Category: Custom software

Most of us, technology geeks or not, are eager to stay first in line to catch up with the latest game-changing technology trends. Here we are to know which technologies will thrive in 2019!

The Potential Technology Trends You Need To Explore In 2025

Have you ever looked up at the sky and clapped your eyelids on a bat? This is commonplace. But what if it was a drone. Or would it be a flying fleet? Since we don’t belong to the Jetsons family, the latter is not expected but we are close to it! 2019 is definitely a transformative year for technological innovation!

According to Gartner, the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019 are Block chain, Artificial Intelligence, Empowered Edge, Privacy and Digital Ethics, Quantum Computing, Immersive Experiences, Augmented Analytics, Autonomous Things, and Digital Twins!

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Following are the emerging technology trends and catalyzing technical innovation that we can expect to see more of in 2019!!

Related Reading: Find how digital innovation is transforming today’s business world.

1. Blockchain Technology – The ‘New Internet’

Some call Blockchain technology the ‘New Internet’. The blockchain is the brainchild of a person or group of people known by the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. It permits digital information to be distributed but not duplicated.

It was first devised for the digital currency, Bitcoin.  It is also called the “digital gold”. To this day, the total value of the currency is nearly $112 billion US!

“Blockchain solves the manipulation problem”, says Vitalik Buterin, inventor of Ethereum.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Apart from AI-powered chatbots, 2019 will witness chip manufacturers such as Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, ARM, and Qualcomm shipping specialized chips that speed up the execution of AI-enabled applications.

2019 will also be the year for hyperscale infrastructure companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.

Related Reading: Check out the top AI trends of 2019.

3. Cloud-independent edge computing

The study from IDC illustrates that 45 percent of the entire data created by IoT devices will be stored, processed, analyzed and acted upon close to or at the edge of a network by 2020! Edge computing is a mesh network of data centers that process and store data locally before being sent to a centralized storage center or cloud.

4. Privacy and Digital Ethics

Facebook, recently witnessed the biggest security breach in which 50 million accounts were compromised. Facebook, later clarified that data of 30 million accounts were stolen.

People are becoming more nervous about how organizations and third-parties are using their personal data.

5. Quantum Computing

The world is behind building the first fully-functional quantum computer. Also called the supercomputer, this is expected to be a cloud service rather than an on-prem service. IBM is already offering cloud-based quantum computing services. For instance, the automotive, financial, insurance, pharmaceuticals, military, and research industries have the most to gain from the advancements in Quantum Computing.

6. Immersive Experiences

Conversational platforms are changing the way in which people communicate with the digital world. Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) are changing their approaches to know more about people’s perception.

7. Augmented Analytics

Augmented analytics relies on augmented intelligence. This uses machine learning (ML) to transform how analytics content can be developed, consumed and shared.

“Through 2020, the number of data scientists will grow five times faster than the number of experts”, says David Cearley!

8. Autonomous Things

Autonomous things, such as robots, drones, and autonomous fleet, use Artificial Intelligence techniques to automate their functions that were previously performed by humans.

9. Digital Twins

A digital twin is a digital representation of real-world items that are interlinked. Cearley states that there can be digital twins of people, processes, and things!

A DTO is an aspect of the Digital Twin evolution that is a dynamic software model that relies on operational or other data. DTOs help drive efficiencies in business processes.

Apart from these, there are other key technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2019. These include:

10. Cybersecurity and Risk Management

According to the estimates from the firm Gemalto, the data breaches were 4.5 billion in the first half of 2018! The University of Maryland study found that hackers attack computers every 39 seconds.

In 2019 we will be facing a more sophisticated array of physical security and cybersecurity challenges.

Cybersecurity is thus the digital glue that has held IoT, Smart Cities, and the world of converged machines, sensors, applications, and algorithms operational throughout!

11. Smart Spaces

A smart space is a physical or digital environment in which humans and technology-enabled systems interact in an increasingly open, connected, coordinated and intelligent ecosystems, according to Gartner! The world of technology is to enter accelerated delivery of smart spaces in 2019.

 12. Self-powered data centers

Data centers grow every minute with the implementation of virtual servers and storage, energy-efficient buildings. In 2019, the data centers are expected to run on its own self-contained power plants!

13. IoT integration

2019 will witness more IoT implementation. An International Forrester IT survey that said among a recent group study, 82% of respondents were unable to identify all of the devices connected to their networks. Of this lot, 54% were nervous about device security, and 55% were concerned about integration!

Related Reading: Find the role of Data Analytics in Internet of Things (IoT)

14. More self-service IT kiosks for business users

2019 will be a year of IT innovation designed to build better communication between IT and end users. The self-service IT kiosks to be set up would enable users to log on and choose what they want for the apps that they build.

15. The Internet of Things and Smart Cities

50 billion equipment, including smartphones, and others are expected by the IoT to be wirelessly connected via a network of sensors to the internet by 2020!

The term “Smart City” means creating a public/private infrastructure to conduct activities that protect and secure citizens. It integrates communications (5-G), transportation, energy, water resources, waste collections, smart-building technologies, and security technologies and services!

To upgrade your business with the latest technology trends on the table, contact the experts at Fingent today! Also, read through our latest blogs to learn more about accelerated technological development!!

The Experts Speak: The Adoption of AI and ML in Software Development

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is transforming nearly every industry. In our previous blogs, we discussed how it is transforming finance, customer service, supply chain & logistics, and other industries. In this blog, we will talk about how AI and ML are radicalizing the software industry. We will look at the benefits of the adoption of AI and ML in software development and what industry experts have to say about it.

The Fundamental Shift in Software Development

At its very core, software development involves writing reams of rule-based code. Traditionally, developers had to specify every detail to let the system know what to do, and then customize the features of each piece of technology. With the adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, this process becomes much easier.

Author, scientist and Google research engineer Pete Warden puts it well:

“The pattern is that there’s an existing software project doing data processing using explicit programming logic, and the team charged with maintaining it find they can replace it with a deep-learning-based solution … What I see is that almost any data processing system with non-trivial logic can be improved significantly by applying modern machine learning. This might sound less than dramatic when put in those terms, but it’s a radical change in how we build software. Instead of writing and maintaining intricate, layered tangles of logic, the developer has to become a teacher, a curator of training data and an analyst of results.”

Practically, this means a revolutionary change in the very essence of software development.

AI and ML in action

“Modern IT environments are incredibly (and increasingly) complex and ever-changing, leading to large amounts of time and resources devoted to monitoring, troubleshooting, and course correcting,” says Phil Tee, Cofounder, and CEO of Moogsoft Inc. “It’s a reactive position for most companies, but when teams use AIOps technology they can leverage change-tolerant algorithms and access indexed information. This allows them to spend more time focused on proactive, meaningful work rather than fixing the same problems repeatedly or spending time managing rules and filters.”

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can transform the entire Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Three ways in which it does this are:

• Synthesis of large volumes of data to predict the success or failure and business value of a project.
• Predicts accurate project delivery timelines, delivers project status updates and creates project schedules.
• Automatic diagnosis and rectification of problems in the project.

Let us consider the details of how this is achieved.

1. Turn Idea into Code Quickly and Effectively

The process from the inception of an idea to its actual execution into workable code is time-consuming and complex. Traditionally, developers must go through a long process of trial and error to get the basic code in place. Obtaining funding approvals for the project is complicated as well and requires getting the project to a prototype level even before requesting for funds. All this can be made easy with AI and ML. In the future, the system itself could learn to process ideas from natural language and suggest machine-executable code without human intervention.  AI and ML are making this possible even now by teaching systems to suggest code completion. This way systems will slowly learn to generate code through predefined modules.

Considering the viability of a project also becomes easier and faster with AI and ML. Machine learning can help developers identify and prioritize the effects of the project based on business risk. This way, time and effort on unnecessary regression testing and rectification can be eliminated. A sound decision on whether the project is feasible or not can thus be made in the earlier stages.

Related Reading: How to accelerate your business growth with Robotic Process Automation

2. Effective Project Management

Through pattern detection, AI and ML can be trained to use details of past projects to provide accurate estimates of the current project. Historical project details like bugs, test phases, actuals, and estimated values can be fed into the system and used to fine-tune the level of accuracy. Through this, the system will learn to predict accurate delivery schedules and create work schedules for individual members of the team. Risk Management, as well as Resource Management, can be better executed this way.

3. Automation of Testing and Error Detection

Pattern Detection is one of the most valued benefits of machine learning. This can be used effectively to automate the testing and debugging process in software development. One of the challenges of software testing is to come up with a list of most likely cases and scenarios that could affect the program’s performance. Through pattern detection, systems can look at past logs and generate a test case list automatically. They can also identify and classify error types and in time learn to automatically fix these errors.

Joe Colantonio, an expert on software automation and performance testing discusses what is possible with AI and ML.  “Wouldn’t it be great if you could answer the classic testing question, “If I’ve made a change in this piece of code, what’s the minimum number of tests I should be able to run in order to figure out whether or not this change is good or bad?” he says. “Many companies are using AI tools that do just that. Using ML, they can tell you with precision what the smallest number of tests is to test the piece of changed code. The tools can also analyze your current test coverage and flag areas that have little coverage, or point out areas in your application that are at risk.”

Revolutionizing IT

Apart from making a big difference in the software development process, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will also change the way applications are made. With the power of AI and ML, developers will be able to design apps, which will be able to listen, think, speak, reason and make decisions. Vision Recognition technologies, Optical character recognition, and many more AI-powered capabilities will help developers create faster, smarter and better apps in the future. At Fingent, we endeavor to put this into action every day. There is no area that is immune to the changes that AI and ML can bring and we are determined to stay on top of it.

Related Reading: Top Artificial Intelligence Trends to Watch Out for In 2019

Digital revolution has not just changed how businesses are perceived but also how businesses are performed. It meant a shift from the conventional means of operation to the one aided by technology. In today’s age, every aspect of a business from operations to management is run using digital tools. Such digital transformations has changed every industry and revolutionized the way of serving the customers, improve the competitiveness of the business and pushed forth its expansion into the global market.

Coleman Parkes Research in one of their surveys identifies that 82 percent of respondents have adopted digital technologies for redefining their businesses. This complete overhaul of business with the reinvention of business operations are affected by the advent of mobile, cloud, social, and big data analytics. So has the transcendence of a digital world helped grow businesses? If yes, what are the ways in which businesses can take advantage of the same?

Related Reading: Implementing a digital transformation strategy for your business requires adequate know-how of the varied process involved in the same. Know about the five crucial questions to consider before initiating your digital transformation journey here.

What are the innovative changes?

Early on, businesses built websites as a front for providing only information. With interactivity and the onset of the mobile revolution, sites and apps started to provide much more. They are used to offer services and products right at the doorstep of customers. The use of social media has enhanced the knowledge regarding what the customers like and what they seek. Businesses can use this medium to understand and tailor personalized experiences to provide real value to their customers.

Big Data analytics has changed the way businesses adapt and change. From decision making to predicting customer preferences and hiring the right skill sets, big data analytics has emerged as the game changer for businesses today by influencing how they deal their data.  Instead of undertaking a market study, there is relevant data that tells what is working in the market and what is not.

The competitiveness

Each business that enters into a digital transformation is out there to compete every second. Imagine the new generation of customers who have everything at the tap of a button. Businesses need to be on their toes to deliver rich, real-time interactions with an element of personalization to keep their customers engaged. Also, the need to keep updating and innovating with respect to the competition is a necessity to save the business from running into the ground.

The increased reach

Even though the competition increases with the digital transformation, businesses can take advantage of the fact that now they have reached a global audience. There is a market for the niche of products and services since customers have a way to access them easily. Also putting a step into innovation ensures that your business is at the forefront of achieving a profitable chunk out of the industry.

Improved avenues

Since transforming the business into a digital space is no longer an option, businesses should start utilizing the benefits of such a change. Pervasive digitization of services and products can be made to ensure that there are no barriers between the business and their customers. Also, traditional companies can start making efforts to revamp or add new services that are digitally available to increase their profits. Monetization from digital platforms and collaborations with partners can further help achieve better profits from an untapped source of customer relationships.

Related Reading: Take a look at the CIO’s opinions of digital transformation initiatives deployed across different businesses here.

How to make the most of this digital transformation?

In today’s day and age, no business is smaller or bigger, each of them competes in a virtual, digital space that offers fair ground for competition. Businesses should start looking at Big Data analytics and use the social media space to push their content to the customers. The idea is to be always supple, no matter how big or small your business is. Think like a startup at every step to understand the new technologies, the revolutionary changes, and be flexible to adopt them quickly. Having a digital core at the heart of your organization to manage and operate the business is the right way to go ahead in this modern digital era.

If your business is seeking to get into the race of digital transformation, it is important to act right now. Late adopters can have serious disadvantages since the competition is already in the domain. If you are looking to adopt a business model that utilizes a digital core, we can help. Embrace the digital transformation with the best developers to get to the forefront of change.

iOS 12 is now live and represents the latest evolution of Apple over its decade long existence. Today, Apple’s App Store has over two million apps with over 170 billion downloads and over $130 billion in revenue. With iOS 12, developers are poised to offer a far superior experience for users compared to previous versions.

Here are the top iOS 12 application development features that enterprises can benefit from in the year 2019.

Siri Shortcuts Take User Experience to a New Level

Adoption of Siri is increasing at an exponential pace, considering the popularity of using voice technology for commands and simplifying user actions. True to form, iOS 12 makes Apple’s personal assistant more proactive, by allowing shortcuts.

Siri Shortcuts minimize the number of steps users take to accomplish everyday tasks. Siri intelligently pairs users’ daily routines with app functionality and suggests convenient shortcuts whenever available. Such shortcuts allow users to access the offered functionality or complete the task on hand from the lock screen or from search, without having to open the app.

Siri learns and predicts shortcuts through “donations.” Developers and users may “donate” shortcuts to Siri. Developers may use the Shortcuts API to donate the shortcuts they wish to offer their users. The prerequisite towards “donations” that meet the objectives is developers having an accurate understanding of the specific in-app actions that drive the most engagement, to make the relevant Siri Shortcut donations for the most frequently used features.

The flip side to making donations for shortcuts is handling user expectations. Users may, for instance, expect the app to have shortcuts for features where shortcuts are not technically possible. For instance, when the app requires user authentication before completing an action, such a feature cannot run in the background, as a shortcut.

Improved Core ML 2 Brings Machine Learning to Apps Easily

Core ML is a relatively new toolkit, but very critical, considering it now powers Siri, Quick Type, and Camera functions in iOS. Core ML allow developers to integrate machine learning models including text, barcode, face, and landmark detection, object tracking, enhanced image recognition, and other intuitive functionality into apps, easily. Core ML 2 comes with over 30 layer types and supports expansive deep learning capabilities. Developers may run on-device machine learning models without the need to analyze data across multiple servers.

iOS 12 makes it easy, simple and fast to integrate Core ML 2 with user-facing apps. Developers can leverage this handy toolkit to embed machine learning frameworks and models directly into mobile apps, with just a few lines of code, and with no extensive technical expertise required.

A New CreateML Framework Allow Lay Users to Create Machine Learning Models

Create ML, a new framework, allow developers to build machine learning models, with little to no machine learning expertise. Its similarity with Swift makes the framework familiar and comfortable to use. Create ML is also integrated into Xcode 10 playgrounds, making it easy to view model workflows in real time.

Developers can leverage the embedded natural language capabilities of iOS 12 to create in-depth models for advanced purposes such as regression, image classification, word tagging, and sentence classification, with just a few lines of Swift code.

Highly Intuitive ArKIT2 Toolkit Takes AR Experiences to a New Level

The improved ArKit 2 toolkit allows developers to create powerful and hugely incredible Artificial Reality (AR) immersive experiences. The toolkit enables developers to create engaging multiplayer games, presentations and more, allowing multiple users to view or play the AR enhanced simulations simultaneously. The ingenuity of the toolkit enables developers to offer users the option to save the AR experience and resume it at a later time, co-opt real-world objects into the AR experiences, and much more.

Interactive Push Notifications

iOS 12 changes the way users receive push notifications. Users now gain considerable control over the type of push notifications they choose to receive and how they receive such notification. Users gain access to message settings directly from the push notification interface, allowing them to opt-out of messages from the device’s lock screen. The enhanced downtime settings enable users to ignore push notifications entirely.

Such new functionality, however, creates a new challenge for developers. It is no longer enough to somehow coax the user to download the app. The obvious requirement to remain in the user’s scheme of thing is to provide better and highly personalized, stand-out content in the push notification. Developers can also add buttons and switches to the push notifications, to encourage user action, infusing interactivity to push notifications. Developers can also customize the font, image, and other elements of the push notification.

End of Password Annoyance with iOS 12 Application Development

iOS 12 offer developers access to Password Autofill. Users may leverage this new feature to create and save passwords, and then log in to incumbent accounts, with just a few taps, regardless of the device. The password autofill functionality saves the user’s password on the device, and users can now share the data across devices using the iCloud keychain.

The new password autofill option significantly improves the user’s onboarding process, offering the path of least resistance. Empirical evidence suggests complicated registration fields harm user acquisition efforts and increase user abandonment. Also, contrary to the first impression, the autofill option actually increases app security. Autofill suggests strong, unique passwords at the onset.

While features and options are aplenty in the new iOS 12, the key to successful app development is picking and choosing the right features, relevant for the project. A tie-up with competent professionals with a history of having developed successful apps helps.

Related Reading:  How to Empower your Business with an iOS Application

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the rage now, but like all things tech, it is in a continuous state of evolution. Here is how Artificial Intelligence is expected to play out in 2019.

1. Complex AI-enabled chips in the Offing

The tremendous power of Artificial Intelligence, manifesting in the ability to undertake advanced mathematical calculations, number crunching, facial recognition, object detection, and other complex tasks, come with a hardware cost. Even the fastest and most advanced CPU is inadequate to improve the speed of training an AI model. Seamless execution of AI models requires additional hardware, in the form of specialized processors to complement the CPU.

Leading chip manufacturers such as AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others, however, are working on removing the limitation, and are on the cusp of rolling out specialized chips that speed up the execution of AI-enabled applications. Hyperscale infrastructure companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook are also increasing investments in custom chip development. These new chips would be based on field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) and optimized for specific use cases and scenarios.

Needless to say, the new chips in the offing would make high-performance computing tasks such as query processing and predictive analytics very fast and seamless. Such chips would find application in a host of industries such as healthcare, automobile, and more.

Some of the early bird initiatives, such as Project Nitro from Amazon, Cloud TPUs from Google, Project Brainwave from Microsoft, Intel Myriad X VPU is a portent of the things to come in 2019.

2. Rise of ONNX to Facilitate Interoperability among Neural Networks

Developing workable AI based neural networks depends largely on selecting the right framework. While plenty of choices exist as to frameworks, developers are hamstrung by the lack of interoperability among such frameworks. This holds true for all the popular frameworks in vogue, including TensorFlow, Caffe2, Apache MXNet, PyTorch, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, and others.

Industry biggies such as AWS, Facebook and Microsoft are however are working on it, and have collaborated to build Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX), which makes it possible to reuse trained neural network models across multiple frameworks.

ONNX is all set to become an essential technology for the industry in 2019, adopted by the stakeholders in a big way. Windows 10 ships already with ONNX runtime and Intel’s OpenVINO toolkit already supports ONNX, indicating the trend.

3. Automated Machine Learning to Gain Prominence

Machine Learning holds unbound promise but developing models is hard work, and the highly advanced expertise required stifles possibilities.

AutoML is however all set to change things. Applied the right way, it would empower business analysts and developers to evolve machine learning models capable of addressing complex scenarios without having to go through the usually arduous and vexatious process of training ML models, or going through elaborate workflows. Business analysts could focus on the business problem on hand, rather than worry about process and workflow.
AutoML offers the same level of flexibility that cognitive APIs perform, but also offer high portability and ability to co-opt custom data.

DataRobot, Google Cloud AutoML, Microsoft Custom Cognitive APIs, Custom Entities for Amazon Comprehend are some of the AutoML solutions already launched. The popularity of these tools indicates widespread popularity for AutoML in 2019.

4. Automation of DevOps through AIOps

AIOps represent the convergence of AI and DevOps. Such a convergence, which is all set to go mainstream in 2019, will benefit public cloud vendors and enterprises considerably.

Modern applications and infrastructure generate considerable log data, generated by hardware, server and application software, operating systems, and other sources. Such data finds a use for indexing, searching, and analytics, and is also aggregated and correlated to find insights and patterns. The application of machine learning models to such datasets makes IT operations proactive. Business managers and other stakeholders obtain insights in real time, allowing prompt and timely action. Enterprises could, for instance, leverage the improved and real-time intelligence to perform precise and accurate root cause analysis.

Some of the AIOps based tools already in vogue include Amazon EC2 Predictive Scaling, Amazon S3 Intelligent Tiering, Moogsoft AIOps, and Azure VM resiliency.

5. The rise of Virtual Agents

Businesses have started using Artificial Intelligence powered chatbots in increasing numbers. Chatbots answer questions, qualify sales leads and assist check out for online customers, among other applications. 2019 is likely to see an upgrade from chatbots to AI-powered virtual agents capable of handling even more complex customer service tasks, with even a face and personality of their own.

As a portent of things to come, Ava, Autodesk’s virtual agent, comes with a female face and a powerful persona that resonate the company’s brand image. Needless to say, such virtual agents are much more effective than human agents.

6. Increasing Role of Artificial Intelligence in Cyber Defense

Cybercrime has been a major issue for several years now. Cybercriminals target cloud infrastructure, IoT, and other cyber assets at will. 2019 will see an increasing application of Artificial Intelligence to fight cybercrime and keep cyber networks secure.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are already applied to pick up subtle indicators of abnormal activities, detect online enemies in real time, and nip cyber threats in the bud.

7. AI to Power Smarter Retail Recommendations

The advancements in Artificial intelligence enable businesses and marketers to develop models that would recommend products based on not just the customer’s browsing history, but also the tone and sentiment. In 2019, companies will embrace AI-based solutions to offer their customers highly personalized shopping experiences. Such experiences would expand beyond e-commerce to brick and mortar stores as well, through digital interfaces.

It is interesting times ahead for AI. Smart enterprises would do well to tag tech companies who keep themselves abreast with the latest developments in this red-hot emerging technology and develop solutions to apply it to roll out workable solutions.

Related Reading : Unconventional Ways Artificial Intelligence Drives Business Value

The Healthcare sector is booming at a faster rate and the necessity to manage patient care and innovate medicines has increased synonymously. With the rise in such needs, newer technologies are being adopted in the industry. One such major change that might take place in the future is the use of Big Data and Analytics in the Healthcare sector.

According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report sponsored by Seagate Technology, it is found that big data is projected to grow faster in healthcare than in sectors like manufacturing, financial services or media. It is estimated that the healthcare data will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36 percent through 2025.

Market research have shown that the global big data in the healthcare market is expected to reach $34.27 billion by 2022 at a CAGR of 22.07%. Globally, the big data analytics segment are expected to be worth more than $68.03 billion by 2024, driven largely by continued North American investments in electronic health records, practice management tools, and workforce management solutions.

Here are 5 ways in which Big Data can help and change the entire scenario of the Healthcare sector.

1. Health Tracking

Big Data and Analytics along with the Internet of Things (IoT), is revolutionizing the way one can track various user statistics and vitals. Apart from the basic wearables that can detect the patient’s sleep, heart rate, exercise, distance walked, etc. there are new medical innovations that can monitor the patient’s blood pressure, pulse Oximeters, glucose monitors, and more. The continuous monitoring of the body vitals along with the sensor data collection will allow healthcare organizations to keep people out of the hospital since they can identify potential health issue and provide care before the situation goes worse.

2. Reducing Cost

Big Data can be a great way to save costs for hospitals that either over or under book staff members. Predictive analysis can help resolve this issue by predicting the admission rates and help with staff allocation. This will reduce the Rate of Investment incurred by hospitals and in fact help utilize their investment to the max. The insurance industry can save money by backing wearables and health trackers to ensure that patients do not spend time in the hospital. It can save wait times for patients since the hospital will have adequate staff and beds available as per the analysis all the time. Predictive analytics also helps cut costs by reducing the rate of hospital readmissions.

According to a recent report by the Society of Actuaries, 47% of healthcare organizations are already using predictive analytics. It is also noted that over 57% of healthcare sectors believe that predictive analytics will save organizations 25 percent or more in annual costs over the next five years.

Healthcare & Big Data Facts: McKinsey & Company report states that after 20 years of steady increases, healthcare expenses now represent 17.6% of GDP, ie. nearly $600 billion more than the expected benchmark for the U.S. size and wealth.

3. Assisting High-Risk Patients

If all the hospital records are digitized, it will be the perfect data that can be accessed to understand the pattern of many patients. It can identify the patients approaching the hospital repeatedly and identify their chronic issues. Such understanding will help in giving such patients better care and provide an insight into corrective measures to reduce their frequent visits. It is a great way to keep a list and check on high-risk patients and offer them customized care.

4. Preventing Human Errors

A lot many times it has been noted that the professionals tend to either prescribe a wrong medicine or dispatch a different medication by mistake. Such errors, in general, can be reduced since Big Data can be leveraged to analyze user data and the prescribed medication. It can corroborate the data and flag potential out of place prescription to reduce mistakes and save lives. Such software can be a great tool for physicians who cater to many patients in a day.

Healthcare & Big Data Facts: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services prevented more than $210.7 million in healthcare fraud in one year using predictive analytics.

5. Advancement in Healthcare Sector

Apart from the current scenario, Big Data can be a great benefit for advancement in science and technology. For Healthcare, Artificial Intelligence, such as IBM’s Watson can be used to surf through numerous data within seconds to find solutions for various diseases. Such advancement is already in progress and will continue to grow with the amount of research collected by Big Data. It will not only be able to provide accurate solutions, but also offer customized solutions for unique problems. The availability of predictive analysis will assist patients traveling to a particular geographical location by studying similar patients in that area.

Healthcare & Big Data Facts: Effective use of big data could add $300 million per year to the healthcare industry.

Thus, to sum up, Big Data increases the ability of the healthcare sectors to:

• Predict Epidemics
• Cure Disease
• Improve Quality of Life
• Increase Preventable Care
• Begin Early Preventive Care
• Spot Warning Signs Sooner

Numerous studies and researches prove that technology has tremendously transformed the healthcare sectors. Professor and researcher Ronda Hughes too explains in her research how big data is improving health services.

Improving health outcomes with big data | Source : TEDxUofSC

Although most part of Big Data generated is not fully utilized currently due to limitations of the toolset and funds, it is definitely the future. Invest in the future and use Big Data Analytics to be a part of an evolving Healthcare Industry by seeking an experienced company such as ours to assist you.

Related Reading: Find out how big companies are using the power of Big Data to enhance customer experience. 

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A 2017 study on the big data market worldwide showed that by the end of the year, nearly 53% of all companies had adopted big data analytics in some form to optimize business performance. The talent market too witnessed an increased demand for professionals with expertise in big data. We are the crossroads of a huge transformation exercise wherein data is the new oil. From wristbands to connected cars and automated factories, today’s enterprises deal with an enormous amount of data that they need to utilize for growth and innovation. This is true for any industry, be it financial, manufacturing, life sciences, or any other field. As the volume of data flow grows, the technology needed to manage and utilize it is in need of an innovative makeover.

The businesses of today need the next generation of custom software tools to harness the power of big data. They need to set up a technology backend that can support and supply data to multiple enterprise applications at different units in their businesses. Custom application development practices need to incorporate the changing philosophy of big data streams into their core operational procedures. Many organizations find it difficult to empower their software or technology team with knowledge on incorporating big data methodologies into their development practices. This is one of the key reasons why only 37% of companies have been successful in transforming into data-driven organizations, even though over 85% are trying to achieve this feat. So how can enterprises of today explore the power of big data using custom software development capabilities?

How to use Big Data to re-define your custom software development landscape

To answer the question, we decided to provide some tips for organizations to create valuable business results by incorporating big data into their custom software development cycle. Here are 5 ways to derive tangible business value from your investments in big data within software development.

1. Prepare for a mobile-first strategy

Over 50% of the US population owns a smartphone, and by 2020 it is expected that over 10 billion smartphones will co-exist with humans worldwide. No matter which industry you operate out of, if your customer-facing points do not have a mobile focus, then you are losing out to competition. By incorporating a big data philosophy, every custom software application that your organization builds will be able to handle data inputs from billions of mobile devices. This data can be analyzed, and insights can be used to direct content to mobile devices. And there is another scenario: if your business wants to be at the forefront of mobility, then tuning your custom software development practice to include big data concepts is a perfect way to get the heads-up on the competition.

2. Respond faster to customers

Your core business systems might already be engineered to provide support to your associates at customer facing avenues. With the velocity of requests coming in from diverse customer channels today– the internet, social media, physical POC’s, etc.– it becomes difficult for your employees to provide personalized attention to each customer. However, if your custom software development team is equipped with the skills to incorporate big data management trends within their development model, the resulting customer experience would be seamless. Ready-availability of information would help associates run the gamut of customer queries across channels simultaneously and with personalized attention. A faster response will pave the way for increased customer loyalty and will ultimately reflect positively on your business revenue.

3. Bolster automation efforts

From autonomous production facilities to automated email campaigns, enterprises worldwide are investing heavily in automating business processes. Productivity improvements, elimination of errors and biased decisions, efficiency, etc., are some of the key reasons cited. However, for each process within a business, the saga of automation can do wonders only if they are equipped to explore and manage all possible data points within them. This is where your software engineering teams need to see the bigger picture while building apps for every department. The applications need to be extensible for data flows from various sub-functions and units within teams. Only when processes and teams become data-driven will there be an opportunity to automate the process. Thus, having a big data approach in your custom software development practice will ensure that the future of automation in your business is moving in the right direction.

4. Set the tone for artificial intelligence

Just as in the case of automation, enterprises need to be data-driven if they are to incorporate transformative technology transitions like artificial intelligence. For algorithms to decide the future of customer experience, the first step is for these systems to learn about your customers and your business. This learning is facilitated by data insights that are generated by your custom software applications powering each unit of your business. Hence, by driving a culture of big data thinking within your custom software development team, the foundation for AI-enabled systems is well cemented into your base. Growing this in into future recommendation engines, conversational bots, autonomous business units, etc., will be a seamless activity.

5. Remain competitive in the digital era

This is a culmination of all that we have mentioned in the previous points. In an increasingly digital age, businesses can go down the drain in a very short time if they fail to innovate on the digital front. Data is the basic unit of every digital transformation initiative, and if your business isn’t equipped to generate and harness the power of data, then your chances of survival will be slim in the long run. This concept needs to be instilled at the grassroots level of your custom software development practice. Only if your business applications can handle the volume, veracity, and velocity of big data, will your business be able to serve the next generation of digitally savvy consumers.

Now that you know the importance of having a big data methodology in your custom software development practice, what you need to do is to start building awareness about it. Let your teams know the growing needs of the digital age and how data becomes the fundamental DNA of every business process. If your core business operations are not serving the tech industry, then it is best to have a solid technology consulting partner for your custom software development needs. At Fingent, we work with some of the world’s best businesses to deliver meaningful customer experiences with big data incorporated custom software development services. Talk to our experts today to learn how we can tap the hidden potential of your enterprise data.

Automatic control, which has been the foundation of automation, has been here for centuries. As far back as the 17th century, systems with automatic control devised for the regulation of steam engines, temperature control, and other applications. Automation has come a long way since then. Its application in the Health care sector that has been especially noteworthy since it has made huge strides in saving costs, labor, and lives! This blog will have an in-depth into how automation is revolutionizing the health care sector.

The Healthcare Industry – An Overview

Before we get into the role automation has played in the healthcare sector, it makes sense to have an overview of how the Healthcare Industry has been doing. Innovation and R&D in the past few decades have contributed to more effective medicines, improved diagnostic aids, and technological solutions to non-invasive procedures. These are naming just a few of the accomplishments in the healthcare industry.  

Along with the accomplishments, there have been a few challenges as well. The availability of quality and affordable healthcare for its people is an important indicator of how well a nation fares on the Human Development Index (HDI). The problem is that even developed countries are struggling to meet this need effectively. There are many reasons for this and here are a few of them.

1) Rising Expenditures

There are huge investments being made in the healthcare sector in terms of funding drug discovery and providing facilities. This often translates into enormous hospital bills, which reaches down to patients.

A Research Gate study showed that supply expense per patient admission in the US was estimated to be $4,470! The disproportionate constraint of health insurance reimbursements makes the problem worse. The growing demand for procedures requiring medical devices is a further strain on the pockets of health care providers. For example, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) predicts that the number of knee replacements will expand by 673% by the year 2030. Identifying R&D opportunities for drug discovery also involves large expenses and involves several data assimilation and regulatory challenges. Large volumes of data and insights are involved, and this expends time and cost.

Balancing costs and health outcomes require an intelligent assessment by formulary committees, which takes into consideration numerous data variables.

2) Appointment Scheduling

A survey of nearly 500 healthcare professionals on the Top Challenges for Medical Practices showed that lost revenue from broken appointments was the top challenge with 49.5% respondents voting for this. Other challenges included:

• Low response to recall efforts
• Not enough staff time to call patients
• Keeping updated patient contact information
• Lack of an efficient way to reach patients via text message
• Not connecting with enough patients with a reminder phone call

3) Security

Patients entrust private information to health care providers, including social security numbers and financial details. The theft of such data could be catastrophic, to say the least. Reports show that the highest data breach resolution costs in the United States are for healthcare data breaches, which typically cost an average of $408 per record. The time taken to identify and contain a breach includes significant losses. Above all, the loss of trust and reputation with customers could deal a fatal blow to health care providers.

What is Data Automation

Automation is when manual tasks are reduced by the use of information technology. Repetitive tasks that require least human intervention benefit the most from automation. Data automation is the process when programming takes care of the assimilation, storage, and analysis of data.

Blog: Automation in Healthcare: Pioneering Exceptional Care and Streamlined Efficiency
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Data automation usually involves:

1. Extraction: Multiple open data sources are mined for relevant information.
2. Transformation: The data is converted into a format that can be used by machines.
3. Loading: The data is then fed into the system to serve as the raw material for automation.

Big Data Automation (BDA), is a broad concept that makes use of innovation and IT resources to create value. A few aspects of Big Data automation were brought out in a whitepaper by WhereScape. The WP has Barry Devlin describing Big Data automation as follows:

In addition to reducing manual labor in the collection and analysis of data, automation can help reduce administrative workloads and improve patient care on many levels.

How Automation Is Revolutionizing Health Care Sector

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the next level in automation. This uses machine learning and AI to effectively handle tasks that are done manually. RPA has made huge strides in Healthcare. A Deloitte article entitled “RPA in Health Care Can Improve Outcomes for All “puts it well: ‘RPA can help health care and life sciences organizations collect and translate patient and transactional data into meaningful, actionable formats; streamline compliance-related processes; and relieve employees of some tasks they now perform.’

Here are some ways in which automation is revolutionizing the healthcare industry:

1) Solving Rising Costs

As we discussed earlier, a major cause of rising healthcare costs is the growing demand for medical devices and the innovation costs involved in drug discovery. Automation can greatly aid in this. Recently, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb revealed a budget action plan, which focused on modernizing drug and device production and using innovation to minimize costs and advance public health priorities. Some of the highlights were to enlist “as many as 10 million electronic medical records to speed the regulator’s ability to address emerging safety concerns for drugs, biologics and medical devices.” This would help in fast-tracking the assessment of safety and effectiveness of the drugs and devices. The collection and analysis of data would also support drug discovery and new product functions.

2) Appointment Scheduling Solutions

Consider the savings in cost and time if tasks like scheduling appointments and reminders would be automated. Apps that automate these tasks have freed up valuable staff and resources allowing them to concentrate on patient care. Some features that these apps make possible:

• Schedule, Cancel and Book Appointments
• Email or SMS appointment notifications
• Feedback mechanism.
• Extensive Reporting to minimize cancellations and refine processes.
• Patient management through email and mobile.

3) Security Solutions

A manual error is often the cause for most security breaches. By automating data processing and sharing, healthcare companies can ensure that handling of data by humans is minimized. With the help of AI and automation, healthcare providers can enable alerts, monitoring, and prioritization of abnormal behavior. Predictive analysis, diagnosis, and recommendations can also be automated ensuring that the system continuously learns to detect and eliminate security vulnerabilities.

While we considered just three challenges and the ways in which automation is helping to resolve these challenges, there are many more. Fingent works with various clients in the healthcare sector to design customized applications to help automate their critical processes. Drop us a message to learn how we can help.

As we enter 19 years into the millennium, we find that Java has been running on 10 billion devices. The world is yet to witness innovative and user-friendly Java trends that will have a profound effect on application development in the year 2019!!

From peer-to-peer, open source and embedded to wireless and Juxtapose applications, Java has been the most popular programming language in the world of application development, with the highest rating of 16.746 percent, according to the Tiobe index!

A Retrospective Of Java Trends

Java so far has given a step-up to many of the light-weight programming platforms, as for Eclipse, Java Development Kit (JDK), the Oracle JDeveloper, as well as the Eclipse and other Open Source Applications. Let us take a look at the Java trends that made a breakthrough in application development.

• Emergence Of EE4J and MicroProfile Projects

The Eclipse Foundation has emerged with pride with the introduction of projects like EE4J and MicroProfile.

MicroProfile has provided insight into how a more open Java EE community could flourish. Both Java EE and Spring technologies benefited out of this rise, by bringing accelerated innovation.

• Emergence Of Kotlin  

Kotlin, the JVM-compatible programming language has caught the strong attention of the Java/ Android community. Its concise coding syntax and interoperability with Java have already made it a hit in the world of application development. Kotlin is first-class support for Android and is expected to additionally improve its use for mobile application development in 2019!

• Java SE 6 Updates And The OpenJDK 10 Release 

2018 also witnessed the updates of Java SE 6. These updates, however, are not publicly available as yet! The code restores are only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10’s Recommended Patchset Cluster and were mainly a couple of security fixes. OpenJDK 10 was released on 20 March 2018, with the adoption of certain new features.

• Ensuring Seamless Configuration Of Applications With Containers And Java Runtimes 

The Collection framework has managed to leverage more benefits of the use of containers and Java runtimes. This offers a seamless configuration of Java applications and consistent memory management.

• Frequent Alteration To Features – To Ensure A Well-Planned Application Development

Yet another major development was the introduction of a ‘six-month release’ interval.

This ensured frequent iterations and faster introduction of features to Java applications. These characteristics were decided to be made available through enterprising shops.

Technology Trends in Java – What To Expect In 2019 

Java is a programing language that can run on nearly any system (Thanks to the platform-agnostic JVM!), it has started to get easier to use and scalable than ever before! Below are listed the major trends that we could predict for the year 2019.

• Java Continues To Evolve – Java SE 10 Contribution 

Java is a programming language that is used by more than 9 million developers. It contains extensive libraries that shape the whole enterprise application development. With the release of Java SE 10, which was created in close collaboration with the OpenJDK Community, came several new added features. Java is also ranked as the #1 developer choice for cloud, with over 12 million developers and over 21 billion cloud-connected Java virtual machines!!

• Real-time Specification 

The Real-time Specification for Java (RTSJ) is into existence.

Java creator, James Gosling, and Sun’s real-time guru, Greg Bollella have described embedded systems as “the new frontier in which predictable execution takes precedence” over other system attributes, such as speed, bandwidth, and payload-carrying capacity. They are promoting real-time Java applications for embedded use! With the RTSJ, they have managed to solve the language and runtime issues.

• Project Juxtapose 

Sun’s JXTA open source platform has gained ample acceptance among developers.

Using Project Juxtapose, Sun hopes to influence standards that will govern future Web services development. With this, Java developers will be able to focus their capability to contribute more for Java application development.

• The Java Effect On Scripting Languages 

Scripting languages such as Jython, which is a complete implementation of the Python language, is coded in cent percent Java. Python, Perl, and PHP to name a few other programming languages are receiving widespread attention.

• Wireless Applications With Its Ease Of Use 

Wireless application development in Java has gained noticeable traffic due to its open-source platform nature. The reason being Nokia, the world’s largest mobile telephone maker, has committed to using the open source Symbian OS for all of its future handsets!!

Both kinds of Wireless Java applications, Local and Network applications, is more challenging because they are developed on one platform (such as Solaris or MS Windows) but deployed on a totally different one (such as a cell phone or PDA). It is a concern that, while emulators enable developers to do some of their testings on the development platform, they need to test and evaluate the application in a totally different environment of a live wireless network. This is however made easy!!

• Growing demand for Java developers 

Java being a statically-typed language, it is faster and easier to maintain with fewer bugs. It is also backward compatible, which means old versions of the language will still run perfectly even after new versions are released. This is a big relief for businesses who would otherwise worry about rewriting their code every time a new version comes out. Coupled with its portability, developers know that investing in Java will pay dividends for a long, long time.

• Mobile Application Development in 2019

In less than two years, the demand for mobile enterprise applications is estimated to rise five times faster!! Android currently dominates the smartphone market with 80.7% (compared to Apple’s 17.7%) and will continue its expansion! Java will, as a result, continue to be the driving force behind mobile application development trends!

• The IoT Era And Java

The Internet Of Things is among the latest development trends in Java! As of now, Java is currently one of the few technologies that are capable of adding life to IoT. It is indeed true that Java’s future lies in the Internet of Things.

Mike Milincovich, Eclipse Foundation strongly believes that Oracle will help to develop a definite end-to-end storage data solution in 2019!! Like the Kona Project that is currently working on Java APIs for embedded systems.

The Java ME platform allows vendors to build secure mobile enterprise applications for the Internet of Things. The language is supported by the Intel IoT platform!

With all these advanced features and development, Java continues to grow and evolve. Java has undeniably achieved the top spot among the most popular programming languages in the world!

AngularJS has come a long way since Google launched it in 2009. Today, it is one of the most widely used JavaScript frameworks. Here are some of the good reasons which make the framework so popular and powerful.

1. AngularJS Modular Architecture Makes the Framework Very Powerful

AngularJS has a Model View Controller (MVC) architecture, which is best suited to create dynamic web applications with rich content. The framework divides logic, process, and UI into separate modules, making development easy, simple, and faultless, while also improving code quality in a big way.

The modular architecture improves app architecture, and enhances flexibility and functionality, without compromising stability. It facilitates developers to create powerful workflows and achieve powerful results with little effort.

Developers working on a modular framework to create fully-responsive single page apps need to perform very few manipulations on JS and HTML, to achieve different results. It requires very few changes to ensure the page renders differently on various devices and platforms  Also, making changes means rearranging the modules rather than tweaking with the code itself, delivering better stability. Developers may also segment code parts, simplifying testing, updates, and maintenance activities as well.

2. AngularJS is Resource Rich

AngularJS is built on JavaScript and comes as a complete package, removing the complexity traditionally associated with JavaScript development. It offers everything the developer requires to get the app up and running. It is also very easy to co-opt third party libraries and packages, facilitating the presentation of data in a very appealing way.

The multiple templates, modules, and UI effects on offer, improve the all-important user experience considerably. AngularJS also offers several readymade versatile solutions, such as, UI routing approaches, which make the task of customization very easy.

Developers may extend the HTML templates by adding constructs to expand the HTML functionality, facilitating an advanced approach to manage components. In fact, it is possible to extend the HTML vocabulary by implementing features even during runtime

3. AngularJS Leverages the Power of Simplicity

AngularJS makes the development of dynamic web apps simple and easy.

It is possible to add AngularJS to an HTML page easily, using a simple coding script. App developers also need not add all the libraries when writing the code. They can add libraries later, making modifications and customizations very easy. The improved and declarative user interface allows developers to create eye-catchy user-experience across the app.

A normal application consists of more than 60 components, and the project soon turns messy. AngularJS makes it easy to manage and locate the codes for the developers.

The AngularJS code is easy to understand and easy to maintain as well. The ease and simplicity not only make development quicker, but it also means the client need not be tied to a developer who happened to develop the code initially. They can pick and choose any developer as required, depending on the specific nature of the problems they encounter midway.

4. AngularJS Facilitates Accelerated Development

Today’s developers are invariably hard-pressed for time. AngularJS is a godsend in the sense it offers a powerful tool to get the job done very quickly. The modular capabilities of AngularJS facilitate parallel development, reduce dependencies on other modules, and thereby accelerate the critical time-to-market.

The modular structure of AngularJS facilitates code reuse. Each created module remains either independent or dependent on each other, as per the developer preference, facilitating code reuse. Developers may co-opt their previously build components in a new application, sparing considerable rework. A simple copy-paste of an existing component into a new one will make all assets available automagically.

AngularJS also allows changing the behavior of the HTML tags, to create customizable and reusable tags. This not only makes the code more readable and quicker to create but also helps in developing a glitch-free web app

AngularJS also comes with real-time and in-built modules to support in-depth and functional testing for every constructed module. The modular structure means the segments and modules requiring testing may be processed distinctly, while the rest remains untouched.

5. AngularJS Taps into the Power of the Crowd

Popularity brings in its own benefits. It has ensured for AngularJS an active and vibrant community of developers, always ready to solve even the most advanced of concerns. Developers may easily tap into the power of the crowd to figure out the appropriate solution to fix pressing issues.

AngularJS is today the most popular framework to develop on-demand video streaming apps, apps with loads of dynamic features such as travel apps, weather update apps which require interactive display and real-time activities, interactive apps for user reviews and other purposes, apps with a lot of user-generated data, apps processing huge data loads, and more.  Some of the most popular interactive apps on the internet, such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Upwork.com, and others, are developed using AngularJS. Yet, the framework actually draws its strength from a very large number of small-scale developers, who find it ideally suited to their requirements.