i3 - January/February 2018 - 20

Tech

By Veronica A. Lancaster

PIPE LINE

The Future is Now

his year at CES, the latest tech will be on display
in Marketplaces dedicated to artificial intelligence,
augmented and virtual reality, robotics, smart home,
and self-driving vehicles. Sensor technology and the popularity
of wearables has driven innovative growth beyond fitness
tracking to health and wellness, sleep, sports, and baby tech.
There's even pet tech for consumers that are as crazy about their
pets as I am. And even though I'm not yet flying to work like
George Jetson, maybe it's not that far away. Uber just announced
a partnership with NASA to develop flying taxis, which could
start demos in the Los Angeles area as early as 2020.
Technology coming to market is turning
science fiction into reality. I carry two
smartphones, I'm streaming the audio I
want to hear when I want to hear it and
I'm having my virtual assistant help manage my house hands-free, including having
my groceries delivered after being sourced
from local farmers. And I can work from
home, or really anywhere. We are hyperconnected. I couldn't do this back in 2000.
Our smartphones have the processing
power that only NASA supercomputers
had in the late 1960s. As the speed of
breakthroughs accelerates, the time to
think about standardization for emerging tech is now.

When you say "standards," visions of
old engineers taking years to reach agreement generally scares younger generations.
The need to evolve the way we think about
standards in order to be relevant to a
younger generation led to new ways of
thinking about them, leading to internet
standards groups like the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF).
In IETF, individual participants contribute to final documents (RFCs) that are
published online. No formal membership
is required - just understanding
and agreement on the rules
of participation. Then
came "open source"

standards, which allow engineers to also
work and contribute to standardization via
the internet, allowing for increased creativity in a less structured environment. A company can create an extension or subset of an
open standard, not the word-for-word
version of the published language.
Some Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) keep with the traditional
"Robert's Rules" and still work on new
technology efficiently. They shouldn't
be discounted. In fact, SDOs that are
developing American National Standards
agree to meet the specific requirements
for openness, balance and the review
and maintenance of standards, where
some non-traditional developers might
not have the same principles.

Where Do We Start to Standardize?

Some obvious places are technologies
like 5G, cybersecurity, autonomous systems, robotics, virtual agents and artificial
intelligence. Some of this happens organically as technology evolves - think about
how streaming content or binge watching
changed the traditional broadcasting
and programming model.
Creating standards in the early stages
of emerging tech can help grow an industry
sector by providing the opportunity
for consistency and interoperability
as that sector matures. It also
provides the ability for experts
to talk through scenarios before
they become problems. Amazon
recommends things I might be
interested in based on my habits.
Pandora has figured out my musical "moods" and recommends new music I'll
Uber and NASA
like. And I'm not sure
are exploring
how I lived without Alexa
how to make flying
before. We need to have
taxis a reality.
conversations about
common factors as these emerging technologies converge, and educate the next
generation of innovators and creators that
"standards" is not the "S" word.
SAVE THE DATE:
The Spring Forum is May 1-3, 2018
Santa Clara, CA

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

i3 - January/February 2018

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