The past 365 days had sprinted through our lives like lightning, carrying many things with it. Some blew our minds, some shook our souls. Today we are going to talk breifly about the 10 most bizarre technological advancements that took place in the year of 2024. Few of them are inconceivable to our minds.
1.Artificial Intelligence:
The compound word “Artificial intelligence” has become one of the most spoken words in the whole globe within months, though it was invented decades ago. It is due to recent technological advancements, which helped in the invention of generative AI. Gen AI is a revolutionary invention. It is capable of generating thousands of words, multiple images just from text inputs, converting an image into video, changing the voice of a person, changing people’s faces into others, etc. The seed for this magnificant branch of computing was planted by OpenAI. This was further developed by companies like RunwayML, Adobe, Microsoft, etc. They are anticipating many more innovations in the AI sector over the years.
2.Augmented and Virtual Reality:
The rapid growth of AI has led to many inventions surrounding it, like AR and VR. Generative AI has made the life of a developer in AR headsets easier due to its magical power of generating 3D environments from scratch within seconds, says Mark Zuckerberg. This year many noticeably good VR headsets were released even from famous companies such as Apple and Meta. Though some of it is not good, the industry has rapidly grown in the year. Many inexpensive options started to sprout, and many developers invented useful and productive softwares around it. Since VR headsets are not appreciated well globally, manufacturers have started producing AR glasses, which contain few useful life changing applications. They are expecting this industry to be the primary way of computing in the near future.
3.AI Personal Companions:
2024 has become a magnificent year for AI. It started to infiltrate all industries even into healthcare, electronic appliances and personal companions. In the starting the companions were in the form of chat bots like Chat GPT, Meta AI, etc. Then it transformed into wearable physical computers powered by AI like Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin. These products offered many features like translating a bilingual conversation, identifying an object, etc. However these features were available in our smartphones and featured a lot more other than this. I believe the industry will grow in the near future by utilising the available abundant resources in AI to build a better physical, wearable AI companion. If it goes as expected, it might even replace our heavy block of metal and glass (smartphone).
4.Consumer electronics:
Again this year was a great year for consumer electronics due to the infiltration of AI into this industry. Starting from smartphone to refrigerator AI made their day better. In smartphones Generative AI helped in increasing the features offered, and efficiency of the chipset used. In electronic appliances AI technically opened the door to an unseen division of the sector, but few companies used it as a marketing tool and strategy increasing their profit without providing a good product. However not all of them faked the new features. Some offered good features with AI like better OLED TV’s with AI processing, reducing energy consumption in laptops by increasing the efficiency of processors, etc. We are anticipating more innovations over the years without faking the feature by a few companies.
5.Reducing Space Litter:
The most expected invention of the year was Spacex’s “Chopsticks”. It is a mission to reduce the space litter from rocket launches into space from now on by reusing the components that were littered in space before. As expected it was successful and Elon Musk’s many years of hard work was rewarded with its success. This huge milestone in space exploration will break the hardest obstrucle on litter space with machinery, providing a clean and green exploration. This revolutionary technological advancement also reduces the cost of each rocket launch into space, which breaks the boundaries of space exploration and gives access to sent payloads created by small startup’s. We can’t wait for the future discoveries made possible by SpaceX’s “Chopsticks”.
6.Sustainable Earth:
Many countries have joined their hands in their own way to build a sustainable ecosystem for a better environment for future generations. Many of them focused on transition to renewable energies. Like India increased the capacity of a solar power plant maximising to almost 3 gigawatts of energy, China expanded its wind mill plant to 50 gigawatts crowning themselves as the leader in wind energy. Also the USA implemented Carbon Capture systems in Texas aiming to extract many tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Last but not least, the Brazilian government has taken an initiative in 2024 to reforest the Amazon to expand forest territories and reduce the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. In addition, many individuals including me have taken a step to reduce the usage of plastic to provide a plastic free breath in the future. If each and every individual took a diminutive step or measure focusing on sustainable earth throughout the world, we would achieve our goals and protect our mother planet.
7.Quantum Computing
Quantum computing is one of the most under explored but most anticipated sectors in the history of technology. The start hype of inventing quantum computing dates back to the early 1970s, crossing the 50 year mark. In the past 365 days, tech giants like IBM, Google and Amazon invented better and powerful quantum processors. In addition to it they are providing cloud service for quantum computing, enabling infinite possible innovation yet to be discovered. This allows for technological advancements in encrypting data, to ensure the data secured with current encryption methods are not destroyed by the magnificent computing power of quantum computing. Quantum computing grants the ability for faster discovery of medicines, exploring the deep space, enabling greener computing by increasing the efficiency of computing, advancements in AI and machine learning, etc. In the upcoming years qubits will be more stable than ever before nearing the revolutionary era of computing data.
8.Sustainable Technology In Consumer Electronics:
Our whole human mankind is searching for sustainable alternatives for our essential needs to make the world a better place. In that idea the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) event was crammed with technological advancements pointing towards sustainable technology in consumer electronics. 20 companies which participated in this event were awarded 35 Innovative awards for contributing to the development of sustainable technologies. Even tech giants like Google, Apple and Samsung are finding ways to incorporate green energy sources into their existing multi-billion dollar warehouses and data centers. Also nowadays data centers are being cooled by liquid cooling or free cooling avoiding air conditioners, promoting greener earth. In addition to it, the circular economy is promoted by Apple and Dell by their recycling programmes, deriving raw materials from them like gold and silver to use in their upcoming brand new products, reducing the demand for the raw materials and electronic wastes. Furthermore the new chipsets for Nvidia specialised for AI increases the efficiency in energy consumption reducing carbon footprint. Many EV companies switched to solid state batteries rather than lithium ion batteries, surviving in higher temperatures and reducing harm to the environment. Moreover Google had announced they would release a device powered by solar panels only which sounds ridiculous. All these diminutive but essential changes will support our environment in the near future providing cleaner air for our future generations.
9.3D Printing:
The year 2024 encompassed many diminutive but vital milestones for our future dreams in the 3D printing sector. One of the major advancements was printing with sustainable materials. While the whole year 2024 focused on improving our sustainable lifestyle, this huge milestone creates the ability to invent a lot of new things at the same time conserving our precious ecosystem. In addition to it few new methods of printing were invented in the metal printing sector enabling more sophisticated and advanced designs to be printed at a lower time period making it feasible for printing metal parts rather than machining it in a CNC machine. Also multi-material printing was introduced during the same time of year. This reduces the time and makes it easier to construct a robot, says a robotic engineer. Furthermore many new materials were included in 3D printing like flexible materials for researching on wearable prints, edible materials like chocolates assuring 3D printed food is the future of food and bioprinting empowering living tissues and cells to be printed. Not to mention AI was introduced in the sector once again, facilitating faster, stronger, more sophisticated, and reliable prints with the same material. In conclusion 3D printing in 2024 was the most revolutionized sector of the year.
10.Healthcare Technology:
Healthcare technology has been growing exponentially over the past few years. It helped maintain a seamless experience to patients and doctors by implementing the idea of electronic patient record. On this date almost all health sectors throughout the world follow this trend, but there is a problem. The previous encryption and security enforcements were washed out by our recent technological advancements, bringing blockchain technology in the health sector ensuring privacy and security in collecting patient records electronically. In addition to it, Artificial Intelligence has come in handy to find out fake insurance claims and health records, providing more time for nurses and doctors to consult their patients solving the problem of shortage in expertise and labour. Furthermore, Gen AI is used in the health sector to predict the probabilities and risk of exposure to a disease in the near future by analysing the data of their patients. This helps in preventing or curing chronic diseases in early stages. Not to mention, spatial computing products from health care companies have made it feasible for virtual consultation with a specialised doctor located thousands of kilometers away from the patient, increasing the probability of curing the disease exponentially. Also AR VR technology is more advanced now making it practical for teaching aspiring young doctors with 3D live demos of surgeries. Robotic surgeries now became more sophisticated and cheap. Wearable healthcare products are becoming helpful for doctors in monitoring health records. Doctors are anticipating new technological advancements in the near future to reduce the failure rate in curing patients to net zero.
Conclusion:
These 10 bizarre advancements are only the tip of the iceberg. The count of these advancements is innumerable. While these technological advancements are ground breaking and reveal the door for endless possible uses for it, it is our duty to use the technologies in the defined and proper way without harming other living beings. Let’s wait for some new bizarre inventions and advancements in technology to be made in the next 365 days!
By: S. Paarthivkumar
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