Metaverse Will Not be Common in Consumer Life in 2040, Experts Say

Experts surveyed by Pew Research believe that augmented and mixed-reality applications will dominate full virtual reality environments in 2040. But half of the experts also believe the “metaverse” will not be common in the lives of most consumers by that point. 

source: Pew Research 

Digitze or Die?

Digitize or die might be too simple a phrase to capture strategy for firms and nations seeking to boost their productivity. In fact, it might be the case that the relationship between digital technology intensity and productivity is far more complex than that. Consider the case of South Korea, considered by nearly everyone to be a country that is advanced in its adoption of new technology. 

Despite that status, the productivity gap between South Korea and the United States is widening, says Pooya Nikooyeh, McKinsey & Company partner. Assume you agree that productivity can be measured; that some countries are by such measures “more productive.” 

source: Statista 

Assume you believe there is a correlation between wealth and productivity. One still is left with unclear causal relationships, even if correlation appears to exist. We might note that progress is uneven. Social infrastructure seems to play a role in explaining the effectiveness of converting inputs to outputs.  

source: OECD 

Almost nobody disagrees that information technology is correlated with productivity growth, but most also would observe that the process is not uniform. 

Matters are probably not dissimilar at the firm level. Some industries seem to realize more direct and immediate benefits from applied information technology than others, just as some industries are considered more vulnerable to digital change. 

source: McKinsey

The unanswered question is how much digital technology will change business results in some industries that have historically not seen the obvious upside from digital technology change. The same sort of uncertainty seems to apply even to whole nations.  

Cybersecurity Tops CIO Priorities in 2022, Foundry Says

Some 59 percent of chief information officers surveyed by Foundry expect their technology budgets to increase in 2022, reaching pre-Covid pandemic levels. About 49 percent expected budget boosts in 2021. 

It is not clear how much priorities will shift away from remote work and contactless customer and employee experiences, as was the case in 2020 and 2021. 

Still, the technology initiatives with the most investment in 2022 are security and /risk management, data and business analytics, application and legacy systems modernization, customer experience technologies, and cloud migration, according to Foundry. 

source: CIO 

source: CIO 

AI Wrote and Performed a Jerry Seinfeld Routine

The artificial intelligence engine did it all: wrote the script and did the voice. 

70% of Digital Transformation Efforts are Likely to Fail

Digital transformation is about changes in use of information technology. And such changes historically have been difficult. The rule of thumb is that about 70 percent of IT initiatives fail in some way. 

source: BCG 

And some industries seem to have found greater success than others. It seems harder to prove benefits in government, for example, much easier for consumer goods. 

source: BCG

Authentic Volumetric Avatars From a Phone Scan

In a gaming app, perhaps a realistic avatar is not so crucial. For most business applications, realism is necessary. 

Augmented Experience, Not Full "Metaverse" is Still Very Useful

Sone of us are less entharalled with full "metaverse" experiences than "augmented" experiences such as the Abba concert.