A representative introduces Baidu's artificial intelligence technology during a release ceremony of world leading internet scientific and technological achievements at the 3rd World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, east China's Zhejiang Province, Nov. 16, 2016. (Photo: Xinhua/XuYu)
Technology is changing the world we live in, from supercomputers able to replicate a human's ability to answer questions to ultra-secure communication tools that make wiretapping or interception impossible. The future, it seems, has arrived.
The World Internet Conference (WIC), which is currently in session in the eastern province of Zhejiang, presented 15 emerging technologies that have the potential to, and some of which already have, fundamentally change our lives.
Headed by foreign chair Bob Kahn, Turing award winner and one of the principle architects of the Internet; and Chinese chair Wu Hequan, academician and optic fiber specialist from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the committee of 33 technologists from home and abroad whittled down the short list to just 15 from about 500 entries, submitted by companies and research institutes over the past year.
Here are some of their choices:
Watson supercomputer, IBM
IBM has been engaged in research into artificial intelligence for six decades.
Big Blue's latest innovation Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, is a cognitive computing machine, which uses machine learning, silicon-based computing and atomic storage to enable it to provide answers to questions like a high-functioning human.
IBM chairman of the Greater China region Chen Liming told the WIC audience that the supercomputer is expected to revolutionize health care as it can be used as a competent diagnostician for patients living in China's remote countryside.
Watson is capable of storing more medical information than doctors, and can make decisions based on data and history without cognitive bias.
AR Headset HoloLens, Microsoft
Microsoft introduced its Augmented Reality (AR) HoloLens this year, a hologram-projecting headset that, with the help of multiple cameras, blends virtual models, environments and holograms with reality.
More appropriately referred to as a mixed reality device, the headset allows the wearer to interact with holograms and digital content overlayed on the real world.
Currently, a number of applications inlucidng Skype are already on Microsoft HoloLens.
"For us, the next big thing is mixed reality," said Microsoft executive vice president Harry Shum. "The integration of the virtual digital world and the physical real world."
