Every year there is new technology that comes to the forefront and plays a huge role over the course of 365 days. This is not unusual at all. What is unusual is the year 2020. The year has been dominated by a global pandemic that has led to quarantines, shutdowns, and work-from-home orders.
Although 2020 is widely regarded as the most challenging year in recent memory, one bright side to note is that technology has stepped up and helped us during COVID-19. Below, we will spotlight some of the technologies that have proven to be even more important this year than we imagined and are sure to be critical going forward as well.
Video Conferencing
Most of the world was put in near-complete lockdown at some point in 2020. Staying at home to flatten the curve was what people did in 2020 to do their part to fight the spread of the coronavirus. Lockdown could have meant a complete economic shutdown and social isolation but, thanks to video conferencing technology, it didn’t.
Video conferencing services like Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Skype, GoToMeeting, and more were already steadily growing in the last decade, but the physical distancing brought on by COVID-19 supercharged that growth. Zoom was the clear early winner of the video conferencing wars during the pandemic, but with the way we work and interact being forever changed by the virus, it is still a long race.
Blockchain
Blockchain technology, the technology that cryptocurrency is based on, went from a techy buzzword to an important technology in 2020. Blockchain is most known for helping create secure, decentralized, digital currency but it has many other implications as well. Many of these applications came to the foreground in 2020.
Blockchain, at its base, is a digital ledger that creates a secure, portable, and transparent record of transactions. This makes it an ideal technology to help some of the security and transparency issues that critical industries like the healthcare and food industries are dealing with in 2020. The possible instability of national currencies during the economic crisis caused by the pandemic is making blockchain-based cryptocurrency more attractive to many as well.
Data Loggers
Data loggers are devices that use sensors to monitor environmental conditions. While data loggers aren’t new (companies like Dickson have sold them for years), they have become more sophisticated as they have incorporated technologies like Bluetooth. With more focus than ever on the global supply chain, the ability to safely monitor temperature-sensitive products will be critical.
The supply chain was certainly stressed by the pandemic (especially when it came to bathroom supplies) but it has recovered nicely towards the end of the year. The biggest challenge for the supply chain, and specifically the temperature-controlled cold chain where data loggers are critical, may be yet to come. Chances are, any vaccine will have to be delivered to billions of people around the world and done so at a very specific, cold temperature.
The Internet of Things
IoT for short, this is a network of internet-connected devices that are revolutionizing the way we live, work, and interact with the products around us. The role of smart technology had already been growing in leaps and bounds when the pandemic hit, but its role in helping the healthcare industry fight the coronavirus is what lands it on this list.
Hospitals and medical centers are using IoT devices to better care for and monitor patients who are sick with the virus. In overcrowded hospitals around the world, smart technology helped doctors and nurses prioritize patient care and improve patient outcomes. Out in the world, personal IoT devices like smartphones, smartwatches, and more may play a huge role in contact tracing and stopping the spread of this virus.
Telehealth
This may seem closely related to video conferencing, but telehealth (or telemedicine) gets its own category because it goes beyond simply talking to a medical professional via a webcam. As hospitals and doctor’s offices around the world filled with highly contagious coronavirus patients in 2019, patients with everyday medical issues had to consult with their physicians through telehealth services.
In addition to chatting with a medical professional online, Telehealth technology also allowed for virtual scheduling, prequalifying patients remotely, and triaging patients without crowding the physical buildings that were fighting COVID-19. It also helped keep medical professionals healthier as well by not dealing with sick patients in person.
Cloud Computing
Another technology that has been in the spotlight thanks to all the people around the world working from home in 2020 is cloud computing. Cloud computing refers to the ability of the internet to act as a company’s server. It allows for large amounts of data storage and a lot of computing power without large, expensive, on-site servers.
This is the technology that allowed people to work from home during the pandemic so successfully. Companies that already used cloud computing could seamlessly give employees access to all the computing tools they needed from the confines of their homes. As the way we work shifts thanks to the pandemic, cloud computing is only going to become more important in the future.
Cybersecurity
The last section on this list is a topic that is really the culmination of all the other items on this list. With all these internet-based technologies becoming so critical in 2020, cybersecurity has become, quite possibly, the biggest technological concern of the year. More data and money were exchanged online in 2020 than ever, and more non-tech savvy people were using the internet every day. This was a boon for cybercriminals.
In 2020, all sorts of cybercrimes are up, some more than 400%. Things like ransomware, phishing, malware, malicious domains, and more are exponentially more frequent this year. As a result, spending on all aspects of cybersecurity increased tremendously. Experts predict that cybersecurity spending will reach $123 billion by the end of the year. This is the technology that is working to keep all of the other technologies safe and working smoothly.
Conclusion
The year 2020 will be remembered as a very sad, frustrating, and upsetting year. The silver lining is that it will also be remembered as the year that many “technologies of the future” became the technologies that helped us all get through this incredibly difficult year.
