Podcasts Technology MarketScale Technology The ABCs of Emerging Digital Communication Technologies

The ABCs of Emerging Digital Communication Technologies

Published: March 11, 2020, 3:12 p.m.

Doug Bannister, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Omnivex Corporation, started his company in 1991. There’s been a considerable transformation of technology in those near 30 years, and Bannister’s got a great handle on looking down the road, assessing the future of technology and determining which technologies work and which ones don’t.

Host Tyler Kern sat down with Bannister to explore some emerging digital communication technologies that have people excited.

A few hot topics Bannister dove into were blockchain, machine learning, Artificial intelligence, IoT and edge computing. With blockchain, companies are partnering together to put health records online using this secure method. Kern noted there is a lot of misunderstanding about the differences between blockchain and bitcoin.

“The same way email is an application, and the internet is the underlying technology, so too is the relationship between bitcoin and blockchain,” Bannister said. “Bitcoin is the application, and blockchain is the underlying technology that makes it possible.”

What about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning? Are these two interchangeable terms? Bannister believes they’re two distinct things.

Artificial intelligence is the technology that makes machines look like they’re doing something and appearing smart, while machine learning, algorithms and systems improve machine performance over time with experience. Bannister said machine learning capabilities get pretty advanced.

With the internet of things, or IoT, Bannister said people might think of IoT as controlling a light switch or thermostat, but it is much more.

“IoT can control your environment, but it can also collect information from your environment.”

A great example is today’s sensor-filled automobiles that provide essential data to both the owner of the car and the manufacturer who can use this data to improve future vehicles and quickly run diagnostics when something isn’t working in the car.

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