Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

We live in a world of bytes

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Today’s business reality is very different. We live in a world of bytes – and for the first time technology and commerce have collided in a way that makes data far more valuable than physical, tangible objects.


Money is arguably one of humanity’s most important inventions. From beaver pelts to gold bars, the form and function of money has constantly fluctuated throughout history.


In the modern world, the definition of money is blurrier than ever. Central banks have opted to create trillions of dollars of currency out of thin air since the financial crisis – and on the flip side, you can actually use blockchain technology to create your own competing cryptocurrency in just a few clicks.


Interpreting massive amounts of data on how the world is changing can be taxing for even the most brilliant thinkers. After all, science says that 65 per cent of people are visual learners – so why not put data in a language they can understand?


Combine this connectedness with rapidly changing demographics, shifting values and attitudes, growing political uncertainty, and exponential advances in technology, and it’s clear the next decade is setting up to be one of historic transformation.


With each passing year, an increasingly large segment of the population no longer remembers images loading a single pixel row at a time, the ear-splitting sound of a 56k modem, or the early domination of web portals.


Many of the top websites in 1998 were news aggregators or search portals, which are easy concepts to understand. Today, brand touch-points are often spread out between devices namely mobile apps vs desktop and a myriad of services and sub-brands e.g. Facebook’s constellation of apps.


As a result, the world’s biggest websites are complex, interconnected web.


There are many facets of change that will impact our shared future. When it comes to technological progress, the rate of change itself is actually getting faster and faster. Each year brings more technological advancements than the last, innovations could happen at a blindsiding pace.


With billions of people hyper-connected to each other in an unprecedented global network, it allows for an almost instantaneous and friction less spread of new ideas and innovations.


Interestingly, there is another offshoot of accelerating change that applies more to the business and economic world. Not only is the speed of change getting faster, but for various reasons, markets are able to adopt new technologies faster:


The tech invasion is leveraging connectivity, network effects, artificial intelligence and unprecedented scale to create global platforms that are almost impossible to compete with.


New products can achieve millions of users in just months and the game Pokémon Go serves as an interesting case study of this potential. The game amassed 50 million users in just 19 days, which is a blink of an eye in comparison to automobiles -62 years, the telephone - 50 years, or credit cards -28 years.


As new technologies are created at a faster and faster pace – and as they are adopted at record speeds by markets – it’s fair to say that future could be coming at a breakneck speed, yes arguably one of humanity’s most important inventions, which has limitless end.


A new era of power – should we say Power of Super computers.


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