As we get deep into 2017, the team at InSource group decided to look at the hottest areas for IT professionals. We asked our clients and our network of contractors which leading edge areas they wanted to jump into and what were the keys to success.
The near future seems bright, and a bit chatty. So, we will have to make sure and have a good and safe conversation about it. Here are our six top tech trends for the rest of 2017:
Not only have they been the hot trendy terms for the past couple of years, AI and Machine Learning have been where big companies, like Google, are starting to invest heavily. This June, Google’s $10.5 million investment on Algorithmia, a marketplace that helps developers leverage over 3,500 algorithms, making it clear that the tech giant wants a bigger stake in this nascent vertical.
If you want to work in this field, sharpen up these skills:
Don’t get them confused, but they are a bit similar…somewhat. Think of AR as the old Google Lense, Microsoft’s HoloLense or the fancy heads-up display in your car. This type of technology is about to pick up again, as more companies are looking to enhance the user experience in retail, automotive and medical. VR is starting to be more common, as the consumer prices for the hardware (cameras and VR headsets) are now at a popular point. Future opportunities in this field include entertainment, education and gaming.
If you want to get into this vertical, it will take more than just the code to make it work. Make sure you can manage interactive 3d graphics and have a strong understanding of the user experience.
Another area that is hot right now, and the offspring of AI, chatbots are being leveraged as customer service solutions, search marketing alternatives and eCommerce. The successful integrations in social networks, including Facebook and Slack, have helped this technology become a user favorite. With several platforms available to quickly deploy a chatbot, a project can be developed without a single line of code. The key to a successful chatbot is a well-designed conversation and continuous optimization from user feedback. Because it is all about content, make sure that the conversation is the main focus. Check out this great article on Medium.com on how to build one
Put AI, Machine Learning and chatbots together so you can tell “things” what to do. Siri has been around for a bit, and now we can ask Alexa and Google to turn on our lights, find the best song, track a flight or have our groceries delivered. User adaptation is growing, and more and more companies are getting into the mix to distribute content and to get more user insight.
We have gone from backing up locally, to our own network hardware and later…the cloud. Then we had the cloud help us compute our data, so we would not have to manage that locally and add more servers to another cluster. With more data being shared and accessed through APIs, cloud storage and computing will continue to escalate. Future areas of opportunity will be in cloud-to-cloud back-up, leveraging Hadoop and Spark in cloud environments and multi-cloud networks
Hackers from Russia, fingerprints for your phone, health and financial data, and your entire development world may be on the cloud. Not only are credit cards at risk, but the data collected by companies on its users are highly valuable to many. As data flows into more avenues to support IoT, chatbots, and home automation, more vulnerability points will be open to the unscrupulous. An ace in cyber security is an expert in operating systems, network architecture and administration. To hit the ground running in this field learn how to break the locks.
Now, let’s be safe, keep our head in the cloud, manage to talk to a smart speaker and learn from machines.
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