Jörg Eugster

Introduction

If not stated otherwise, the information for this blog entry was obtained from Jörg Eugster (2018), online pioneer from the very beginning and lecturer. As a visionary who lives what he propagates, also his blog uebermorgen.com is ahead of its time.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is the concept that allows the connection of any device to the Internet, any device meaning not only smartphones but also coffee makers, fridges, lamps. Even components of machines applies to the concept of IoT. In general, anything one can think of that has an on and off switch can be part of IoT. The relationships in this giant network is going to be between people, things or people and things. Hence, it goes without saying that the concept of IoT will highly impact our life (Morgan, 2014).

Jörg Eugster mentioned the story of the smart fridge combined with the invention of the Radio Frequency Identification Tag (RFID). RFID’s will be placed on product packaging so the product is easily traced and identified by the use of radio waves. The benefit of an RFID compared to a PLU Barcode is that with the RFID technology, every single product has an absolute differentiation. Therefore, the product name, manufacturer and the expiry date of every single product will be known that is placed in the smart fridge. Hence, the opaque smart display of the fridge can show a customer exactly what is inside. Customers will be able to place items on hold, leftovers are labeled with expiration dates. Additionally, the fridge can calculate by itself how fresh the food inside the fridge is and if needed put an item on the grocery shopping list. Ultimately, the fridge suggest meal ideas based on the ingredients within the fridge.

Machines to Machines (M2M)

M2M is known as the concept in which machines use the resources of a network to communicate with other machines. The aim of this concept is to monitor and control the machine itself or the nearby environment. M2M is the basically the fundament around which IoT evolves as it basically provides the connectivity of smart objectives and the environment (Telefónica IoT Team, 2013).  An example of M2M which Jörg Eugster mentioned is the self-driving car such as the Goggle Self Driving Car 2014 or Waymo 2017.

3D Printers

3D printers are a remarkable invention since they are able to print all kind of objects in any kind of material (Walker, 2013). Jörg Eugster gave some incredible examples such as printed houses, cars and even human hearts. One benefit of 3D printers lies in the factory production lines as with this new technology one single machine can print a whole product or if desired just a fraction of the product in record time (Walker, 2013). Another benefit, applicable for any industry, is to be able to customize products such as interior design, shoes or even the taste of food. Jörg Eugster mentioned the printed Pasta from Barilla to show us how such a printer can influence customer experience and how such an unique experience can differ a company from the crowd.

Robots

The word robot can refer to physical robots or virtual software agents, but the latter are usually called bots.

Physical robots are machines used as substitutes of humans able to perform series of actions automatically and are programmed by a computer.

There is general agreement that machines which qualify as robots tend to possess some or all of the following functions: accept electronic programming, process data or physical perceptions electronically, autonomous operation to some degree, move around, operate physical parts of itself or physical processes, sense and manipulate their environment, exhibit intelligent behaviour. (Wikipedia, 2018)

On the market, there are two types of robots: the general-purpose autonomous robots dedicated ones. A general-purpose autonomous robot is able to navigate independently in known spaces, can handle its own re-charging needs, interface with its surroundings. Moreover they can perform many functions at the same time or take different roles at different times as well as recognize and talk to people. (Siivikko, 2013)

The main robot types which can be found on the market are the following ones:

Industrial robots: which are applied for welding, assembly, cutting, pick and place, product inspection, painting and testing.

Household robots: which are used to perform household chores. Included in this category are different devices such as: robotic vacuum cleansers, robomowers, mopping robots,... (Evon, 2016)

Medical robots: that a include mostly surgical robots as well as rehabilitation robots.

Entertainment robots: these include toy robots, robotic dogs, humanoid entertainment robots and are used for entertainment.

Military and space robots: which include the ones applied for transport, rescue, attack and space exploration.

Robots in hospitality and tourism industry

The hotel robots are mostly “humanoid robots” which are machines with a body shape build to resemble humans. Their main tasks consist in answering questions, delivering food to the room, doing the check-in and check-out as well as entertaining the guests.

The reason for introducing robots in hotels is because they are cost as well as time effective and always in a good mood. The first hotel (Henn-na Hotel) with robot staff opened in 2015 in Japan. Today also other hotels such as the Ghent Marriot Hotel in Belgium and Hilton McLaren Hotel in Virginia have child-sized robot concierges. (Ghanbarzadeh, 2017)

Many people of the tourism industry fear that robots will ruin guest experience due to the lack of human interaction. Robots can perform efficiently service tasks but due to the lack of personal emotions they will not be able to convey a feeling of welcome therefore tourism industry should be careful if implementing them. However, if robots are used as a “back-up” hence when the reception is closed or a robot is available as a technological concierge next to the human concierge in order to provide information in languages which are not spoken from the hotel staff this could be a very positive.

Drones

Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, are aircrafts without human pilots on board. They are controlled either remotely or autonomously by on-board computers. (Wikipedia, 2018)

Drones were originally used in the industry of military; however, their application has rapidly expanded to other fields such as commercial, recreational, surveillance, product delivery, aerial photography and much more. Even if drones can be helpful to increase life quality by transporting for example organs to a hospital or products directly to the home of people they can also be used maliciously or threaten airspace security. Due to ethical concerns and risks related to drones several nations have regulated the use of such unmanned aerial vehicles.

In Switzerland, these devices are subject to the same legislation as model aircrafts. Drones that have a weight of no more than 30 kg. can be flown without a permit as long as the operator have all the time visual contact with it. However, it is not allowed to operate drones above gatherings of people. (Bundesamt für Zivilluftfahrt, 2018)

Who knows what the future will bring? Maybe with the ongoing technological development taxis will soon be replaced by drones able to bring people from A to B or maybe our Zalando orders will be dropped via a such devices…

Wearables Devices

A wearable device is a device which a human can wear, such as smart watches. Wearable devices are often used to track the activity of the user, such as where he goes. (techopedia, 2018)

Wearable devices can be of different nature and trigger different senses. Wearable devices can for example be worn on the head, such as military helmets with immersive infotainment or ear-worn trackers which give information through a voice system. Other wearable devices could be worn on the wrist, such as fitness trackers which rather collect data than send out information. The term wearable devices can go that far, that some people even consider pacemaker or other medical technology devices as wearable devices. Such medical wearable devices can really help to improve the health of patients but on the other side wearable devices also capture a lot of data, which users often are not aware about. (Wade, 2017)

Smartphones are also considered to be a wearable device, since most humans wear a smartphone with them any given time. Smartphones also often track the location of the user.

Radio Tags (RFID)

The next megatrend Jürg Eugster spoke about are the RFID, the radio-frequency identification tags. Those tags will replace the bar code in the near future, a radio tag is a technology which identifies object only through electromagnetic waves. One example to understand the technology is, that it is not needed anymore to scan every single product in the supermarket but all the product with a RFID which are placed in the basket are immediately recognized and registered.

Augmented Reality

Not only the RFID will change the shopping experience in the future but also augmented reality. People imagine that shopping clothes in the future does not include any more bothersome fitting of the clothes but the clothes can be projected on your body with augmented reality. Augmented reality will also influence the travel industry in the future, for example at touristic sites or monuments QR codes could be integrated which the tourist could scan and get information about the monument on his phone.

Disruption

Mega trends like the RFID or Augmented Reality can be described as the disruption. Disruption means a new, innovative technology which replaced the predecessor with the same or similar function. Such disruptions can be a major improvement for users but als has caused collapse of companies which produced predecessor products, best example is the company Kodak.

Block Chain

Blockchain is at its core a peer-to-peer distributed ledger that is cryptographically secure, append-only, immutable and updateable only via consensus or agreement among peers (Bashir, 2017).  It is now gaining popularity because it is the technology used behind cryptocurrencies such as the Bitcoin. However, how does it really function? It is a network used to store information that has the particularity of being “decentralized”, which means there is no central database and the information and its record is stored by many computers simultaneously. It is called “blockchain” because each computer using the technology holds bundles of records submitted by others called “blocks”. Each block contains data, a hash and the hash of the previous block, which means each block is connected to all the blocks before and after it. A hash is an unique cryptography identification that gives information about the data in the block. This is how it looks: 

Therefore, if the data of a block is modified so will the hash be, which will disrupt the chain since the next block still contains the initial hash of the latter (see figure 1 and 2).

Figure 1

Also, hashes come from SHA 256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 256 Bits), which is a one way cryptographic function. In other words, there is no other way to find the key to the function than trying all the possibilities, which takes about 10 minutes for very powerful computers and the next chapter will explain how to make money by asking computers to find these keys.

Figure 2

In terms of safety and tamper prevention the blockchain technology is rather on point. The hash system itself makes it very hard to tamper a block since all other blocks would need to be changed too. Also, the system is decentralized, which means blockchains are not contained in a central location and they are kept in sync and updated regularly. Thanks to that, the alteration of a block would be quickly detected. Therefore, a massive amount of computers would be required to change all blocks at the same time, which is impossible.

Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency system that works on blockchain and peer2peer technologies. It is composed of the same elements as the physical currency, which are accounts, balances and transactions except there is no central authority to regulate the system. Peer2peer and blockchain technologies mean that each user keeps a sync record of all transactions happening in the network. A transaction is a file that states “user A transfers X amount of currency to user B”, which is then encrypted with the private key of user A. This information is almost immediately received by the rest of the network, however it takes some time to be confirmed. In the Bitcoin world, transactions can only be confirmed by miners. It is their job to verify the account and balance and accept the transaction. Then, all other peers have to add it to their databases. Anyone can be a miner since there is no central authority. Their job is to find a hash that connects the new block to its predecessor (Mills, 2017). In other words, the mining process involves compiling recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult puzzle (Investopedia). As an incentive for people to do that job, they receive a small amount of bitcoins.

Many cryptocurrencies exist, bitcoin is simply the most popular example. Their concepts and models vary however they all function on the same base, which is the blockchain technology. Last but not least, these digital currencies exist independently of any governmental entity nor banks. Therefore, no fees are applied to any of the transactions and there is no intervention whatsoever in the market.

Melissa, Marianne, Martina, Gabriel

References

All on robots (2018). Types of robots. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: http://www.allonrobots.com/types-of-robots.html

Bundesamt für Zivilluftfahrt (2018). Drohnen und Flugmodelle. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: https://www.bazl.admin.ch/bazl/de/home/gutzuwissen/drohnen-und-flugmodelle.html

Eugster, J. (2018). Digital Megatrends. Chur.

Evon Dan (2016). 5 Useful robots that will make your annoying chores fun again. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/robots-that-do-chores/

Ghanbarzadeh Alamdari (2017). Student Article: How Robots Ruin A Hospitality Experience. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4085883.html

Morgan, J. (2014). A Simple Explanation Of “The Internet Of Things.” Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/#52a931f31d09

Siivikko J. (2013) Robotics. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: http://users.jyu.fi/~jusasiiv/TIEA343/Robotics%20by%20Juha%20Siivikko.pdf

Telefónica IoT Team. (2013). What is the difference between M2M and IoT? | Welcome to The IoT World of Telefónica. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://iot.telefonica.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-m2m-and-iot

Walker, A. (2013). 3D printing for dummies: How do 3D printers work? | The Independent. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/3d-printing-for-dummies-how-do-3d-printers-work-8668937.html

Wikipedia (2018). Unmanned aerial vehicle. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle

Wikipedia (2018). Robot. Retrieved the 20. April 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

“What is Cryptocurrency: Everything You Need To Know [Ultimate Guide].” [Online]. Available: https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-cryptocurrency/. [Accessed: 25-Apr-2018].

“Bitcoin Mining Definition | Investopedia.” [Online]. Available: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin-mining.asp. [Accessed: 25-Apr-2018].

C. Miles, “Blockchain security: What keeps your transaction data safe? - Blockchain Unleashed: IBM Blockchain Blog,” 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2017/12/blockchain-security-what-keeps-your-transaction-data-safe/. [Accessed: 25-Apr-2018].

techopedia. (2018). Wearable Device. Retrieved from https://www.techopedia.com/definition/31206/wearable-device
Wade, J. (2017). smart insights. Retrieved from 2018 on https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/wearables-statistics-2017/

I. Bashir, Mastering Blockchain. Packt Publishing, 2017.