Dare we call it the post-COVID world? By Casey Tonkin on Dec 21 2020 03:29 PM Print article
Coronavirus accelerated digital transformation in a way no one could have predicted 12 months ago, dragging the rest of the world head-first into the digital future we already knew was coming.
So with 2021 just around the corner, here are five areas in tech that, either despite or because of COVID-19, are worth keeping your eye on next year.
1. Natural language processing
The release of GPT-3 was a milestone for natural language processing (NLP) that seemingly flew under the radar of mainstream attention.
Sure,
the Guardian published its own AI-written essay about whether robots are going to take over the world, but in general there was a lot of other news to cover in 2020.
As China Leads Quantum Computing Race, U.S. Spies Plan for a World with Fewer Secrets
On 12/14/20 at 5:00 AM EST
As China leads in the race to quantum computing edge, US spies plan for a world with few secrets.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty
Back in 1994, when quantum computers existed only as so much chalk on a blackboard, mathematician Peter Shor invented what may soon prove to be their killer app.
Shor trained his efforts on a calculation called factoring, which ordinarily nobody but a mathematician would care about, except it just happens to be an Achilles heel of the internet. If someone were to invent a computer that could perform this operation quickly, messages that are currently hidden from hackers, terrorists, military adversaries, governments and competitors would be as easy to read as a Stephen King novel.