Technology EG’s tech specialist Antony Slumbers joined 42,000 tech heads in Dublin last week for the WebSummit and came away with a host of key trends the real estate industry needs to engage with
The PC era is over. As with battleships and spyplanes being perfected just as they became redundant, so it is with the PC.
Microsoft’s Surface Pro is the perfect PC, but the world has moved on. The smartphone era is just starting. The platform has been built, iOS and Android have won, and now you are getting an explosion of innovation on top of that platform.
Some 325m PCs are sold every year, but that is nothing compared with the 2bn mobile phones sold. Computing is now reaching a scale of an order of magnitude bigger than we have been used to. But how will this change the workplace?
Think robot. At WebSummit, robots were defined as non-human objects that can sense, think and act. And they are going to be everywhere: industrial, social, medical, military and domestic versions will proliferate.
Think automation. Management consultant McKinsey & Co reckons that 45% of work activities could be automated using existing technologies. How will this change the way we use property?
Cognitive computing is exploding, as exemplified by IBM Watson, a platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to derive insights from a multitude of data sources. How could cognitive computing transform how we find, manage and optimise real estate?
Artificial intelligence, in the wider sense, will usher in the era of the intelligent agent. Think Apple’s Siri, Google Now or Facebook’s M project and you can see how AI is being used to humanise computing.
The best interface is no interface, they say – just ask your intelligent agent for something and they will work out how it can be done for you.
Of course, the human skill is in knowing the right question to ask, but in real estate terms, how long will it be before AI is brought to bear on disparate, unstructured datasets to augment the services we can offer clients?
The Blockchain, the computational underpinning behind Bitcoin, will be huge in real estate. Already it being used by Honduras to build the country’s first land title registry, but the scope for its use in providing trust and authentication in contracts is great, particularly in areas where the rule of law is moot.
At WebSummit everyone took The Cloud, connectivity and networks to be basic infrastructure. No one looks to build single-vendor IT systems nowadays. Put your data somewhere authorised people can get to it, wherever they are, make sure it can be utilised whatever technology you or your partners choose to use and above all, have as fast an internet connection as possible. How similar to the average real estate company set-up is that?
A wave of transformational technologies is reaching commodity status and these will reshape how the built environment is conceived, designed and used.
The key message is to not approach this new world through the lens of old-school thinking. The past is not being digitised, but reinvented.
Essential tech for property people: Augmented/virtual reality
Alternative realities were all the rage at WebSummit, and it was interesting to see that technologies were at different stages on the road to becoming mainstream.
In a nutshell, virtual reality is on the cusp of becoming a breakout and big-hitting technology, whereas consumer-augmented reality is some years, perhaps five or more, away from being as good as it needs to be.
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus Rift (now wealthy after selling to Facebook), was explaining that its product was set for release next year, and that an ecosystem of developers creating for the Oculus platform is expanding rapidly.
For real estate, fully virtual reality offers the prospect of deeply engaging, immersive experiences being possible. Product demos, marketing, planning and design could all make use of Oculus to move way beyond printed brochures.
I chatted to a developer of roving, remote-controlled camera dollies that were fitted with 360-degree multi-lens cameras for creating virtual worlds easily. Think of your estate being
virtually available around the world.
The problem with augmented reality is the interface. Google Glass worked very well but you looked slightly mad if you wore them. AR apps on your smartphone can be quite clever but are clunky to use. In reality, no one uses them. For now, save your money.
Video, however, is huge. YouTube traffic is vast and video works fantastically well on smartphones. As of today it is the best marketing, training and support tool at your disposal. Train your staff to use Periscope, Blab, Instagram and the rest. Video works.
Antony Slumbers is founder and chief executive of software developer Estates Today. Interact with him on Twitter using @antonyslumbers
