ROBOTS are getting more high-tech with AI. AFP

In the year about to end, there had been a frenzy of product launches catering to consumers or end-users, dominated primarily by the “latest and greatest” offerings by mobile phone and laptop manufacturers.

Huawei has apparently survived the US-China trade wrangling and has now staked a claim to the state-of-the-art in phone-based photography with its P30 Pro, which boasts not only of Leica lenses but of advanced artificial intelligence (AI).

AI, as implemented by mobile phone manufacturers, including, of course, by marquee brands like Apple’s iPhone and Samsung, has made it easier for anyone to become a good photographer, leaving the DSLR and the mirror-less cameras for the now semi-exclusive use of the pros.

Lenovo, meanwhile, has made giant strides in cramming some of the best specs we’ve seen in laptops today with their different flagships in every price level, namely the Yoga, the still powerhouse Thinkbook and the gaming monster Legion.

Still, the greatest moves that had been made in 2019, which we in Tech Talk, expect to continue with the sound of ever-deafening drumroll in 2020, concern technologies that have greater impacts than just improved consumer satisfaction from gadgets.

Again, AI is at the top of the hill at present as its many implementations by the technology sector is expected to ramp up businesses, data security and even healthcare.

AI is at the forefront of identifying and acting on digital and online threats to the billions of people who are now connected one way or another to the digital domain.

Due to the sheer volume of data needing protection from cybercriminals, AI does, using deep-learning machines and number-crunchers, what no human intervention can possibly accomplish.

AI, too, is being employed by businesses to determine market trends and the ever-changing preferences of finicky consumers. With AI, online marketing has already metamorphosed into targeted advertising.

Case in point would be the digital windows on websites, whose contents change depending on the people using them as profiled by AI based on their online activities.

With the implementation of AI limited only by one’s imagination, providers of AI solutions can be expected to make a killing in 2020 as the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution will be merciless in weeding out those that fail to adapt technologically.

According to Forbes magazine, “Much of AI applications will continue to be done through providers of as-a-service platforms, which allow us to simply feed in our own data and pay for the algorithms or compute resources as we use them.”

Forbes said these platforms, “provided by the likes of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft,” are of general applications but can be custom-engineered by third parties for application to specific requirements.

“During 2020, we will see wider adoption and a growing pool of providers that are likely to start offering more tailored applications and services for specific or specialized tasks. This will mean no company will have any excuses left not to use AI,” Forbes reported.

On Internet connectivity, China is at the forefront of 6G development, but 2020 would be all about fully harnessing the potential of 5G or the 5th Generation of Internet connectivity.

The superfast download and upload speeds will revolutionize interconnectivity and streaming services like watching super-sharp 4K videos and listening to high-resolution audio without glitches.

Just as we’ve seen in hotels in Singapore during the second Google Trusted Media Summit, more and more AI-enabled machines like the simplest cleaning robots that take elevators and move around without bumping into anything will take advantage of increased 5G bandwidth.

The so-called IOT or Internet of Things, heretofore dumb gadgets like closed circuit television cameras, will be enabled by both 5G and AI in terms of added capabilities like facial recognition and automatic threat detection and pre-programmed actions like calling an ambulance or the police.

In 2019, autonomous driving has shown what the near future may hold — driverless vehicles on smart cities. Such autonomous driving machines were put in use in Clark in the recently concluded Southeast Asian Games hosted by the Philippines.

While we’re still far, far away from completely autonomous vehicles that change lanes like they are being driven by humans, interconnectivity brought about by increased bandwidth and AI will make driverless driving a reality within this generation.

In fact, Waymo, a sister company of Google, has already finished a trial of autonomous taxis which transported 6,200 people in one month in California.

While planes on auto-pilot have been existing for decades, the increasing sophistication of on-computers will make aviation safer than ever before, notwithstanding the crashes of Boeing’s star-crossed 737 MAX.

The same holds true for sea navigation which will undoubtedly be populated by newer ships that carry enough electronics to help their feet-of-clay human operators avert collisions.