Introduction to Emerging Trends

Computers have been part of our lives for a long time, but the world of computing never stands still. New technologies and fresh initiatives appear with each passing day, and the digital landscape keeps reshaping itself around them. To genuinely understand the technologies we already use — and to gain a clearer view of the developments happening around us — we have to keep a careful watch on these newly arriving technologies, known as emerging trends.

A new technology, however exciting it looks on launch day, is not guaranteed a future. Broadly, every new technology meets one of two fates:

• It fades away. Many new technologies fail to win users over and quietly disappear over time.
• It prospers and persists. Some technologies keep gaining attention from users and become part of everyday digital life.

The second category is what this chapter is about. Emerging trends are the state-of-the-art technologies — the most advanced of their time — that gain popularity among users and go on to set a new trend. Their defining feature is not merely that they are new, but that they win user acceptance and begin to change how people work and interact.

Why should a student of Informatics Practices study them? Because these are the technologies expected to make a huge impact, in the future, on the digital economy and on interaction within digital societies. Knowing them early gives you the context to understand where computing is heading, not just where it has been.

This chapter surveys the following emerging trends, one by one:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Big Data
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Cloud Computing
• Grid Computing
• Blockchains