Top Future Emerging Technology Trends to Watch in next 5-10 years

Which are the top emerging technology trends to watch out for in the next five to 10 years? Well, we have been talking about technology bringing in unimaginable changes for a while now. When Charlie Chaplin visualized machines overtaking men back in his classic, “Modern Times” set in the interwar period, not many people would have looked at his imagination as anything more than that, and as an artist’s picturization of fantasy.

Woman reaching for virtrual, digital brain. Working on medical research

But move down a few decades, and we are in an era where nothing seems impossible. Or at least, that is what tech evangelists would like us to believe. Indeed, what was unthinkable and purely confined to the realm of filmmaking or literature is now a part of our lives. Who would have imagined for instance, the birth of the Internet? But today, can we dare to think of life beyond or without the Net?

That is the nature of technology. Isn’t it in its DNA to challenge the existing and do the impossible? That really is the essence of science. Nobody anticipated any of the changes we are seeing today, a few decades ago. So, what is beyond our imagination today may become reality a few years from now. Likewise, it is perfectly possible that one may visualize many things that we assume or feel could happen, but they may not. So, is it possible to make an accurate prediction of the technology trends that could shape our lives in say, the next five or ten years?

How accurate could we be in making predictions? Could we hit the bull’s eye, or could we miss it by a mile? Well, only time can say. Two factors need to be taken into consideration in assessing the level of possible accuracy in our predictions:

1. Predictions based on the existing levels of technologies and tools and the pace at which they are enabling changes;
2. The accuracy of previous predictions, that is, those that were made a few years ago about what we can expect to happen, in judging how many predictions could actually get fulfilled.

In relation to the first of these premises, we could possibly make a few predictions. But, it has to come with an immediate rider: it is impossible to ensure its accuracy. Why? Only because, as mentioned, we could make predictions based on current developments. What if a technology, idea or tool springs up and disrupt the whole scenario, for good or for bad? Yet, discounting the possibility of such a paradigm shift, let us get out of the cold and dare to take a look at a few top emerging technology trends to watch out for in the next five to 10 years:

Driverless cars: Well, why should driverless cars figure in the list of top emerging technology trends to watch out for in the next five to 10 years? Simply because everyone from Google to Tesla is talking about it and are investing heavily on it. What changes it could actually bring into the lives of urban masses is not clear at this point of time, because we don’t know whether driverless cars are going to do everything that our cars do or are going to drive Uber and Ola drivers out of work, but make no mistake: driverless cars are among the top emerging technology trends to watch out for in the next five to 10 years.

3D printing’s giant leaps: Who know, considering the pace at which 3D printing is galloping, we could see factories closing down or production houses shifting to homes. One cannot be sure if all these will happen in the next half to one decade, but 3D printing surely is a technology that will revolutionize our lives.

Blockchain: Ah, this technology has the potential to send chills up the spines of everyone from corporate houses indulging in manipulative accounting practices to politicians in developing countries. Imagine being in a situation where every cent is tracked and accounted for, to a point where it is impossible to tweak the accounting ledgers or avoid taxes. Well, realistically, blockchain is at the stage that can be considered as being between infancy and adolescence. This means it has a long, long way to go, but one cannot exclude blockchain from the list of top emerging technologytrends to watch out for in the next five to 10 years.

Alternative fuels: How about running your car or other vehicles on an inexhaustible source of energy, with near zero emission? Yet another fantasy? Not entirely, if the steps clean the areas of clean energy are taking. Again, we may not see these technologies being harnessed to these levels over the next ten years or so, but the search has started, which means that no development should surprise us when they happen. Imagine the global consequences of not being dependent on oil as we do today. It is sure to convulse geopolitics, with potentially earthshaking consequences.

DNA based medical treatments: If this field grows and reaches its logical outcome, we should be bidding goodbye to all the traditional forms of medication, right from coughs and colds to cancer and Parkinson’s. So, what is DNA-based treatment? It is a combination of cloud-based cognitive systems and data analytics and genome research, which will use each person’s DNA as the basis to predict exactly what diseases a person could get, and tailor the treatment precisely in a fashion that suits the patient best. This is a far, far, cry from the mass, carpet-bombing techniques that medicine currently employs to treat diseases. Treatments will be both pinpointed and effective.

Technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, IoT, data science, and AI could bring in inconceivable changes into the fields of education, retail, agriculture, genetics and medicine, to name just a few. At this stage, they are promising enormous things, but it is only with time that we will be able to say whether they will live up to the promise they are showing. Whatever one may say about the nature and implications of these changes, one thing is certain: it is not since the advent of the Industrial Revolution have we been seeing just so many changes of such degree taking place so universally at such a concentrated point of time.