Business and Technology News Roundup for April
SAP Showcases Digital Transformation at CeBIT 2016
SAP technologies were in the limelight at this year’s CeBIT expo, the largest global event for digital business and technology. At InnoJam, SAP’s hands-on development competition, participants shared ideas for innovative applications for technologies, such as a voice-recognition algorithm that senses emotion. Many of the innovations showcased at CeBIT utilized Big Data and the SAP HANA platform, including an application that creates unique consumer profiles with personalized QR codes. These profiles would streamline purchases of custom products (like fruit smoothies, per the showcase) and provide retailers with vital information on their clients. Big Data was also a driving force in tech exhibits for other industries, including sports and government. With these amazing technological innovations, SAP drives the idea that “the digital transformation is in full swing,” and that soon almost every industry will utilize disruptive technologies.
Source: SAP News
The Use of Avatars Will Dramatically Improve Digital Shopping Experience
A group of partnered technology companies went to CeBIT 2016 to debut their “sophisticated avatar-based experience” designed for a variety of real world applications. Hewlett Packard (HPE), one of the enterprises working on this new experience, believes the avatar technology will drastically improve online clothing and footwear retail, reducing purchase return rate and saving billions of dollars every year. To create a shopper’s avatar, sixty four cameras scan the user from all angles, creating a detailed digital image that is then processed, meshed, textured, and rigged for movement. The Avatar Platform also stores a consumer’s personal information, purchase history, and social media data so businesses can improve their tailored customer experiences. Aside from retail, the Avatar Platform may have uses in personal fitness, video gaming, and countless other real life applications.
Source: Forbes
Virtual Reality in the Boardroom
Although the annual SXSW (South By Southwest) “interactive media” festival is mainly known for its concerts and film events, this year’s attendees of the Austin, Texas conference got a first glance at a brand new virtual reality experience from SAP known as SAP Digital Boardroom. Through virtual reality peripherals like the Samsung Gear VR headset and Google Cardboard, users will be immersed in a virtual boardroom built on real-time data and “what if scenarios” that often arise in the real world version of the boardroom experience. SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner calls it the “boardroom of the future,” expecting the VR experience to dramatically simplify business planning and administration for enterprise leaders. “We need people to be in one room and to talk to each other with real facts,” Plattner said at SAPPHIRE NOW last year. SAP hopes that their Digital Boardroom experience will help integrate businesses faster than ever all over the world.
Source: SAP News
5 Awesome Tech Takeaways from SXSW 2016
Beyond the SAP Digital Boardroom reveal, this year’s SXSW festival showcased a number of impressive new technologies. USA Today columnist Marc Saltzman offers five of his favorite innovations from the event, including the tech that won the Best of Show award. Here Active Listening System by Doppler Labs is one amazing application that allows a user to customize real-life sound through wireless earbuds. With Here Active, a listener can adjust a 5-band EQ to manage the frequencies of the noises around them and create their own preferred sonic experience in real-time. Saltzman’s list also includes an interactive tabletop that augments reality through holographic projections, a drone with a 1080p HD camera, Capital One banking integration with Amazon’s Alexa technology, and a virtual reality experience that amounted to exploring and interacting with a larger than life McDonald’s Happy Meal. Follow the link below to learn more about these unique technological innovations.
Source: USA Today
Americans Anticipate Robot Job Takeover Within Next 50 Years
You may have heard a lot of buzz surrounding robotic automation of jobs in the past few years. According to a recent study published by the Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans are certain that robots will become a major part of the workforce in the near future. However, many workers are not worried that their own jobs will be the ones taken by robots. Members of the government, education, and nonprofit sectors feel the most secure in their jobs, but very few Americans are concerned that their career will no longer exist in 50 years due to robotic automation. Perhaps the general confidence is fueled by BMW’s recent press to hire more human workers, citing that many of the jobs within the company were actually too difficult for robots to successfully perform. But whether or not they think their job is secure, most Americans agree that robots will indeed drastically alter the job market very soon.
Source: Gizmodo
Top 10 Hot Big Data Technologies
Forrester Research recently published a report examining twenty-two disruptive technologies rising in business today. The ten most popular technologies included predictive analytics, NoSQL databases, stream analytics, in-memory data fabric, data virtualization, and data integration. Forrester’s report, entitled TechRadar: Big Data, Q1 2016, anticipates that these technologies and several others will experience “significant success” over the next 3 to 5 years. Forrester also examined the “business value-add” ability of each technology, with predictive analytics and NoSQL databases promising a very high value to enterprises.
Source: Forbes
12 Reasons Why You Should Let Your Employees Play Games
Though it may sound counterproductive to encourage employees to spend work hours playing ping pong, many businesses are embracing office gaming as a beneficial part of their culture. Studies have shown that playing games can improve a person’s memory and ability to concentrate on tasks, as well as relieve stress and build relationships. Many workers feel they would be more productive in the office if their daily tasks resembled games–which may be why more than 60% of CEOs now include game breaks in their daily schedules. What are the best games to play at work? Table tennis, pinball, pool, and even video games can all offer a variety of productivity benefits and help strengthen an employee’s most valuable business skills. Check out the infographic on Digitalist to discover all the advantages of workplace gaming.
Source: Digitalist
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