App Overreliance

A casual glance will look like we have conflicting stories this month, but I do think they work well to highlight the duality of technology. For our feature story, we have a cautionary tale of a security breach on an Android smartphone which resulted in our contributor switching over to iOS, after years of loyalty to the Android camp. In another major story, we look at the continued advances of the latest Android smartphones to incorporate increasingly powerful AI automation that goes beyond device boundaries. Both Google, and now Samsung, have embraced cloud-based processing for more computeintensive AI workloads, which means that our smartphones haven’t just become smarter, they are also becoming more connected than ever. Last month, I wrote about what 2024 would bring and that I would like to see more technologies that are, and I quote myself, “useful, functional, indispensable in our daily lives.” It would seem that AI would be at the heart of this. Software is set to be bigger than hardware. Software is set to define hardware. We saw this at CES 2024, and this is a term you’d likely hear throughout the year. Software in this context is more than just the operating system that runs the hardware, it is the AI that learns, adapts, and uses the various components and sensors of hardware to enhance what it can do. Think of vehicles that adapt to various driving scenarios or needs of the driver; planning a route, making a reservation, finding which outlet has stock of the last minute birthday gift you forgot to buy. Jarvislike smarthomes that can detect if you’re unwell and make suggestions to your schedule, or even control the lights to ‘entertain’ your pets. Apps and software will be the future, there’s no doubt about it, but let’s not be too enthralled by the carrot on the stick and forget about security and privacy.