What did 2012 do for technology?

The internet

On the internet front, 2012 saw some rapid strides in cloud computing and mesh networking.

Cloud computing: Increasingly, businesses and individuals have started relying on the cloud for their IT requirements. 2012 saw the relatively new phenomena of hybrid cloud computing — using local as well as cloud servers, come into play much more.

A survey carried out in 2012 by North Bridge Venture Partners on the future of cloud computing showed that software as a service is currently the leading source of investments for companies and would continue to remain so till the next five years. But platform as a service and infrastructure as a service will see a significant growth in the coming years.

Mesh networks: Although not a new phenomena, meshing is the other exciting segment in internet devices with some major milestones established in 2012. Such networks allow the sharing of their connections with other users. If one user has a clean network connection and a nearby user does not, the latter can piggyback on the former.

What’s even more mind-blogging, wireless mesh networks have the capability of effectively (wirelessly) connecting entire cities. We all know that traditional networks rely on a small number of wired access points/wireless hotspots to connect users. In a wireless mesh network, the connection is spread out among hundreds of wireless mesh nodes that can “talk” to each other.

This is exactly what happened in one day in 2012 in Thailand. According to this report, Thailand’s government decided to deploy a video and data network that enabled citizens, security, and agricultural officials to monitor the flood-prone Chao Phraya River basin. This is an annual ritual observed by Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, wherein he undertakes a journey up the Chao Phraya River to get a better understanding of the well-being of the Thai people and to get a first-hand look at the river and the massive agricultural fields it feeds. But this time around, the 84-year-old king was unable to do so but still had expressed his wish to monitor rising water levels during the monsoon season.

The Thailand government thus decided to deploy the high-bandwidth wireless network from Firetide Inc. in Los Gatos, California, to provide live HD video feeds and mission-critical water level data applications. An excellent example of how mesh networking can be put to use.

Work, play & everything in between

On the work and play front, I shall talk of three developments in 2012 that will probably change the way we live our lives – Nest thermostats, the bionic eye, and 3D Printing.

The Nest thermostat: Was all over the web in 2012, although there are still doubts over its world-energy saving capability. Let me give you a lowdown on this new kind of thermostat. The traditional ones although programmable, have interfaces from the Iron Age. You feed in a temperature, and the traditional thermostat monitors the climate around you, and ensures that temp. The Nest, conceived, constructed, and marketed by a former Apple design engineer Tony Fadell and his former colleague Matt Rogers, actually programs itself over Wi Fi by learning a user’s behaviour pattern and desired temperatures over a certain number of days.

A segment of online reports claim that the Nest learning thermostats have so far saved over 200-million kilowatt-hours. Incidentally, the thermostat is named after Nest Labs, the company that Matt and Tony founded.

The bionic eye: From saving energy to giving vision to the blind using the bionic eye, 2012 saw it all. In a world first, scientists in Australia successfully implanted a prototype bionic eye that has helped a woman see shapes.

According to this report, the prototype device is set up in a lab after which electrodes in the implant stimulate nerve cells. In the controlled environment scientists can get feedback from the user on the “flashes of light.” That could help them adjust until the “flashes of light” reflect the actual environment enough to be helpful. It may not be full vision, but it’s certainly the first step in that direction.

3D Printing: Again, the technology’s been around for some years but 2012 saw the desktop version being released, thus making it accessible to the masses. 3D Printing is a very exciting process by which just about anyone can print a three-dimensional object, yes a 3D object; figures or models, using a printer. Of course, the printer is not the every-day life version we use but a special one engineered for the purpose.

There’s a company in Brooklyn, New York, USA, called MakerBot that has been in this business (industrial & personal 3D printing) since 2009. It claims to currently hold about 22% of the world’s share of the business.

These guys have now gone & introduced the personal version of 3D printing. Called the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer, it is the company’s 4th generation machine. You can attach this baby to your home or office PC.

Hopefully, I have given readers a round-up of the progress on the tech front in 2012. As I said at the start of the article, feel free to write in if I have missed any.