Imagine waking up to a new day. A smart alarm clock nudges you awake at the optimal time, as you check your smartwatch to see how the quality of your sleep was. As you ready yourself for work, the virtual assistant on your smart speaker reads you the news, and weather and traffic conditions as you brush your teeth.
Freshly brewed coffee from the automated coffee machine awaits you as you grab a cup before work. Just as you are about to head out of the door, a drone from the logistics company drops off a package just in time. You are scheduled to reach the office at 9am and you get some work done on the commute, thanks to your self-driving car.
All this sounds like science fiction, but the foundation for this scenario to happen is here today. Here are some tech trends from 2018 that are making the above a reality.
FACIAL RECOGNITION
Facial recognition technology has become increasingly common in everyday life. It is used in security by way of biometrics on smartphones like the iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S9 and Oppo Find X to unlock them in less than a second.
At the same time, it is present in companies like Amazon, who is providing assistance to law enforcement agencies through the use of its cloud-based face recognition service Rekognition. On the consumer front, software like Google Photos also utilises the technology to sort pictures and automatically tag them.
Going beyond the technology field, facial recognition is also employed in the healthcare sector, where it is used to track a patient’s use of medication more accurately and detect genetic diseases like DiGeorge syndrome.
Within the marketing and retail space, facial recognition can help improve customer’s purchase process through the use of cameras that analyse a shopper’s behaviour. Offering even more convenience, some companies like KFC in America and Alibaba in China are testing face recognition payment solutions.
