Experiences: Technology Trends

Robotics. Genomics. Synthetic biology. Such emerging technologies are today at the cusp of widespread commercial adoption and will have disruptive impact across industries—from agriculture to manufacturing and health to energy. These technologies are the next great frontier for User Experience.

Science, engineering, and design are percolating on solutions to many technological challenges. UX designers are bringing the expertise they’ve gained in creating digital and physical products to bear on new robotic and even biological products. For instance, at the Wyss Institute, cross-disciplinary teams comprising scientists, engineers, designers, business people, and other innovators are creating and commercializing bio-inspired products. Last year, the Bio/Nano Programmable Matter group at Autodesk created a synthetic bacteriophage and 3D printed the virus. The company, which is best known for its design and engineering software, is now working on a next-gen software platform for synthetic-biology design. Read More

In this column on the future of computing, we’ve examined how a handful of advances in technology, including the Internet of Things (IoT); along with sciences of human understanding such as neuroscience and genomics; and emerging delivery platforms such as 3D printers and virtual-reality (VR) headsets will together transform software and hardware into something new that we’re calling smartware.

Smartware are computing systems that require little active user input, integrate the digital and physical worlds, and continually learn on their own. Now, in this, the final edition of our column on smartware, we’ll consider how the powerful capabilities of smartware will enable new interactions and user experiences that, over time, will become seamlessly integrated into our digital lives. Read More

The metaverse, a virtual-reality space in which users can interact, is projected to have a significant impact on the healthcare industry. In today’s marketplace, companies can position digital health solutions for rapid growth because of the emergence of outstanding new technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality. Digital health solutions are transforming the healthcare sector and becoming a fundamental, empowering agent of advancement in the biotechnology field.

The metaverse is integrating cutting-edge technologies such as cloud and edge computing, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence to produce creative solutions. In this article, I’ll describe some of the ways in which the metaverse could change and benefit the healthcare industry. Read More