Get ready for the era of augmented humanity.
Global research powerhouse IDC says the next era of IT transformation will marry technology with biology to take the human mind and body to unprecedented levels of mental and physical capability.
That was one of the top worldwide IT predictions for 2017 as outlined Tuesday by Frank Gens, senior vice-president and chief analyst at IDC.
Gens dubbed IDC’s augmented humanity concept its new “fourth platform.” Over the past few years, IDC has been laying out its view of a “third platform” consisting of cloud, mobile, social and big data/analytics. As described by Gens on Tuesday, the fourth platform of augmented humanity pushes the current wearable technology trend beyond skin-deep layers into “cellular and sub-cellular levels” of our biology.
“The fourth platform will be the penetration of the human body and the integration of technologies with human biosystems,” he said. “This means the fourth platform is us.”
Major tenets of the fourth platfo
