Whither high tech disrupters in 2017?
Besides Bitcoin hitting almost $20,000 apiece, plus the blockchain tech behind it; honestly, I can’t remember any high tech disruption in 2017. We salivated for iPhone’s tenth anniversary, which of course came, doing so as iPhone X, with the X pronounced as “ten” not “ex,” and retailing for over a thousand dollars in many markets. […]
Besides Bitcoin hitting almost $20,000 apiece, plus the blockchain tech behind it; honestly, I can’t remember any high tech disruption in 2017.
We salivated for iPhone’s tenth anniversary, which of course came, doing so as iPhone X, with the X pronounced as “ten” not “ex,” and retailing for over a thousand dollars in many markets. In the wake of X are reverberations about the world’s most expensive smartphone – with little features beyond its predecessor to match the price tag. Today, I do not hear anyone “talking sweet” about iPhone X.
A few other gadgets were also unveiled at the Apple event launching iPhone X; including iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, Apple TV, and the new Apple Watch. Yes, the new Apple Watch can now work without an iPhone, a feature that the device lacked until now. Surprise, surprise! As of this moment, no one – other than Apple of course – seems to be talking about the Apple gadgets or any gadgets for that matter. It seems that high tech companies are tired, if not running out of ideas, as the old ideas are just being recycled, without the wherewithal to come up with stuff that is really fun and disruptive.
What about Samsung, the other capable player in the high-end smartphone market? Here I’ll say ditto, aka, not much to write home about! On Friday 15 September 2017, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was released for purchase. (In October, Google Pixel, apparently a “me-too” high-end smartphone from Google, was also launched; but I doubt if any dents were made by Pixel.) Of course Galaxy Note 8 had got a lot to prove, to get people’s mind off of the disaster with Galaxy Note 7, which famously burst into flames unprovoked, after shipment, in numerous incidents all over the world. The failed product was later withdrawn from the market. Being the immediate successor to Galaxy Note 7, Galaxy Note 8 has to prove that the bursting phone incidence is after all a fleeting incidence that does not deserve to be remembered. Has Samsung Galaxy Note 8 been able to fill the bill and meet the great expectations? In absolute terms, Note 8 is a great product; but compared to its predecessors S8 and S8 Plus, it represents an incremental improvement; that is, it doesn’t have the wow factor. Moreover, retailing for approximately $950 in the US – and much more in cash-strapped developing countries, Note 8 has got to be a life-style product.
To be frank, I am just not sure how much else we can improve smartphones to wow consumers, who seem to have seen it all. There were some random news items here and there during the course of the year: Snapchat, which I referred to in the February 27 article as “The Ephemeral Messaging App,” made a cameo appearance in the news early in the year but that seems to have fizzled out; and Google unveiled YouTube TV also in late February. Beginning on Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks started revealing the U.S. CIA hacking tools, but this has since died down, with apparently nothing in its wake. In April, there was some hype about WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned and world’s most popular messaging app; branching out into digital payment service, with India being targeted as the first country to use this service. Has this idea vaporized or what?
The test flight of China’s first homegrown passenger jet took place on 5 May 2017, an event that made every Chinese person proud, realizing the country’s long-term goal to break into the US and Europe-dominated aircraft market. For now, the project is out of the limelight; though I am sure it’s progressing in some form. Later that month – specifically on May 12, the widespread ransomware (WannaCry) virus was released by some unknown hackers. It affected numerous organizations all over the world. For some reasons, China suffered a disproportional amount of damage from WannaCry, which almost paralyzed major sectors of the country’s operation.
By far the most destructive (not disruptive) news item of the year has got to be the epidemic of fake news, with Social Media sites, particularly Facebook, being the most efficient conveyors. Fake news is widely believed to have affected last November’s presidential election in the U.S., delivering the presidency to Mr. Donald Trump. Other consequences of fake news include the creation of bitter divisions between people based on religious, ideological, and racial lines. Facebook, Google, and Twitter were summoned to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. Facebook disclosed that Russian government-linked misinformation agency used original contents in users’ feeds and paid advertisements to deceive American voters.
Starting from the robots from Senegal, to eBay giving MallforAfrica a shot in the arm; via the battling it out in Nairobi, of African tech startups; and the evolution of Nigerian e-commerce Unicorn – Jumia; Africa made it into the tech news this year perhaps more than any other year. However, on a global level, Bitcoin with the blockchain technology, not gadgets, has got to be the year’s biggest tech news; though it’s not really a new disrupter.