2016 digital results

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Let us recall which trends in the field of technology dominated during 2016 - Trump's victory in the elections using social networks, the protection of private correspondence in instant messengers, the use of the "right to be forgotten" and many others.

Blockchain

In 2016, more and more people began to talk about blockchain technology. The main advantage of the innovation over standard transactions is the absence of intermediaries who confirm the authenticity of transactions, which simplifies the procedure.

According to a Gartner study, in 2016, international financial companies are investing $ 1 billion in blockchain development.

Experts believe that in 5-10 years the volume of services associated with this technology will grow 10 times.

In May, the Center for the Development of Blockchain Technologies was organized in Russia, which will attract domestic programmers to create applications, and already in October, the Central Bank announced the testing of a project of its blockchain platform, which is called Masterchain and allows market participants to exchange information. Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, Otkrytie Bank, Tinkoff-Bank and QIWI took part in the development of the project.

Big data

In 2016, people began to think more and more about the phenomenon of big data - a huge amount of digital information processed by machines.

Analysis of this information allows you to see hidden patterns and use them in various spheres of human life, be it medicine, production or finance.

Big data is actively used in marketing, allowing companies to optimize pricing based on contextual advertising and user requests, focusing on customers and their budget, as well as form a loyal customer base, inspiring them for future purchases.

The idea of potential regulation of big user data is being explored in Russia as well.

In particular, Roskomnadzor announced the existing risks of unlawful use of such information, and the presidential advisor on Internet issues German Klimenko formed a working group on Big data on the basis of the Coordination Center for the national domain of the Internet (CC).

See also: Technological structures and the place of Russia in the global world

Digitalization

The US presidential election showed that television gave way to the Internet, which actually helped Republican Donald Trump defeat Democratic representative Hillary Clinton.

During the election race, the president-elect wisely used social media, issuing provocative statements that are not always true, but help to climb the tops of news feeds.

Clinton, on the other hand, relied on television advertising and, as it turned out, was wrong.

In addition, the departure to digital in 2016 was marked by the fact that the top 5 leading companies in terms of capitalization left the oil company Exxon Mobil. The leading positions were taken by IT giants Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Google and Microsoft.

See also: The Resurrected Matrix - Russia in Neuronet

Fighting fakes

The American elections exposed the problem of so-called fake news, which spread primarily on Facebook.

After widespread criticism, the social network announced the introduction of a new strategy aimed at combating disinformation.

Facebook announced the introduction of fact-checking, which will involve third-party organizations, company employees, as well as ordinary users. Facebook representatives believe that these measures will not help get rid of all inaccurate information on the Internet, but will significantly reduce its amount.

Read also: Global media lost to the Internet for the first time

The right to be forgotten

The Russians got the "right to be forgotten" on January 1, 2016. The deputies, in turn, stubbornly call it "the law on truthful information."The document allowed Russian users to remove links with irrelevant or inaccurate information about themselves from search results.

In Russia, several high-profile cases were associated with the application of the law, which caused the "Streisand effect" - a situation when an attempt to hide certain information arouses increased interest in it and leads to even greater dissemination online.

In particular, someone P. Kolupaev tried to take advantage of the “right to be forgotten” - he applied to the Lipetsk Levoberezhny Court with a claim against Yandex, Google and Rambler Internet Holding, but the claim was rejected.

Later, the media connected him with a former employee of the FSKN of Russia in the Lipetsk region, Pavel Kolupaev, who in 2012 was found guilty of divulging state secrets and received a two-year suspended sentence.

Also, thanks to the court, it was possible to find out that the St. Petersburg millionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin was also trying to "forget", who filed lawsuits against Yandex and Google because of links to publications about related companies that received government contracts for the maintenance of facilities of the Ministry of Defense, about the "Troll Factory" in Olgino and others.

See also: Everything Google Knows About You: 6 Secret Links

Virtual reality

In 2016, a large number of devices were introduced that support virtual reality (VR). Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Sony PlayStation VR helmets entered the market, as well as Google cardboard and Samsung Gear VR.

The technology has not yet become widespread due to the high cost of devices and the difficulty of mastering some of them. In addition, the lack of large volumes of VR content is a problem. But interest in virtual reality video games is still on the rise, which could have a positive impact on the industry in the next couple of years.

Privacy protection in messengers

In October, Facebook Messenger joined other services that care about privacy rights and included end-to-end encrypted secret chats.

Throughout 2016, it was actively talked about this type of information protection, which Telegram and WhatsApp had previously begun to use. Amnesty International, an independent organization, has compiled a list of the most secure communication services.

The companies that use end-to-end encryption in their products by default were especially highly rated - these are Apple, Viber and LINE.

The first place in the study was then taken by Facebook, which owns Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

See also: Ministry of Internal Affairs released documents on surveillance of users of social networks

Artificial intelligence and neural networks

This year, an artificial intelligence (AI) called AlphaGo beat a human in the ancient Chinese game of go for the first time three times in a row. Experts distinguish that the number of variations of moves in this game is innumerable, but still the scientists managed to teach the AI to play Go without explaining the rules to it.

Despite the fact that artificial intelligence and neural networks are rapidly getting smarter, they still require a person to train.

This year, neural networks were taught how to compose Christmas songs based on data about pop music and lyrics, as well as draw and guess an object from a sketch from a user.

In 2016, Prisma, Artisto and Vinci applications, similar in essence, appeared, which allow not only applying filters to photos and videos, but using neural networks to "draw" an image from scratch.

The FindFace application, which helps to recognize a person on a social network by his snapshot, also uses neural networks in its work.

See also the film: I want to remain human

Operators don't want to be a "pipe"

Telecom operators are increasingly trying to diversify their services, not just providing Internet access, but trying to introduce new services for their customers. An example for providers are large Internet companies that create their own messengers or online cinemas.

You can look up to them, or you can try to buy, as happened with the provider Verizon, which was going to buy Yahoo! for $ 4, 83 billion. True, the deal was under threat due to several hacker attacks on users of the Internet company.

Another telecom giant, AT&T, is about to buy Time Warner Corporation, which includes Warner Bros. Entertainment, CNN, HBO and other companies.

In Russia, the Media Communications Union (MKS), including telecom operators, plans to regulate the operation of online cinemas and, in particular, the American service Netflix and domestic Megogo and ivi.ru, but at the same time is thinking about launching its own OTT platforms that provide video services over the Internet.

See also: Free cellular network - already in Russia

Data leaks

This year, there have been a large number of daring hacker attacks targeting large companies. At the same time, the attackers were able to gain access to the personal data of millions of users around the world.

One of the largest leaks was the attack on Yahoo !, which was carried out back in 2013, but information on it has only appeared now.

The hacking affected more than 1 billion users of the company's services.

In September, it became known about a hacker attack on Dropbox, as a result of which 68 million passwords were leaked, which is 2/3 of the total number of people using the service. In addition, one of the largest adult sites, AdultFriendFinder, was attacked, which resulted in 412 million accounts being hacked.