3 Emerging Technologies

I remember when getting a tie for Father’s Day was the norm. Today, technology has taken over and more dads likely received gadgets and gizmos like the new Tile tracking device. Here’s a look at three emerging technologies that likely will be the gifts to give in the near future:

Tile – Tracking Device
TileApp_CTO When activated, this small one-inch square tile turns into a tracking device. Misplace your keys? Can’t find your wallet? If the tile is connected to the item, you can find it via the Tile App on your mobile device and anyone else’s that you link it to. Through the app, you can pinpoint the tile on a map and send a sound alert to help you find it, much like the popular “Find my iPhone app.”

I recently put one in my son’s diabetes kit before he stepped on the bus for a school trip to Valleyfair and made it viewable on his phone and mine. The drawback of the first generation of this technology is that it uses the phone’s Bluetooth to locate the tile. That means that once my son’s kit got outside of my or his Bluetooth range – about 32 feet – the Tile App could no longer find it. The Tile shows what is to come in tracking technology and I am hopeful that the location radius will become wider. I bet the tile will get smaller, too.

The company just released this new technology and already has shipped more than 2 million tiles. You can buy one for $20 or a pack of four for $70 and there are no additional fees.

SCiO: Your Personal Molecular Sensor
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This technology is really cool – and just the beginning of what we will see with sensor technology. It makes it possible for you to determine the make-up of virtually any material or physical object you come in contact with. After scanning the object, the device communicates with a mobile app via Bluetooth, which in turn forwards the lookup to a cloud-based service for review. The app then returns the information requested in real-time to your smartphone.

The device fits in your pocket and is the first personal molecular sensor that I have seen that is affordable and available to the masses.

With SCiO, users can pick the best produce at the grocery store, see the nutrition facts of a mixed drink, or the health and details of a plant. You can view, record and even share the information with others. I see so many applications for education and imagine it won’t be long before they become a standard in classrooms.

Two electrical engineering students created the technology while pursuing their degrees and launched a Kickstarter campaign that raised about $3 million. Developer kits began shipping in June.

SciO is based on infrared technology and is just the beginning of what we soon will see with sensor technology.

Lily: A Camera That Follows You
The Lily camera is a take on the drone technology. It flies by itself; no controller required. You simply put the provided sensor in your pocket and toss the Lily camera in the air. Then, it will follow you around and capture images with its front and bottom facing cameras. The company has made it easy to get started with no setup required.

It’s the future of cameras and takes the concept of selfies to a whole new level. Now, you can capture a trip down the ski hill or across the lake on skis from the air. The camera’s optics are up to par, too.

The Lily camera will be available by next spring. The company already is taking pre-orders and is now offering it for $599 until July 15.

What’s Next?
It’s technologies like these that get me excited about what’s to come with the human computer interface and all the potential. I also recognize the challenges – like having so many Lily cameras following students at a track meet or flying overhead at a concert. Creating the technology has become the easy part. Figuring out how to integrate it effectively into our world is what will take some time.