Top 10 Innovative Technologies Of 2023 

We have prepared for you an interesting rating of ten breakthrough innovations that are already changing our future. The key criterion for the selection of applicants was the potential impact on human life and despite the fact that some technologies, for one reason or another, have not yet acquired commercial distribution, they will all play a crucial role in the further development of civilization.

3D metal printing

3D printing appeared a few decades ago, but is used to this day mainly by professional designers, as well as amateur enthusiasts who make single prototypes. At the same time, the implementation of objects from any materials other than plastic for many years remained a complex and rather expensive process. But recently, metal printing is beginning to gain momentum, becoming more affordable financially and a relatively simple method of manufacturing all kinds of parts.

In the short term, this technology can, for example, allow manufacturers to forget about inconvenient expensive warehouses for renting parts that are intended for replacement. Now the necessary component can be performed immediately at the request of the buyer. In the future, it is necessary to completely modify the entire production process, significantly reducing the number of factories and, most importantly, significantly improving the quality of products.

Thus, in the future, it is possible to create more durable and, at the same time, lighter parts, as well as complex forms, which, using typical production methods, are simply impossible. In addition, more precise control over the microstructure of metals will be provided, which will increase the reliability of products.

The company Markforged (Boston) for consideration of potential customers has already introduced the very first printer created specifically for metal 3D printing. Its cost is $ 100,000. At the moment, another company, General Electric, is testing a printer that can perform parts for aircraft production. Mass sales are planned as early as 2023.

 Artificial embryos

The latest invention of British scientists has practically turned the idea of how life was created. The researchers were able to grow, using only stem cells, a mouse embryo. At the same time, what is especially remarkable, the traditional fertilization of the egg did not occur. Nevertheless, scientists have recognized: this embryo at the current stage of the development of science does not have a single chance to become a real mouse, but, nevertheless, the beginning of such research has been laid. And such experiments may well have a great future.

In the near future, the researchers plan to create an artificial human embryo. If this happens, scientists will have a unique opportunity for experimental research and genome editing. But in the case of human embryos, there is a huge problem – ethics. If it is possible to artificially create an embryo, is it possible to conduct experiments on it? Will he be different from ordinary people? But for now, all these issues are relegated to the background

Smart-cities

The idea to create a smart city is far from new. But numerous attempts were not crowned with success: they turned out to be unnecessarily expensive, ineffective, and simply ended with a banal failure of deadlines.

The new project of two giants, the holding company Alphabet and the company Sidewalk Labs, radically changes the understanding of the essence of such a problem. As part of their collaboration with the Canadian government, they are working to improve toronto's port waterfront. In the near future, we plan to equip the district through the use of innovative technologies.

In addition, the long-term plans of the creators of the smart city include the use of exclusively autonomous public vehicles and open software. Based on the latter, third-party firms will be able to build their own services (by analogy with modern applications).

Artificial Intelligence for Everyone

Until now, artificial intelligence has been considered the main toy of Baidu, Amazon, Microsoft and Google, the largest technology companies. For others, any artificial intelligence systems were too expensive and complex to be fully implemented.

Now the solution to this problem is in the use of so-called cloud services. Among these, the most popular are the following:

- AWS from Amazon,

- TensorFlow from Google,

- Azure from Microsoft.

Such innovations can significantly simplify the process of introducing neural networks into all spheres of life. It will be the same as the development of a simple program. Ultimately, such a solution will allow artificial intelligence to spread far beyond the standard technology industry.

Neural Network Competitions

Despite the fact that modern neural networks have long learned to recognize a huge number of images, they could not come up with at least something on their own for a long time. To do this, they were not equipped with imagination, but the solution was invented. Its author is Ayan Goodfellow (University of Montreal). The researcher invented the competitive generating network (GAN), a system that is a simplified mathematical model of the human brain consisting of two hemispheres (in this case, two neural networks).

The algorithm of actions is as follows: from the very beginning, neural networks are trained on identical data. But then one of them (it is called a generator) adds some new feature to the already familiar image: for example, such an element can be the third hand of a person. The task of the second neural network (its name is a discriminator) is concentrated in understanding whether it has seen a similar image before or whether it is a fake.

In other words, it is necessary to understand whether a person with three hands is real. As a result, the generator learned to forge images so well and quickly that the discriminator could no longer distinguish them from authentic ones. It turns out, as a result, that the neural network organizes and creates something realistic and new.

This year, GAN has become one of the most breakthrough technologies. Compiling a huge number of images of stars, the developers from Nvidia created the faces of people who are almost impossible to distinguish from the real ones, although in fact all these people never existed. The second group of studies was able to recreate paintings that were impossible to distinguish in style from the

creations of Van Gogh. At the same time, the famous artist never wrote. Thus, the technology allows you to open up a huge space for creating fakes at a high professional level. But, at the same time, it provides artificial intelligence with imagination, which is necessary for better work with the surrounding reality.

Babylonian Fish

The "Babylonian Fish" from the famous movie "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is now a reality, not a fantasy. The developer of such an innovation was Google.

The cost of pixel Buds headphones is only $ 159. And their capabilities surprise the imagination. The device is able to translate automatically into 40 languages. It is extremely easy to use such an innovation. It is enough to click on a special button and say a phrase of this kind: "I need help - translation into English." But there is one important nuance, while the novelty is able to work exclusively in conjunction with the smartphone Google Pixel 2.

The algorithm of such an innovation is as follows: one interlocutor puts on headphones, and the second holds a smartphone in his hands. The person who is wearing headphones, says something in his language, and the smartphone automatically translates speech over the loudspeaker. As soon as a person with a smartphone answers, simultaneous translation will immediately sound in the headphones. Of course, now this technology has some drawbacks. For example, it is not very convenient to communicate on noisy streets, because it is difficult for the system to recognize a certain language among other sounds.

Gas-fired power plant with zero emissions

In Houston, startup Net Power has built an innovative gas-fired, zero-emission power plant. The basis of the technology is the latest turbine, the size of which is 1/10 of a typical turbine and is able to sit in a tiny room with an area of 5.6 sq.m. but even with such small dimensions, such a device remains as powerful as its larger counterparts.

The whole secret is hidden in more efficient heat transfer through the use of supercritical fluid. The natural gas in the small turbine is burned in an environment of pure oxygen in the combustion chamber. Only carbon dioxide and water vapor are produced.

Although in today's world there is an extreme popularity of renewable sources, Net Power Corporation is confident that the demand for electricity in connection with the mass transition to electric cars will only increase. Actually, therefore, there may be an excellent prospect for natural gas. In the event that the power plant remains more efficient, but does not pollute the environment, why not use fossil fuels?

True online privacy

The latest online identification system is able to confirm your identity without the need to provide personal data, such as, for example, the date of birth. All this becomes possible through the use of the zero-knowledge proof protocol. Although researchers have been working on the creation of such an innovation for decades, special interest in it appeared only last year. The reason for this was the Zcash cryptocurrency.

The developers of the solution emphasize the fact that the currency is based on an improved cryptography system. That, in turn, allows you to send money anywhere in the world in such a way that it cannot be tracked. Actually, this is the main difference between Zcash compared to bitcoins. Bitcoin owners receive an address consisting of numbers and letters, and transactions are carried out through a distributed blockchain registry.

Using special analysis, law enforcement agencies can obtain information about who exactly owns this address, as well as track the progress of transactions. Blockchain has helped investigators more than once to find drug dealers who sell goods on the black market.

The basis of Zcash is the zk-Snark cryptography method. It was developed by Israeli scientists together with researchers from MIT. All transactions are confirmed on the Internet, but it is impossible to track the addresses of the participants in the operation. But with all the advantages, zk-Snark is a rather complex and slow technology. Actually, therefore, developers are now looking for ways to significantly simplify it and make it more accessible.

Genetic predictions

It won't be long before babies get their genetic passport at birth. Such a document will reflect very interesting data, for example, the likelihood of developing certain diseases. Scientists, conducting research on a huge amount of information, derive the so-called "polygenic risk assessments". They will help in the future to identify and successfully cure in the early stages of the most severe and incurable diseases.

Such information will also be needed by pharmaceutical companies to test drugs that prevent the development of all kinds of diseases.

Quantum computers

The emergence of quantum computers is expected by many. But, first of all, probably chemists. After all, using such devices, they will be able to create new molecules, new electrolytes, new proteins for more effective drugs and much more.

Familiar to us computers do not have sufficient computing power for such technologies. But as soon as quantum ones appear, all this will become real.

Meanwhile, the startup Rigetti Computing (California) proved: a quantum computer can be used for machine learning. The company has opened access to its quantum computer Forest, which is located in the cloud and is capable of using a processor to perform calculations for 19 qubits.