Emerging Smart Technologies

Book excerpt: We live in a world with an abundance of technologies and the technologies are developing and improving rapidly. Technologies are transforming our lifestyles, social interactions, and workplaces. Nearly everyone in the developed nations possesses multiple electronic gadgets (cell phones, tablets, personal computers, laptops, digital notebooks, etc.). Daily use of technology has evolved. Recent advances in the field of technology have led to the emergence of innovative solutions known as smart technologies. A technology is considered smart if it performs a task that an intelligent person can do. A smart or intelligent technology is a self-operative and corrective system that requires little or no human intervention. Smart technologies can be understood as a generalization of the concept of smart structures and the use of digital and communications technologies. They have given us new, powerful tools to work. Application of such technologies can transform the conventional cities into smart cities, conventional home into smart home, conventional farming into smart farming, etc. Today, we are in an era where everything is expected to be smart. Common examples include smart cities, smart factory, smart agriculture, smart farming, smart healthcare, smart university, smart medication, smart water, smart food, smart materials, smart devices, smart phones, smart grid, smart energy, smart homes, smart buildings, smart metering, smart appliances, smart equipment, smart heating controls, smart lighting systems, smart watch, smart economy, smart environment, smart grids, smart transportation, smart mobility, smart manufacturing, smart living, smart environment, smart people, etc. These technologies will ensure equity, fairness, and realize a better quality of life. The combined autonomy and ambience of smart technologies simultaneously provides the conduit through which our choices are affected. These smart technologies go hand-in-hand with a new technology called the Internet of things (IoT).