The Internet of Bodies is No: 2 on the newly released 20 tech trends that will shape 2020 released by Telenor today.
The new report said:
Today and even more so starting next year, we are connecting our bodies through a host of monitors that measure blood pressure, blood oxygen, activity, heart rate, arrhythmia and even snoring. And in 2020 we will see the first applications that go beyond just monitoring and into actual auto-interventions.
One such example, said Telenor, was the insulin pump. A large community of patients and health advocates, “We are Not Waiting”, have pushed the frontier for a long time, and in 2020, the world will see the first commercial systems closing the loop between reading blood sugar and delivering insulin to the body, said the report. Biohacks such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink startup are still far from commercialisation, but there are diseases and conditions that are costly and care intensive where the “IoB” will have great potential.
5G, IoT and AI will spur industry collaborations
The Telenor forecast said 2019 was year 0 for commercial 5G launches. In 2020, it said, the world will see widespread launches in most developed economies. Mobile providers will put 5G’s speed and capacity on centre stage, but the real innovations, and with them, sweeping societal changes, will come from behind the scenes where industries are getting together and mixing things up.
These innovations include network-slicing, with which business-critical systems can run unencumbered over the mobile Internet. Also, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), where network services can be developed by software, will radically speed up how services are developed. With lower latency (meaning: no signal delays, everything in real-time) and a vastly higher number of IoT devices out in the world, emergency, eHealth, logistics, security systems and remote investigations will be enabled by quality networks that allow remote investigations using video, drones and sensors that securely transmit data.
According to Telenor, 2020 will mark the beginning of this innovation journey. Turning these opportunities into scalable innovations will require industries and governments to pool their competences and start co-creating services. The technology is here, but no single company possesses the capabilities to make it real.
To read the Telenor tech 2020 forecast, click here.
Image Credit: Telenor