Reflective Piece: Emerging Technology - Assignment Example

Reflective Piece: Emerging Technology Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: Week 1 Fingerprint scanning system July 23, 2014 http://www.biometricupdate.com/201407/suprema-launches-fingerprint-scanner-sdk-for-android-os The article explores a new fingerprint scanner software development kit for Android OS called BioMini Slim. The technology enables mobile devices to capture fingerprints in varied environmental conditions, including direct sunlight, while moving. Indeed, the key strength of the technology is that it integrates mobility and biometrics (Mayhew 2014). The new technology functions at high-speeds of up to 15 frames per second, which allows it to work with an extensive range of applications. The logic for founding the technology is since smartphones and tablets are rapidly replacing notebooks and desktops as platforms for collecting and verifying biometric identity. More improvements could be expected in the future that integrate mobility and biometric (Mayhew, S 2014). The new technology is expected to offer strong support in the fast-growing identification solutions and biometrics solutions markets. Aside from increasing business security and monitoring of employees at work, it is a lucrative source of profit-making for businesses in the biometrics industry. The major weakness of the technology is that it only works in Android OS-based platforms. This implies that users with devices operating on iOS or Windows operating system cannot access the app. Overall, finding a blog about fingerprint technology proved difficult in the first week, since limited number of articles explored the technology, most of which were not credible sources, as they were mostly opinionated articles. These required searching and skimming through tens of articles based on the criteria of credibility, currency and whether content contained description of the app and its limitations. In the end, I decided to search through blogs by manufacturers of the fingerprint technology. I have learnt that although emerging technologies may prove useful for purposes of improving service quality, their manufacturers are hesitant about fully exploiting them, hence they can only be accessible via limited platforms. Week 2 Augmented reality Google Glass 7 August 2014 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187649-unc-research-team-collaborates-with-nvidia-on-augmented-reality-breakthrough The article explores the prospects of having augmented reality technology integrated in Google Glass. It consists of augmented reality eyeglasses that use ‘pinlight displays’. It consists of a pair of glasses that make use of complicated optics. Through placement of transparent point light sources that can project light directly into the eye (Hruska 2014). The technology explores the intricacies of the design of the product that allows a walk, through a three-dimensional model representation of the internal organs of a patient. It also combines augmented reality and better sensor, hence allowing for extraordinary levels of fine motor control and the capacity to repair damages to the human organs that would otherwise require open surgery (Hruska 2014). The upgraded Google Glass creates an evenly-tone image that configures pinlight projectors, hence ensuring minimal overlap that fills the focus plane and encodes a virtual aperture over plane, hence ensuring that light from the regions that overlap does not reach the eye. The technology is likely to revolutionise the medical industry. It will be helpful for medical enterprises or hospitals. This would be helpful for surgeons, by improving their quality of their services (Swallow 2014). The technology however has technological challenges. The tiny LCD is for the eye does not represent or display objects accurately. The battery life is also low and hence restricts the use of the device (Hruska 2014). Finding an article on an upgraded Google Glass technology in week 2 was difficult. On reflection, after making several futile online searches to find an article that met my criteria, I settled on finding a technology that was between augmented reality and Google Glass. However, the search became fruitless on Sunday, just before the week elapsed. A critical lesson is that medical enterprises or hospitals should make use of the robust features designed for improving surgical services to improve customer experience. The technology also creates a critical source of fee-based revenue for health service providers and medical instrument manufactures, which can be taken as an advantage to increase revenue base. Week 3 Mobile banking app 6 August 2014 http://www.mobilecommercepress.com/augmented-reality-banking-app-launched-westpac/8513395/ The article explores a new mobile banking app by Westpac New Zealand that uses augmented reality technology that assist customers in finding the closest ATM or bank. It also displays account balances, transactions and locations of spending in three dimensions. The app uses a smartphone camera that can scan customer’s credit or debit card and afterwards generates a three-dimensional visual representation. The mobile banking app becomes the first in the world that uses augmented reality. A major limitation is that it only searches ATMs that are within the ATM Global Alliance that Westpac NZ customers use. Hence, it has limited functionality. The fact that it also depends on the internet rather than GPS makes its applicability in remote regions limited. Its other limitation is that it is only used for mobile devices with iOS operating system such as iPhones and iPads, hence, customers with Android-based and Windows-based phones cannot use it (Giasson 2014; Agwu & Carter 2014). In my view, the app will surely revolutionise the banking business. For instance, it is expected to ensure more convenient and quicker banking, hence improving the quality of the banking service. Problems were encountered in searching the articles due to the superfluous nature of articles on the web that explored current developments in creation of mobile banking apps. Hence, several articles had to be read through to determine which should be considered for analysis. I have developed an understanding of the implications of emerging technology. In my view, mobile banking apps are indeed causing a paradigm shift in commercial banking, and hence businesses and banks that use the app to promote quality of service are likely to benefit from more competitive advantage (Chavan 2013). Week 4 Cloud computing technology August 13, 2014 http://www.networkworld.com/article/2464007/cloud-computing/gartner-internet-of-things-has-reached-hype-peak.html The article explores how the ‘cloud’ is a broad term that covers a range of technologies, in the same way the internet or the web has a range of unlimited aspects. As an emerging technology, cloud computing allows the delivery of computing as a service, where software, shared resources and information are provided to computers over the internet. It enables users to use applications and files over the internet. Hence, they reduce cost of business operations, by reducing the need to buy technological infrastructures or employ huge personnel to manage the computers. Businesses can also access their data or applications ubiquitously (Butler 2014a). The real argument of the article is that as an emerging technology, cloud computing is still evolving despite having given unrealistic expectations. It further examines the lifecycle of the technology, which is made of five stages. First is the trigger of technology. Next, is the technology being hyped to the point of unrealistic expectations. This is followed by the trough of disillusionment, where reality on the benefits of the technology is understood. Technologies that are meaningful stick around during the slope of disillusionment, before finally reaching the plateau of productivity (Butler B 2012). The article has passed through the peak of inflated expectations. Hence, the challenge of the technology is triggering unrealistic expectations. The technology has however been questioned for its capacity to provide optimal privacy, security and trust. These form the key challenges. Finding a blog written on cloud computing in week for was a challenge. Given the trending popularity of cloud computing, which is currently triggering paradigm shift businesswise, search results bore many results on cloud computing, which were however made up of older articles. I decided to include global research firms such as Gartner in my search criteria. The result was fruitful. I have learnt that emerging technologies are indeed causing paradigm shift in businesses. However, they have also caused unrealistic expectations. Week 5 FaceTime messaging app August 19, 2014 http://9to5mac.com/2014/08/19/apple-activates-screen-sharing-over-imessage-accounts-in-latest-yosemite-beta/ The article explores how technology company Apple has activated its message applications, including FaceTime and iMessage, hence allowing screen sharing experience. FaceTime is a video chat or videotelephony application for Apple gadgets. A key feature of the technology is the picture in the picture view, where users can see what their conversation partner is seeing. They can as well use the rear or front view mirror on their devices, as well as change between portrait view and landscape view. The technology also supports high-definition video calls (Gurman 2014). The technological signals an improvement of Apple devices to make them more competitive in the market. It would also revolutionary business communication systems, as it allows the management to communicate with the personnel in real-time, despite the geographical location. This has the potential of improving the quality of organisational communication (NDTV 2014). Its key limitation is that it uses a close platform, hence only remains usable for Apple product users, such as iPhone 4, iPod Touch, iPad 2 or Mac computers. Hence, users of phones with different operating systems cannot use the technology. It also used a lot of data bundle to support video chat services. Overall, finding a blog that relates to FaceTime was difficult at first. Most articles encountered only described the technology, failed to meet the threshold of being authoritative and did not include foreseeable shortcoming. This required the use of Boolean search techniques to draw in to specific articles that met the criteria. I have learnt that more technology companies are working at transforming their technologies to be more interactive. They also seek to give customers more control over their communication applications. It also appears that rather than focus on pricing, technology companies focus on differentiation to make their products more protective. Reflective Piece From the outset, I expected the topic of emerging technologies to generate much internet literature as it has been widely explored, based on the large number of the technologies that are currently causing paradigm shift in the marketplace. However, the search results from the web were disappointing. On reflection, blog articles that explored emerging technologies proved difficult, especially within the frame of a week. Most article I encountered were those that were published 6 months ago and beyond. At this stage, I knew I had to be more tactical. Hence, I decided to use the Boolean logic to either narrow or broaden my searches, such as using ‘mobile+banking+app’, ‘cloud+computing+technology+new,’, ‘Fingerprint+technology+news’ and ‘FaceTime+August+news’, as the keywords. These bore fruitful results. However, the next difficulty concerned sieving through the articles to identify credible ones. I knew that credible sources had to be supported by some level of researches. Hence, all opinion-based articles had to be disregarded. I slowly created a list of articles identified and skimmed through each piece to identify their credibility. Based on these criteria, I was able to identify articles for each week. Upon analysis of the sources identified over the five-week timeframe, the key lesson I learned is that the emerging technologies, such as mobile banking app, is causing a paradigm shift in the banking sector even as more and more businesses and individuals are hoping for more personalised and self-controlled services (Nemeroff 2014). More critically, emerging technologies go through a natural process triggered by innovation, before they rise to the peak of inflated expectations. In my view, as the technologies get to mature, the markets begin to get disillusioned. Eventually, they begin to become mainstream, and hence recognised as part of everyday life. The emerging technologies also create a critical source of fee-based revenue for service providers and businesses, which can be advantageous in increasing revenue base. Additionally, while mobile banking app may prove useful for purposes of improving service quality, their application within the service or business context is not fully exploited. However, since these technologies may not always be beneficial due to its limitations, businesses and organisations have to weigh between their advantages and disadvantages, if they have to be used effectively (SourceMedia 2014). I also reason that these emerging technologies are used to a limited extent due to their tendency to use closed platform. For instance, most of the mobile banking apps only explored the use of Apple’s iOS operating systems and exclude others, such as Google’s Android. I believe that this limits the number of businesses, individuals or traders who can use them. The emerging technology is therefore not fully exploited to realise its potential. I have developed an understanding of the implications of emerging technology. Indeed, I can conclude that mobile banking apps are really causing a paradigm shift in commercial banking. Accordingly, financial institutions without open-platform banking apps are opening doors to competitors, specifically non-bank competitors. Reference List Agwu, E & Carter, A 2014, "Mobile Phone Banking in Nigeria: Benefits, Problems and Prospects," International Journal of Business and Commerce Vol. 3, No.6, pp50-70 Butler, B 2012, Gartner: Cloud computing's most over-hyped terms, NetworkWorld, viewed 21 Aug 2014, Butler, B 2014, "Big data and the cloud are becoming mainstream, market watcher says," NetworkWorld, viewed 21 Aug 2014, Chavan, J 2013, "Internet Banking- Benefits And Challenges In An Emerging Economy," International Journal of Research in Business Management (IJRBM) Vol. 1, Issue 1, June 2013, 19-26 Gurman, M 2014, Apple activates screen sharing over iMessage accounts in latest Yosemite beta," 9TO5MAC.com, viewed 21 Aug 2014, Hruska, J 2014, UNC and Nvidia collaborate on ‘pinlight display’ augmented reality breakthrough," ExtremeTech 21 Aug 2014, Mayhew, S 2014, Suprema launches fingerprint scanner SDK for Android OS," Biometrics Research Group, viewed 21 Aug 2014, NDTV 2014, "FaceTime reportedly malfunctioning for some iOS 6 users," NDTV Gadgets, viewed 21 Aug 2014, Nemeroff, E 2014, TD Bank Adds Mobile Check Deposit Feature," American Banker, 20 Aug 2014, http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/179_157/td-bank-adds-mobile-check-deposit-feature-1069427-1.html SourceMedia 2014, "SourceMedia’s Mid-Market MA Conditions Index Shows A Promising Start To Second Half of 2014," PRWeb 20 Aug 2014, Swallow, E 2014, Google Glass App Connects Patients With Specialists Quickly," Mashable 21 Aug 2014, Read More