Business ideas for a future essay. Ten breakthrough marketing trends of the future. Idea: always increase the cake

Business does not stand still, today this process has become especially noticeable, constant transformations in any business are inevitable, there is nothing unusual in it, those who can adapt to new realities will remain in business, those who cannot leave. In this article, we propose that you consider future business ideas that came to light thanks to the emergence of new areas in business.

5 business ideas of the future

Today we look at modern business areas, or rather, the fastest growing areas. Each of these areas is interesting in its own way. They are also good because you do not need to have start-up capital to start. And if you are interested in the ideas of the present, here.

It’s no secret that in recent years the Internet has expanded significantly and more and more advertisers are going online to make additional sales over the Internet. Based on where the modern business is heading, the business ideas of the future 2019 will be somehow intertwined with the Internet. Social media advertising at the end of 2019 became even more popular, because millions of potential customers visit social networks every day.

How to make money on this for a specialist in social networks, the answer is very simple. If you have experience in promoting a community or selling a product, through social network, you will be a very sought-after specialist. You can do two things, or work for yourself (sell your product or partner for a percentage) or work for a company that promotes groups and sites.

But also, if you wish, you can combine these two options, for example, you can work for a company without leaving your home (remotely) and after completing the required amount of work for the day, you can lead your projects or work on other client projects.

If you have knowledge in any field, it doesn’t matter if it is professional knowledge in (medicine, law, psychology, or maybe you are a good mechanic), such knowledge can be used to educate your clients. Such "business of the future idea" was relevant in the past, but as the field of online learning is gaining momentum, we can safely assume that in the future this business will become even more relevant and may become a substitute for standard education.

Already today through Skype, many conduct training seminars (on the study of various languages, copywriting and many other specialties or subjects). Such lessons can be held in various forms, with hourly pay, pay for the full course, etc.

Your YouTube Channel

This video monetization option came to us from the West. And every day is gaining more and more popularity in Runet. Already thousands of people across Russia have their own YouTube channels and share their videos with subscribers and earn very good money from showing ads. But creating a quality channel with a large number of subscribers is not so simple. You must have really interesting material for the masses.

The earnings themselves come from the display of contextual advertising in each video clip (it is put automatically). Such a business can be safely called the business of the future, at least in the near future there are no prerequisites for this business to become less profitable.

The idea is to create beautiful phone cases with a photo of the customer. Such an original cover will certainly attract attention, such a cover can even be presented for some holiday or birthday.

It’s not necessary to produce such a cover yourself, although it will be much more profitable, equipment for production will not be required, but if you don’t have the financial ability to buy equipment, you can become an intermediary, take an order from such a customer and then order the portrait you need from the company.

Not many companies offer such services, so this is an interesting solution that can bring you not bad profit, you just need to find a company that does such things on order.

Fresh food

Today it has become very fashionable to lead a healthy lifestyle and for good reason, the first is of course the desire to extend your life and the second is to have good well-being. These things are justified, because whoever refused junk food at least for a period of 1-3 months felt the difference. Suchbusiness of the future in Russiabegan to actively develop over the past few years. Large corporations have already actively entered this business and offer different options for healthy food, someone offers food without GMOs, etc.

There is also a place for small businesses in this area. If you think about it, domestic agriculture offers quite a few healthy food products. You can organize your business on this basis, for example, open an eco store or arrange delivery of such products to people at home, they make an order through the website or by phone and you bring him the ordered goods. Athletes and all those people who lead a healthy lifestyle can become potential clients. You do not have to produce these products, you can act as an intermediary. Buy products from farmers and deliver them to addresses, taking a small percentage.

In order for someone to buy such products from you, you certainly need to have some reputation in the market. The most ideal option would be to make a brand store, run advertising, etc. But if there is no money, this is not an option, you can create your own website and social groups. networks and YouTube in them you will in detail in the video and other material tell where you get the product, why it is worth buying, etc.

It’s worth to get the support of athletes, it would give your brand even more weight. This does not have to be world-famous athletes, small athletes who can be found in any gym (trainer) are enough, they will just say to their wards where you can buy healthy food.

2 small tips:

You must be honest with customers (do not invent too much, they say your product, super-eco clean, etc., only real facts);

Do not make a large margin on products, the amount should pay off your expenses, plus there should be a small plus for the work done.

So that everything was officially necessary to open an IP or LLC, today you can do it yourself by following simply.

This is how we see business ideas of the future, or rather, some of them. In any of these areas, you can succeed even without investment, which will be pleasant to hear for novice businessmen. Whatever area you choose, we wish you success in your endeavors.

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Currently, in almost all areas of business there is very fierce competition, which stimulates novice entrepreneurs to master unusual business: we will consider unusual ideas from the future for business in our article, perhaps they will be a great start for opening and organizing new activities.

One can fantasize endlessly, but in order to determine which non-standard approaches to entrepreneurial activity really prove to be popular among consumers, it is necessary to comprehensively analyze the supply and demand functions and predict the likelihood of successful sale of goods and services. The demand function constantly fluctuates and depends on many external and internal factors: economic indicators, price segment, fashion trends and trends.

In modern times, new technologies are constantly appearing, innovative services are being introduced, while some bring huge profits, while others are not in demand. How to determine what it is better to invest in now to make a profit in the future, and what an unusual business idea will be a breakthrough in the market, every businessman thinks.

The market for goods of services is constantly expanding, and consumer preferences are changing in a very short time: if a few years ago one product was at the peak of popularity, now it has been squeezed out of the market by other, more progressive offers. In view of the constant growth of the assortment, buyers have become more capricious and picky, they try to find the most prestigious and modern products at a reasonable price.

The disadvantage of this situation for businessmen is that it is extremely difficult to predict the development and condition of a particular niche in a business. In order to be on the crest of a wave, it is necessary to be in the forefront, offering those goods and services that customers have only thought about. If competitive organizations manage to bring revolutionary goods to the market earlier, then this can be detrimental to the entrepreneur.

In order to offer unusual ideas from the future for business, we tried to analyze the current market conditions and predict the likelihood of a successful development of a particular activity. Of course, each entrepreneur probably has his own ideas regarding what to do and what to offer the consumer, but perhaps the options below will also interest those who want to get into the business and start their own business. It is impossible to predict what new technologies scientists will create or how the economic situation in the country will turn out, but still we suggest you consider a list of very relevant and interesting business proposals that may well come in handy in the future.

Non-standard business: offers that will interest consumers

1. Asteroids, as sources of resources.

The information that the amount of resources on our planet is inexorably decreasing is constantly being broadcast on television, radio, on the Internet. Various scientific conferences are held, alternative ways of maintaining resource bases are researched and developed, however, no concrete solution to the problem has been formulated. With a decrease in useful minerals, their cost increases, which in principle is quite natural. It is this trend that becomes the impetus for the development of a new business idea: to use asteroids as sources of extraction of necessary minerals. It is likely that this will become not only a new, but also more profitable way to meet the needs of mankind.

According to various studies conducted by scientists from all over the globe, it is asteroids that contain a lot of essential minerals, such as platinum, iron ore, manganese, cobalt, nickel and many other resources. Recently, specialized studies have been conducted aimed at finding additional sources of water resources. As it turned out, the main component of the Trojan asteroids of the planet Jupiter is ordinary ice, which can fill the needs of living organisms in the water.

In order to have one hundred percent confidence that the composition of people is really suitable for drinking water in the life of the natural organisms of our planet, special complex projects are formed, in the amount of three stages. For their implementation, it will be necessary to take test elements from the surface of the asteroids, and in laboratory conditions analyze the physical and chemical properties of soil samples. The mission plan has already been fully compiled and formulated, they will have the following names:

The Japanese interplanetary station begins a mission to take samples of the asteroid's soil elements, according to class C. The operation is named Hayabusa-2. Specialists plan to deliver soil samples to our planet no later than December two thousand and twentieth year;
The Americans also developed a project plan that aims to get closer to the celestial body under the name Bennu, to take samples of soil elements, and to send to planet Earth. The process is planned to begin in two thousand and nineteen, and complete four years later;
Our country also developed a plan for the development of soils of other planets, such as Phobos and Mars, calling the development Phobos soil 2. The mission should be carried out from two thousand and nineteen to two thousand and twentieth.

There are a lot of ways to extract resources from asteroid soils, and development and research aimed at their expansion are currently ongoing. The same can be said about the transportation of minerals to our planet, their research and analysis.

It is likely that an unusual business related to space bodies will very soon become one of the most profitable and necessary niches, so you should take a closer look at this industry.

2. Shop in three-dimensional graphics.

This business idea is focused on organizing a workflow using printers that deliver an image in three-dimensional format. For example, a consumer picks up a new phone case or keyboard for a computer. In order to reduce resources, time and labor costs, there is no need to create a whole production process to demonstrate a particular model. It is much easier to provide variations in the form of printed images in the format of three-dimensional graphics. Moreover, the creators of printers of this format say that every day the capabilities of the devices grow and become more professional, so that very soon they will be able to greatly simplify their lives.

At present, some companies have just begun developing products, which explains the inflated prices for equipment that they set, but this is quite natural. It is enough to recall the first laptops or cell phones - once upon a time - it seemed an unacceptable luxury, and now almost every citizen of the country has it. So the stores, whose work is based on three-dimensional printers, may well turn into an excellent business of the future, and the buyer will be able to realize all his wishes and get an image of the product that suits him perfectly.

3. The process of restoring body tissues.

Now we are not talking about how to easily completely restore a person’s limb or internal organ in a laboratory, but the possibility of such manipulations after some time, scientists say. An unusual business idea is to restore the skin of a person, tendon or muscle, as well as all the soft tissues separately.

There are some Western companies that are actively working on research and the formation of tools and conditions for such processes. Suppose an American organization is developing special devices that will stimulate the creation of a stem cell in the place where the tendon rupture occurred. This process will be aimed at achieving the most natural regenerative level of tissue repair.

It is rather a business of the future, which will become available after some time, given that many of the nuances are under development and are far from becoming accessible to doctors in city clinics. But the fact that it will be truly in demand and profitable can be argued with high probability.

4. Air trading.

Reasonable entrepreneurs have long realized the sale of water, although before it seemed illogical and unnecessary, then the business idea was not a great idea - selling air. The idea of \u200b\u200boxygen cocktails was very popular in the mid-nineties, but at the moment, some US companies are actively producing special air bottles for athletes. Purified air is sold, which stimulates the growth of oxygen elements in human blood, and also helps relieve nervous tension.

If you look at modern environmental conditions, we can assume that pure and fresh oxygen will become a very popular product after some time. Moreover, its popularity among consumers can reach the level of demand for bottled drinks at the moment.

In cities where there are a large number of factories and enterprises, a lot of transport drives, whole initiative groups of residents are formed, which oppose the increased level of oxygen pollution. More recently, activists in Hong Kong recorded a video based on how residents are forced to buy fresh oxygen. Thus, it is likely that air trading is that unusual business that will soon become profitable and popular.

5. Refueling for electrical machines.

Given that oil reserves are declining quite rapidly, drivers will soon have to think about replacing conventional cars with electric cars. And this is a great opportunity for an entrepreneur to start an unusual business by installing stations for charging cars. The more electric vehicles will appear on the roads, the more popular such stations will become, and having occupied this niche of business before competitors, the businessman businessman will secure a good market share.

The station itself for charging the car works on the same principle as gas or gas stations, only the fuel here is electricity. Specialists who were engaged in forecasting this business idea are almost sure that in a few years it will bring huge profit to its organizers. Of course, the best positions on the market will be occupied by those businessmen who are the first to engage in the implementation of electric charges for a new generation of machines.

6. Development of instruments for studying DNA.

Western companies have long begun to engage in similar research and development that relate to human DNA, its reading and recognition. The main purpose of these manipulations is the ability to detect various diseases at the very beginning of their development using a specialized test. In our country, DNA research with the aim of determining the state of health is an unusual business idea, which has not yet been presented anywhere, as an established business project, so go ahead for development.

This technique can be used for newborns to diagnose their health status. You can also develop a device that can study the DNA of the future father and mother of the child, make a forecast of the state of health and possible problems of the baby, which was not conceived. The very idea of \u200b\u200ba business is very promising, which will soon become in demand all over the world. These are advanced technologies that can analyze almost all information, based only on human genomes.

7. Control of the emission of harmful substances.

Every year, the problem of air pollution and environmental degradation is becoming more and more discussed and relevant. Societies of activists that protect the environment say that in the near future enterprises will be organized that carry out special measurements to control the emission of waste, including greenhouse gases. The opening of such a controlling enterprise is a very unusual business idea, which can soon bring profit to businessmen. This is justified by the fact that more and more civilized countries are puzzled by the problem of regular air pollution.

It is these firms that manufacturers will soon turn to in order to obtain data on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and also to check its compliance with the standards established by law.

8. Theater of holograms.

In modern times, holographic technologies are beginning to actively develop. They represent an updated and improved way of presenting tricks that were popular in the nineteenth century. At that time, thick glass was used for its implementation, with which the fakir separated the audience from the image itself. The picture at this time could appear as if from the air, after which it stopped in a state of weightlessness, which extremely surprised the audience.

After that, the focus was improved, and the glass was replaced by a special polymer, which has an enhanced reflection function. But at the moment, high technologies are developing in parallel, which can make a person feel like a participant in a holographic performance.

Nowadays, movie rental in three-dimensional image, virtual reality attractions are very popular. But to connect holographic technology to the theater or film distribution are rather unusual ideas from the future for business in our country, which are likely to become very popular among lovers of new sensations.

9. Personal flying backpack.

The phrase personal flying backpack seems strange to many, but remember, just a couple of decades ago, we could not even imagine that we would be talking on the phone anywhere in the city, and for our ancestors, a personal car seemed something fantastic. The same thing will soon happen with flying backpacks, because already from the middle of this year, a company operating in New Zealand has begun commercial production of such devices. This unusual business can become very profitable and popular.

At the moment, the development allows you to fly only over the fields, but given the constant progress, it is likely that over time flying backpacks will become a popular transport. If we assume that the citizens of the country could move through the air in a consistent manner using such a backpack, then the problem of kilometer traffic jams would recede into the background.

10. Lunar excursions.

Entrepreneurial businessmen come up with a variety of travels and excursions around the world: tourists explore uninhabited islands, conquer mountain peaks and engage in extreme sports. It would seem that all the niches of the tourism business have already been mastered and worked out, but why not allow more to those who have the opportunity to pay for a unique tour?

People who have enough money would probably be interested in traveling to the moon, because now it is much more accessible than in the past, when the space zone was considered a taboo for everyone except for some specialized groups. Now the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a line of costly sightseeing flights into space is being visited by many businessmen. Of course, this unusual business requires significant investments, but the fact that it will pay off is almost one hundred percent fact.

The pricing policy for such excursions starts at hundreds of millions of dollars, and the American representative plans to begin the first flights with two thousand and eighteen. The tourist ship will have only two places for tourists, and he will receive two hundred thousand dollars in one flight.

11. Production of meat by artificial means.

Many entrepreneurs have already thought about how to grow beef or pork in the laboratory, because such a business can be very promising in modern conditions of constant progress. In order to produce chicken meat or another type of meat product artificially, stem cells are needed. Using them, some scientists managed to get the desired results in this area.

In order for artificial meat to fall into general consumption, a number of improvements, testing and refinement of the product should be carried out. In addition to these points, you will need to go through a series of checks and obtain the permission of the law to sell products.

This idea of \u200b\u200bbusiness will be approved by all animal protection associations, fighters against the killing of animals and vegetarians. By the way, with the help of laboratory meat, you can help residents of third world countries where meat products are in short supply.

12. Development and manufacture of nanosatellite technologies.

The cost of its production and development depends on the size of the satellite produced, which can be taken as the basic principle of limitation. It is the cost that prevents many manufacturers from launching a line for the production of satellite systems, but nanosatellites differ from the rest just in that they have fairly acceptable, small dimensional characteristics. At the same time, the dimensions do not affect the functionality of the devices; they, like huge technologies, can collect the data necessary for weather forecasts, stopping natural disasters and other facts important for the vital functions of the world's population.

Nanosatellites are becoming an increasingly popular area for investing in development, because, according to scientists and major businessmen, this technology has a great future.

13. Security of confidential and private information.

Now information is one of the most significant and important resources on the planet that can affect any sphere of human activity in a cardinal way. Since most of the enterprises and companies are fully computerized, and important documents are increasingly sent not via couriers and mail transfers, but via e-mail, a significant proportion of very significant information and data is found on the Internet.

Cyber \u200b\u200bspace specialists can steal any data, from personal videos to contracts and information about money transfers. That is why almost every company needs specialized protection of its data, as well as a well-versed specialist who will monitor all computer processes.

Another business of the future can be built on the basis of modern technologies and systems for protecting the security of personal data of an enterprise or a specific person.

14. Hotel business in space.

This is a very unusual business idea that many countries undertook to develop: including America and Russia. The essence of the project is that tourists who wish can settle in a specially designed hotel, while observing our planet. The duration of such a trip is short, and the number of settlers is not more than six people. This project requires huge investments, but they will surely pay off with time. Indeed, there will certainly be more than six people who want to look at the earth through the window of their own number.

15. The farm is a vertical format.

This type of farm is still a prospect for a rather distant future. But if we consider the effectiveness of greenhouses that are operating in full swing on our planet, we can conclude that the superstructure of floors and the formation of farm skyscrapers will be quite relevant and profitable. A multi-storey farm takes up little space, as it grows not in width, but up, which also reduces the burden on the environment. Of course, now the vertical format farm does not fit in the head. This is really an unusual business: unusual ideas from the future for business always seem fantastic, but this is only at the initial stage, people will not have time to notice how over time they will start saving money for space travel, use flying backpacks and charge not only telephones from electricity, but and cars.

Actual trends that will affect the communications of brands with consumers

There is more and more information on the Internet and the world around us, user interaction with brands is getting shorter, and their requirements for communication tools are getting higher. Techniques and techniques that seemed new and interesting a year ago, today no longer cause past delight, and some even annoy. In this regard, entrepreneurs and marketers are looking for new custom solutions. Punk You Brands shared its vision of trends that will affect marketing in its corporate blog.

1. Mobile devices
will become the dominant platform

Smartphones, tablets, smart watches and other wearable gadgets (as well as glasses, lenses, microchips and all that jazz) will completely change and rebuild the world of marketing. The stronger the world is flooded with smart devices, the more personalized the relationship between consumer and seller. And those companies that began to use it earlier than others will develop this area and play a leading role in it.

2. Openness and customer focus -
the key to a successful business

Consumers want to be more involved in companies or brands. Closed and non-communicative brands will not have a bright future if they continue to adhere to such a policy of relations with their customers. According to analysts, by 2020, consumers expect more “transparency” and openness from companies.

Sincere brands - especially those that are not afraid to admit their own mistakes - will be on horseback, as will companies that integrate social responsibility into part of their culture. Openness and the ability to admit their mistakes help to form a close relationship with their customers, and without such a relationship it is more difficult to keep consumers.

3. Content is the new currency

In an online environment, educational and entertainment content is one of the key ways to attract people. But from now on, content can be not only static (like texts or posters, say) - it can use new formats: virtual reality, video games, 3D, 4D. Such chips are already on the Xbox and Oculus Rift platforms.

In the near future, technologies like HoloLens (virtual reality glasses) will become more widespread and completely change the essence of the presentation and creation of content. This is one of the most breakthrough areas of marketing, where it will be possible to create a new standard for attractive content for consumers.

4. Custom content will be more valuable.

This means that reviews, video reviews and notorious blog posts about new products will become more important measures than standard PR events and boring ads from actors hired to shoot in commercials. Only a positive user experience will provide the brand with a good reputation. Therefore, such cooperation between brands and consumers will be beneficial to both parties.

They are already similar to the new media, because more and more often in the news you can find such a wording - “the video has gained viral popularity in social networks around the world”; this shows how widespread they are in the world and what influence they have in modern society. Thanks to the almost universal access to high-speed Internet, content on social networks has already become more important than any other format, whether it be a classic television or an outdated radio. That is why Vkontakte, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are the future in posting content.

6. Brands will focus on their sites,
bypassing publications in regular media

Companies will develop blogs on corporate sites, their own pages on social networks, create applications in which they will conduct a dialogue directly with consumers. It is due to this that the so-called brand advocates and customers who are simply loyal to the products will appear. After all, if the customer is satisfied, he will only contribute to the success of the brand.

7. Companies that focus on Generation Z,
will have an advantage

Generation Z, which will appear after the millennials, will be more demanding, and here the brands will need to try. In 2023, a shift will occur, and companies created by millennials (such as Facebook and Instagram) will have to change dramatically in order to keep up with the new generation. Here, the usual change of marketing strategy will not work - the Z generation will constantly demand something new, and it does not matter how much profit a company owning a brand that is popular for them will have.

8. Products will become more important than services

While some companies are chasing loyal customers to serve them as dairy cows, others are focusing on an innovative product and its quality. What works well here and now is wonderful, but focusing on the future will help to last much longer. Entrepreneurs of the future should understand that customer satisfaction alone will not be enough - innovative products and solutions will become their true value.

9. Real-data marketing
will become the norm

Marketing of the future will be guided by real data and conclusions that will help build customer attitudes and trust. At the same time, marketing tricks that will crush quantity, but not quality, are unlikely to succeed. Brands that build the proper attitude around a good product and begin to work for their target audience will be on a horse (in contrast to one-day companies, which are famous for their poor service and low-quality goods).

10. The metric will become more accurate

Currently, many companies evaluate their marketing success by the number of likes, reposts and visit statistics. But the programs and services for analyzing metrics are still in their infancy. In the future, analysis technologies will become more advanced, and this will help marketers better assess both cultural and emotional significance, as well as financial and investment prospects.

What to do with all this?

Do not get into a fever now and frantically look for flaws in your marketing system. The future has not come yet :-) But you can already prepare, and this is where it would make sense to start:

Search for new ways to interact. For example, mobile mailing via Wats’App (just don’t say later that we taught you this). Or maybe you should bother with creating your own video game with the participation of key products or services and throwing it into social networks. Is free. Customers will squeak with delight and share with friends. Or at least add a couple of new channels, tailored for some special segment - Snapchat or Telegram, for example. And don't forget about bloggers!

Think about innovation. Search, improve, modify. The best is the enemy of the good, but you can’t stand still, thinking that the service will fix everything. Spy on competitors, modify and implement your product and your technology. Carl Sewell’s book, Clients for Life, is useful here.

Team someone from Generation Z. Follow his thoughts - suddenly he sees your product in a completely different way!

The outgoing year was the year of robots - smart cars, autonomous systems, autopilots and androids. They attracted investment, participated in bold experiments and shone on the screens. Their success will not go anywhere in the next 12 months, but how much is already possible.

The trends of 2017 included technologies that were invented some years ago, found venture capital or brought in revenues, monster corporations became interested, but only next year they will be everywhere and will enter every house. These technologies sometimes complement each other, and sometimes compete with each other, but each of them is a separate area of \u200b\u200btechnological progress. The Secret describes the five battles of 2017.

Games: AR vs VR

There are two main strategies for embellishing reality. The first of them is glorified by the Terminator, whose electronic eye applied useful signatures to objects of the living world. The second formed the basis of the plot of dozens of films: the surrounding reality is not taken into account at all, and the person is presented with a completely invented reality - either in the form of immediate sensations (“The Matrix”), or in the form of synthetic memories (“Remember everything”). These two philosophies, although not completely opposite to each other, present their consumers in completely different ways: some want to forget and flee for a short time from the cruel world, others want to get information and take action (“I need your jacket and your motorcycle”).

In the past year, major breakthroughs occurred in both directions. Augmented reality presented the world its first popular application - the game Pokémon Go. Although the technology itself has existed for many years - in the form of finished products, rather than ideas - it has never before won tops on the charts and brought revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars. Thanks to the Pokémon, it became clear that, firstly, AR can already claim to be a big investment, and secondly, gaming applications in this industry can easily bypass any others. So everyone wants to repeat the success of Pokémon Go.

Virtual reality first entered the market. From March to November, Facebook, HTC, Samsung, and Google released their VR glasses, and sold millions of them together. According to Deloitte estimates, in 2016, the new industry earned $ 1 billion for the first time, and the next year will earn many more. The only problem is that a killer application has not yet appeared that would force users to master virtual reality in large quantities. But there is no doubt that it will appear: the most promising and mysterious company on the Magic Leap market has already collected almost $ 1.5 billion of investments (half - in the past year), its main competitor Oculus Rift bought Facebook for $ 2 billion - there is already a lot of money.

Who will win: virtual reality or augmented is still unknown, but it is entirely possible that a unifying approach will be devised. Microsoft in October presented its plans to enter this market, but it will go the third way: virtual reality glasses will be translucent and will allow you to combine a full-fledged overview of the living world with a virtual one. This technology is called MR (mixed reality).

E-Commerce: Drones vs. Smart Stores

Delivery of goods using drones is such an obvious and attractive idea that no one can pass by. Both Google and Amazon promised in 2017 to begin full-fledged delivery testing using unmanned aerial vehicles. Already this year, experimental batches of such various substances as blood for transfusion and analysis (Zipline in Rwanda and Matternet in Lesotho) and pizza (Domino’s in the USA) were delivered. Progress in this area is simply inevitable, given the level of competition in the development, on the one hand, of autopilot systems, and on the other hand, of the devices themselves. Both of these areas are remarkable in that many notable players are located outside the United States - in Europe and East Asia.

So far, the economy of air delivery can not compete with trucks - one UPS track covers 120 addresses per day and delivers thousands of packages. Therefore, it is not surprising that numerous startups conduct test trials in countries with poor infrastructure. Matternet, for example, did the first deliveries in Haiti. The construction of a kilometer of a two-lane road costs $ 1 million - for this money you can buy a lot of drones in a third world country.

But in the first world, there is another radical way to save customers time: remove lines from stores. So far, only one attempt has been made in this area, but it is extremely convincing. Amazon is also experimenting with this technology by opening a robotics store in Seattle to determine who bought what. The client only needs to take the goods from the shelf, and smart sensors using recognition programs understand who and what took, and write off the price of the goods from the buyer's card at the exit. Since the vast majority of purchases, even in developed countries, are still made in ordinary stores, so far this technology has more prospects, especially since, unlike drones, it does not require the creation of separate legislation, certification and regulation.

Communication: Chatbots vs. smart devices

In the first six months after Facebook allowed developers to write chat bots in their messenger, 30,000 programs appeared on the platform. One of them was created by Mark Zuckerberg himself, who spent the whole year creating a smart assistant in his own house and prefers to chat with him. It is generally accepted that bots compete with traditional messengers, but in reality they are different communication channels: some people use it to talk to their own kind, others use it to communicate with devices. And that's why the number and quality of bots will grow exponentially: gadgets are gaining intelligence.

The first truly popular system was created by Apple a few years ago, but now Siri has long been lagging behind. Google Personal Assistant and Alexa (Amazon) work better. In addition to them, literally all large firms and several hundred small ones have their own designs. Any device and any algorithm serves people, they are forced to be interested in their desires, which means they must acquire their own chat bot. Rapid advances in speech recognition and automatic translation simplify their creation. Already now there are people on earth who communicate with the glands more than with people. So far, only introverts, but someday most of the first world will live like that.

In parallel, there is another important transition. There are more and more devices that should not ask a person anything and work the better, the less interested in his opinion. They are forced to find a common language with the creatures of metal, silicon and carbon fiber. First of all, these are autopilot cars - their whole high sense is to not pull a person in the cabin at all and at the same time understand what other road users are going to do.

The experiments of Google, Uber and Tesla are not limited to. A truly smart home should not be interested each time at what temperature and what volume level to set on Friday night - he should be aware of this. Drones delivering pizza to a party do not even know about the existence of people, but cannot afford to ignore the signals of their delivery colleagues. The teapot must let the toaster know ahead of time when it boils so that it toasts the bread on time. Even Wi-Fi routers, which are released by Google (and several of its competitors) learn to talk among themselves and with user devices in order to optimize the load on the network.

This will be the most imperceptible change to the human eye in the surrounding world, but extremely important: the devices will communicate with each other more than with us.

Machine Learning: Soft vs. Hard

Machine learning is the most talked about technology term of 2016. Algorithms that themselves are looking for a way to accomplish the task have achieved impressive success. For example, for the first time they beat a person in go, the last game that did not give in to them with complete information. Or painted gigazillions of pictures in the Prisma app. But there were other achievements, which were much more important for business - next year they will be launched. For example, researchers from Google asked two machine learning systems to exchange an encrypted message that the third system could not decrypt, and they did it. The economic potential of such experiments is enormous. The very program that beat the champion in go was applied in order to optimize energy consumption in Google data centers. She lowered the score by 15%. This example alone gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe potential size of the market, and why the whole world is engaged in machine learning.

The progress of software has completely changed the processor market. It has long been known that special chips, such as graphic ones, are better at coping with machine learning tasks. Last New Year's Eve, a traditional industry mastodon Intel completed a $ 16 billion deal to buy Altera, a manufacturer of special FGPA processors that are used by self-learning programs. In 2016, Microsoft opened its own unit for the development of FGPA, in May Google assembled its first processor, and in Cupertino, its own chips have been produced for some time. The speed of progress and the scale of the industry are such that every large software company is forced to develop its own processors.

Near-state hackers are one of the main phenomena of the outgoing year. Many thousands of Gmail users have become accustomed to the fact that a warning red bar stretches across the Chrome browser screen: “It seems that hackers using state support are trying to break into your mail.” People who hacked into the servers of the National Committee of the US Democratic Party worked during office hours in the Moscow time zone and rested on public holidays. Russia naturally denies any involvement in the hacking, but the world is structured in such a way that pleading guilty does not play any role. Special services not only in the United States, but around the world will take advantage of the opportunity, hire security experts, and at the same time new own hackers.

Officially, the cyber war era has been going on for several years - at least since the Stuxnet virus hit Iranian nuclear centrifuges. But it was a very elegant operation, and the target of the attack was a strategic plant for the enrichment of nuclear fuel protected by all conceivable methods. Each country has many critical infrastructure facilities that are not completely protected, such as power plants, political party servers and electronic displays at train stations. After the leaders of the major powers began to directly accuse each other of sabotage, you do not need to wait long for the next attack. Prophecies of this kind come true on their own.

So that the trends of the coming year do not look too rosy, it can be assumed that in 2017 attacks by environmental state hackers will become commonplace and begin to have a direct impact on foreign policy - until now, first-world diplomats have tried not to complain about them even when national politicians spoke out in the most unambiguous way. I want to believe that no real war will begin because of cyber attacks.

Cover photo: Oculus

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