Media

The convergence of five disruptive technologies will transform business but few companies really know where to start.  That was the consensus of the audience at the the recent Brace for Impact event facilitated by Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada.  The event included a panel with experts from  experts from Cogeco Peer 1, ViewSonic and the Burnie Group.

In this article, we revisit our interview with Doug Heintzman and discuss the social and economic impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution driven by artificial intelligence and automation is different from previous economic and social revolutions and what it means to our society.

Like many other emerging technologies that have risen to the pantheon of global “game-changer” status (remember Google glass?), it’s not surprising that nine years following blockchain’s introduction we see some increased skepticism regarding the tech’s potential impact on business and society at large.

For over half a century, humankind has pondered the “singularity”, a doomsday scenario where an artificial superintelligence changes the fundamental nature of civilization in unpredictable and potentially dire ways. Almost 70 years ago, the pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing was asking the question “can machines think?”

Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of bitcoin, a global electronic currency invented by a mysterious anonymous figure called Satoshi Nakamoto. The same individual also invented blockchain technology, which has become as ubiquitous a term as bitcoin. But what exactly is blockchain? How does it relate to bitcoin? And why is blockchain so important?