Personally, I’d nominate “disrupt” as the word of the year for 2016 — and the way things are looking, it’s a strong contender for 2017 as well.
Sure, we might find it easy to focus on new mobile apps, fancy consumer gadgets and new vehicles, but some of the coolest disruptions and innovations of late have occurred behind the scenes, in industries a bit less sexy.
My personal favorite at the moment is tracking technologies. Here are three cool ones we can expect to be the driving force of major changes in our lives:
GPS
The tracking technology most people are familiar with is the Global Positioning System, or GPS, satellite technology owned by the U.S. government and operated by the Air Force but now a commercial part of our everyday lives. GPS is used for purposes ranging from locating lost pets to planning road trips. In the past decade or so, GPS has gone from guiding submarines to optimizing delivery truck drivers, and its application is only expanding as more consumer devices become popular.
Why entrepreneurs should care: As smartphones reach saturation, GPS data becomes more comprehensive and will eventually affect virtually every industry. The demand for targeted advertising will skyrocket; mobile games that use a player’s movements (like Pokemon Go, Ingress and Zombies, Run!) will grow in popularity; and personalization engines will be even more accurate.
Do these business models sound appealing? We thought so.
Fog computing
Almost all businesses and even consumers use some form of cloud computing, from Google Docs to SaaS. But a new trend is making use of all of these connections: fog computing. This new technology harnesses the internet of things (IoT) concept and combines the data coming from IoT devices to form more functional services and more sustainable infrastructure. While not a…