AI, RIS, HAPS, 6G, AR/VR - Five Future Techs To Change The World
RCRWirelessNews, Tuesday, June 25th, 2024
The World Economic Forum has listed 10 emerging technologies with the 'greatest potential to make a positive impact in the world in the next three-to-five years'.
Which is a curious kind of exercise, as it turns out, because five years is not long in tech, and because its candidate technologies are part of an annual investigation, which is now in its twelfth edition. As such, most of them sound either dressed-up old familiars or far-out new trends.
For example, it talks about 'AI for scientific discovery', which is the original application of AI anyway, and 'immersive technology for the built world', which is actually just about how industrial 'metaverse' technologies apply to the construction industry. It also talks about high-altitude platform stations (HAPS), which have been floated forever, and 'integrated sensing and communication', which is just another way of saying 6G, and which is described in functional terms like a new IoT infrastructure, and is six years off its first commercial deployment, at least.