" was created. Well that passed and so did our way of communication and information gathering :)

Since early 2000s we started using various electronic devices to store and read digital books, keep information in electronic documents, saving images, Googling for answers and exploring new things.

10 years ago, before the first iPhone was sold on June 29, 2007; the mobile phone was used for mainly business purpose. Currently we do everything social, business and personal on our mobile devices. Even present day education system has changed, it is provided through pre-loaded iPads having curriculum and apps for parents students and teachers to connect to. Our information storage and gathering method has gone the cloud way.

All of you know this and never stopped to imagine how it changed but adopted them easily, which is half the part. Now we should see the trend and imagine what possibilities would be there for the future of information?

Big Data, Automation, Artificial Intelligence?

These are the latest trending industry keywords which are creating a buzz from some time now. The speculation is that the correct amalgamation of of all these 3 would be best suited to bring about the next "Big Thing" in information gathering.

Big Data + Automation/Machine Learning + Artificial Intelligence = Next Big Thing!

Beware! the above combination is one of the factors which can end the human race according to great physicist Stephen Hawking if Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" are not followed properly. It has been discussed that these 3 laws also have various loopholes in them, but we are more interested to imagine the future prospects.

No wonder why Facebook had to shut it's AI program and Elon Musk advising Mark Zuckerberg about the capability of machine learning.

Is the cold-war between Zuckerberg (Social AI) and Musk (IoT, Autonomous driving) beginning to shape up the future related to these technologies just like Gates vs Jobs did for information technology?

Just to reflect on some possibilities, in nearly 5 years from now we will be having easily affordable "Voice-recognition based assistants" in our homes which will project information on transparent screens based on our commands. They will always be connected to internet and would easily answer your question based on a set of algorithms. Not only that, apart from the manufacturing and automobile industry, there are researches going on to upload programs such as cooking recipes and household cleaning activities to be performed by Chinese made robots. Apart from information storage and processing, the "bots" we are using these days to do a lot of automation would extend beyond the computer system and would be embedded into machines which can do routine tasks as well for us. Probably do your job as well (hope not) !

Extending your imagination beyond, 10 years from now there will be a small implant available which we will be able to implant behind our ears connected to our eyes or Google Glass to process visual signals and store/provide information to/from the cloud directly in front on us. They would be capable of displaying your social rank, FB account, tweets and other professional information all just through facial recognition. It might even store and playback your memories of the day, month or even an year from the cloud storage!

Probably in distant future we could create humanoids with memories of a person but that will surely be against the nature and would create chaos!

There are endless possibilities what these technologies can do, you are welcome to mention other predictions about the future of humanity and technology interaction.

We need to think and build the evolution of technology "together", in a way which will help the humanity to strive and build bonds within us stronger.

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