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<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n1: Social media newsfeeds: Less social, more media<\/strong><\/p>\n Facebook users are posting less and the amount of relevant information on the Facebook newsfeed is dropping, giving way to an increasing amount of professional and paid content \u2013 of varying relevance. Users are also likely becoming more critical as awareness rises around \u201cfake news\u201d seeping into their feeds.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps discouraged by a lack of relevance, users could start turning to other platforms for news, to curate their \u2018digital presence\u2019 and get updates on friends and family,\u201d says Bj\u00f8rn Taale Sandberg. All the while, Facebook will develop further into a communication platform \u2013 both through the ever-popular Messenger app and in Facebook Groups for micro-coordination. 2: People will actually read online Terms & Conditions <\/strong><\/p>\n In mid-2018, the EU will update the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in several significant ways. Hear us out before we lose you because this is important: Customers of any digital service \u2013 all of us \u2013 are becoming the owners of the data that we produce when using these services. The regulation strengthens how that data is protected for all of us in the EU, aiming to give control back to us private users. It also changes how companies ask for your permission to use your data.<\/p>\n Terms & Conditions must be reinvented so that consumers know what data they give away and for what purpose. \u201cThis reinvention is key and we are going to see a lot of variations around Terms and Conditions in the beginning. We expect that the best solutions will be copied, so watch out. New Terms & Conditions are coming to your favourite app \u2013 and you\u2019ll want to read them!\u201d says Sandberg.<\/p>\n The jury is still out on how this could affect those in Asia, but we anticipate ripple effects in the months and years ahead. \u201cGlobal companies like Google and Facebook might make their improved Terms and Conditions apply globally,\u201d adds Sandberg.<\/p>\n 3: Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning hit the mass market <\/strong><\/p>\n Artificial Intelligence and especially Deep Learning, the \u2018magic\u2019 that is bringing us driverless cars and facial recognition, has been sitting solidly atop the hype curve over the last few years. \u201cWe believe 2018 will be the year when deep learning moves beyond the hype, and will find new markets outside of the Internet giants,\u201d explains Sandberg. The technology will take on a wide range of industries, including health, energy, transport and telco. Those that succeed will do it through hard work, well understood use cases, ample training data and skills and knowledge to train models. Business failures will come from misunderstood use, mismanaged expectations on deep learning\u2019s capabilities, immature data handling, and not the least \u2013 from those that think deep learning is a magical tool that can be bought off the shelf and not grown from within.<\/p>\n What is Deep Learning? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A refresher: Deep Learning is a sub-field of Machine Learning concerned with understanding the world through large models and huge amounts of data, and thus bringing us closer to artificial intelligence. Deep learning is behind revolutionary breakthroughs in automation of a wide range of tasks, including understanding images, text, and speech. Deep Learning uses large artificial neural networks, computing systems inspired by our brains neural networks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 4: Blockchain \u2013 can it <\/strong>break out of its own cryptocurrency cradle?<\/strong><\/p>\n Depends who you ask, but the problems are stacking up, and this year we may see blockchain technology struggle to break out of its cryptocurrency cradle. Blockchain is best known as the technology behind Bitcoin, a digital currency that doesn\u2019t need a central governing body to guarantee transactions. One of the perks of blockchain is that it is, by design, resistant to modification. However, this also brings about the challenge of diversifying its practical applications: to create more varied and usable blockchain-based solutions, developers need to be able to modify it \u2013 to sort out bugs, upgrade technology and make widespread engineering decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cIndustry agreement must be reached about all of this. But the point of blockchain is that it avoids the need for a central governing body to oversee its transactions. This is known as the \u2018blockchain governance paradox\u2019. The blockchain industry will need to resolve these challenges to fully deliver on its promise. 2018 will see this debate heat up \u2013 and hopefully give us solutions,\u201d Sandberg predicts.<\/p>\n What is Blockchain? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n First \u2013 blockchain is not Bitcoin. A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a hash pointer as a link to a previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. Blockchain technology was first implemented as a core component of Bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions. The invention of the blockchain for Bitcoin made it the first digital currency, and the Bitcoin design has been the inspiration for other applications of blockchain technology.<\/em><\/p>\n 5: 2018 will augment your reality<\/strong><\/p>\n Pok\u00e9mon Go feels like years ago now, and Augmented Reality is ready to move on. \u201cThough no mass market relaunch of Google\u2019s AR glasses are on the immediate horizon, we should see a surge in the number of apps with AR in 2018,\u201d says Sandberg. With its latest version of the iPhone operating system, Apple have built-in support for augmenting whatever the phone\u2019s camera captures with additional information. This means that much of the complexity is removed for programmers and AR suddenly gets to be within reach for hundreds of thousands of iOS app developers. Expect to see navigation apps use the camera and superimpose your route on the image and games beyond Pok\u00e9mon Go appear in an app store close to you.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n