This year has seen an explosion of technological advancements across the board, in the form of tablets and smartphones, which has been beneficial for the most part, but there are potential drawbacks to watch out for in terms of security and privacy. As the year draws to a close, how has technology changed our lives and what does this mean for the future? The gadget of the year has to be the tablet, it has become the main focus for tech fans as it becomes more powerful by the day and interestingly enough is proving competition for the pc. We have even had the very first phablet (phone-tablet), a hybrid device that could be a template for things to come. Another theme to the year has been the expansion of the cloud. Cloud computing has gone further than just data storage, companies are finally catching onto the limitless potential it holds. This is reflected at a consumer level with the growth of host websites such as Netflix and LoveFilm as streaming has become the new downloading. Finally we have the unstoppable rise of social media as Facebook and Twitter are as strong as ever but recently we have seen a popularity growth for other platforms including Instagram, Flickr and Tumblr.
In what direction will technology go next year and what effect will this have on society? It is likely that a general trend will be people spending a greater proportion of their daily life online meaning that hardware will have to become more sophisticated and powerful. Another inevitability will be an overall increase in speed for internet connections which is becoming more relevant with the advent of the 4G network. A concept that will expand in 2013 is that of big data, the idea that the information generated online can be gathered and used in a multitude of ways. Although companies are already using these types of techniques the likelihood is that in the future everyone will be.
Security and privacy are two of the biggest problems concerning the internet and with people integrating more and more of their lives with the online world this issue is only going to grow. This year has seen massive multinational corporations crash due to sophisticated hacking attacks as well as many arguments over the lack of privacy that is present in social media and search engines. Next year will likely see these issues come to the forefront, security will become tighter and more advanced, privacy settings will be fortified but this will be difficult as more and more of our online activities are tracked. The need for a high tech security system is as important as ever before. ITC Global Security provide the performance, availability and assurance that today’s operations and users demand out of a network and are a solid defence against intrusions, the perfect armour for an uncertain future.
