Emerging tech
The brief
Write a 250-300 word post noting your progress so far. Identify one challenge and / or an obstacle and one SMART action to resolve the issue.
My experience in week nine
The source material this week was focused on the importance of adopting new and current technologies in empowering creativity and how this can be used to diverge from established genre patterns and create disruptive apps. Some AI app examples are given which (as stated by this DataFloq article titled The Top 7 Technology Trends for 2018 is very current in 2018 technology trends, there is also an example where genetic algorithms were used to make non-player characters behave more like humans and further interesting examples where the creators are in each case pushing the boundaries of a technology and in doing so highlighting themselves as experts in that piece of tech.
Though in each case it was very inspiring to listen to how the creator is using the technology, the understanding of just how important it is to adopt new and emerging tech was not new to me; having worked for Substance Global as a senior programmer developing Flash games to support online marketing campaigns for Film clients such as 20th Century Fox and Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and more recently with high profile pharmaceutical clients to deliver applications for use at trade shows, I have first-hand experience that clients like these mentioned are attracted to emerging tech in order to market products. The reason for this is simply that people are interested in new things that they haven’t seen before. This was reinforced for me recently when I worked with Neil Smith from Leo Associates to develop a Microsoft Kinect powered application for a pharmaceutical company to be used at a trade show in Abu Dhabi; when I was quizzing Neil on what his clients in other sectors such as aviation and automotive want from applications for their installations he told me that above all his clients are looking for:
The next big thing in technology to make their installation stand out and create a talking point.
The effect on users of adopting an emerging technology can be seen in mobile apps and games too, take the success of Pokemon Go! that was partially due to their early adoption of modern AR technology. This is a great use case to illustrate how the creator has tapped into a new technology, utilised it well, done things that nobody else has done before and in turn created a novel and innovative app that had earlier this year made over $1.8 billion to date.
Tying this to my project
I had previously identified during the App Jam in week three that not being ready to develop with AR influenced my decision not to explore the core mechanic for the AR driven Escape Room application (the strongest idea from the jam that I have since gone on to consider as the app I will develop for my final project). As a result of this I realised the importance of being ready to develop applications with emerging technology that interests me and in this post in week four I created a SMART action to integrate both AR and VR as forks of my React Native boilerplate.
This action has already been put into effect and thus I have already tied this learning to my project. However, upon further reflection during this week I realise that there is a more long term action required in order to continually be ready to develop current apps with emerging technology. In my opinion this requires a two-part approach; the first challenge is to keep abreast of new technology, this is not a problem for me given I subscribe to and regularly consume tech blogs such as TechCrunch and Mashable, but the second challenge is to ensure I am ready to develop with that tech when I find something of interest.
I’ve created a SMART action to ensure I’m ready to develop applications with emerging tech:
- Making it Specific: The goal is to create forks of my current React Native boilerplate to integrate various emerging technologies, so I can easily develop against these.
- Making it Measurable: For each piece of technology that interests me, I want to have a forked boilerplate in my Github repository that is ready to develop against.
- Making it Attainable: I’ve already forked the boilerplate to integrate Google Maps, various Firebase libraries and partially integrated AR so I know the effort required and can manage integrating one technology alongside my regular two week sprint.
- Making it Relevant: One or more forked boilerplates will potentially be used for one of my applications on the course or thereafter. I should be able to combine them easily to create the bare bones of an app which requires each chosen tech.
- Making it Time-Based: I want to have either AR, VR or both integrated into a forked boilerplate by the time we restart the course in the new year.
Summary
In the above post I’ve talked briefly about how the source material over this week combined with my previous experience has identified the importance of utilising emerging technology in my applications. I’ve indicated that this is not a new learning for me and I’ve gone on to illustrate how I have already made steps to integrate AR into my React Native boilerplate so that I am ready to use this to develop the core mechanic for my Escape Room app in the new year. Finally I’ve gone on to acknowledge the need for continually being ready to develop with emerging technology that is of interest to me and I’ve created a SMART action to satisfy this.