Exciting and Emerging Disruptive Technologies of the 21st Century

Disruptive technologies (or disruptive innovation) change our daily lives in big ways. History is full of disruptive technologies like the invention of wheel, internal combustion engine, electricity etc. But what are some of the top disruptive technologies of the 21st century? Here are top 5 emerging disruptive technologies of our times.

1. Mobile Computing

Even though mobile computing technology existed in the late 20th century but it really became disruptive after the invention of iPhone. iPhone was the first device that made it possible for human masses to hold a fully functional computer in the palm of their hands. It was a phone, a computer, music player, navigation device all in one. It disrupted multiple industries e.g. cell phone (remember Nokia?), standalone GPS devices, music players, cameras, PCs to name a few.

2. Machine Learning

This century saw an explosion in machine learning applications. From Alexa at your home to the news feed in your Facebook account everything relies on machine learning. Like mobile computing this existed in the last century but became disruptive only recently mostly due to enhancements in computer processing power. This allowed processing of heavy ML algorithms (like deep learning) to be used for practical use cases. Read my post here to learn more how AI applications are transforming businesses.

3. 3G

3G is the 3rd generation of wireless mobile telecommunication technology. It’s invention along with advancements in mobile computing disrupted many traditional industries like ride sharing, voice calling etc. Fact that you can access high speed internet anywhere on the go without the need for WiFi connection opened completely new possibilities. Moreover, 5G and newer generations will unlock further use cases like real time communication between autonomous vehicles.

4. Computer Vision

Even though it is a subset of machine learning (here is a good read on how they are related) but deserves its own spot. It’s through this technology that we can now unlock our phones without touching them. Using computer vision Apple can automatically tag our friends and create folders for our pictures etc. Next big thing namely autonomous driving also heavily relies on it. View my post here to learn more about real world applications of computer vision.

5. Natural Language Processing (NLU)

Like Computer Vision, NLU is also a subset of machine learning but deserves its own spot. It is still evolving and creating disruption in many industries like customer service (how much we all hate automated responses but it is here to stay), hospitality industry, elder care (Alexa together is a start).

That’s a wrap for now. Here I have listed 5 technologies that are disrupting many industries in front of our eyes and have the potential to disrupt many more. An example is Metaverse which will be using pretty much of the technologies mentioned above.

As always, your comments are welcome and thanks for visiting!