Over the years and decades, there has been continuous research and development of new technologies that have to this day been very beneficial to us. The advent of technology and the internet today has been fundamental in the provision of professional writing help online. Today, learners can access help with a mere click of a button. As the years go by, we have seen more and more innovations come up and in 2018, great strides were made through the founding of innovative ideas. Here are the top 5 greatest innovations of 2018:
1) OneOme
Some innovations have been great despite having a different impact on different people. At times, it’s not one-size-fits-all kind of a thing. This is especially in the medical world were some drugs work well with some people while at the same time are a problem for others. Development in genetics, however, has helped in highlighting the best dosages and drugs for different people. A Minneapolis-based company by the name Mayo clinic that has been doing research on genetics finally succeeded in creating a report, which helps doctors establish the best therapeutic intervention for people.
Known as the RightMed test, this invention can tell what is best for patients for their treatment on such things as heart problems, cancer or depression among other complications. The technology has been fully democratized where patients will not be required to see a physician to place an order for their test. Someone only needs to sign up from the company website and get assistance from there.
2) Crypto-Anchors and Blockchains Against Counterfeits
The blockchain technology has been around for a while now. However, its use and application continue to evolve and 2018 proved to be a great year for advancement in this technology. Crypto-anchors and blockchain have now found a major use in cracking down counterfeiting in the food supply chain. This has been a great development in the provision of security in the said industry. With blockchain technology, the source of everything will be identified. This includes the source for goods like food, life-saving medicines, and diamonds among others.
For this invention to work, a tamper-proof link is needed between the digital records and the physical products on the blockchain. This is made possible with the use of crypto-anchors. Which ideally are microscopic identifiers used as “digital fingerprints” to enhance security at every level. Users will be required to link every transaction to the actual item to ensure that the product that got scanned is what you got.
3) Fulcrum BioEnergy
The Bay Area Startup, Fulcrum BioEnergy finally came with a promise of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. In a project that has been ongoing for over ten years, the company has been researching how best to convert organic waste into jet fuel. The initial developments were set out in Reno, Nevada expected to take up 300,000 tons of trash annually. Which in turn would be sorted and subjected to great heat and pressure for conversion into fuel. Following this initial establishment will be other setups in Seattle, Chicago, and Houston. This has interested the airline industry and particularly the US government, which gave the company $70 million grant through the Department of Defense. Another investor in this massive project is the United Airlines Company.
4) 3D Metal Printing
The 3D printing technology is not a new concept in general but major strides were made in the industry, particularly on 3D metal printing. Originally, 3D printing was mainly for designers and hobbyists who have been doing one-off items using plastics. Generally, the process has been slow, not to talk about working with metal, which can really be expensive. With this development, it will be possible to produce items in big volumes. Manufacturers’ inventory kept at a minimum because all that will be required to do is to just print a product.
3D metal printing can make lightweight and stronger parts with complex shapes, which are not even possible with modern metal fabrication procedures. Therefore, replacement parts for old cars and machines are now becoming a lot easier. Companies that have taken lead in this include Markforged and Desktop Metal. What looked like an impossibility is now becoming a huge possibility in the manufacturing sector.
5) Dueling Neural Networks
Innovation in Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to grow over the years and things just got better in 2018. This area of technology has proved to be indeed good in the identification of things. It has been very accurate in identifying many pictures to the point of identifying a pedestrian on the street. However, it has not succeeded in generating its own pedestrian images. The efforts of achieving this are currently underway. The idea here is to form gobs of realistic, yet synthetic images showing pedestrians in different settings.
Generative adversarial network (GAN) is the initial approach taken in making use of two neural networks. Ideally, these are simplified mathematic human brain models anchored on contemporary machine learning technology. These human brain models are then pitted against each other in what can simply be interpreted as a digital-cat-and-mouse game. These two networks are trained on similar data set where one (the generator) creates variations on its already captured images and the other (the discriminator) is required to confirm whether the new image looks like what it has been trained on or it’s a fake. Sometimes, the generator can produce good images that can’t be identified as fakes by the discriminator.
Final Remarks
Civilization has been brought about by man’s desire to keep on learning new things to the point where he began writing on paper and beyond. Recent research and work in different fields have resulted in amazing innovations as we have seen in 2018!
