10 tecnologias disruptivas que você usa todos os dias

O termo inovação disruptiva foi trazido ao léxico por Clayton M. Christensen em seu livro "O Dilema do Inovador", no contexto de empresas que adotam tecnologias que eventualmente superam ou substituem completamente as tecnologias anteriores, possivelmente prejudicando qualquer empresa que apoiou a tecnologia errada. Uma tecnologia disruptiva é algo novo que interrompe uma indústria e, muitas vezes, muda completamente a maneira como todos fazemos as coisas.

O carro interrompeu as indústrias de cavalos e carruagens. Pequenos computadores pessoais deram aos indivíduos um poder de computação que só era possível através dos enormes mainframes que processavam números exclusivamente em instituições corporativas, acadêmicas e governamentais. Computadores e todas as coisas que vieram com eles causaram estragos em vários setores. Mesmo em uma escala menor, os componentes individuais dos computadores domésticos passaram por ciclos de disrupção, como a evolução dos vários tipos de mídia de armazenamento (pense em drives de disquete para CDs e drives flash) e a mudança de computadores de mesa para laptops mais portáteis. para dispositivos móveis ainda menores.

Os novos itens disruptivos não são necessariamente melhores ou mais poderosos. Eles podem causar interrupções por serem baratos ou simples o suficiente para adoção em massa e, então, como é o caso da maioria dos dispositivos de computação, eles crescem mais rápido, mais poderosos e melhores ao longo do tempo. Existe o refrão comum de consumidores nem mesmo saberem que precisavam de algo até que isso fosse criado, e isso é verdade para muitas tecnologias disruptivas.

Aqui estão 10 tecnologias disruptivas que muitas pessoas estão usando regularmente. Podemos lembrar com carinho de seus antecessores, mas provavelmente não sentimos muito a falta deles.

1. E-mail
2. Mídia social
3. Serviços de mídia de streaming
4. E-Readers e Aplicativos de E-Reader
5. Dispositivos móveis inteligentes
6. Opções de pagamento móvel
7. Estações de autoatendimento
8. Dispositivos de fitness vestíveis
9. Computação em Nuvem
10. A Internet

O envio de mensagens digitais de computador para computador começou pela ARPANET, o início da nossa Internet moderna , no início dos anos 1970. A pessoa média não obteve acesso até a década de 1990 ou depois. Mas agora praticamente todo mundo tem um endereço de e-mail, possivelmente vários. É um método de comunicação rápido e fácil que prejudica a escrita de cartas pessoais, conversas telefônicas e reuniões presenciais. A natureza quase instantânea do e-mail e outros métodos de comunicação digital tornaram a comunicação à distância muito mais fácil do que costumava ser e levou muitas pessoas a chamar a correspondência física tradicional de "correio tradicional". Existe até uma versão de e-mail de lixo eletrônico: spam.

Enviar por e- mail é mais barato e mais fácil do que escrever cartas à mão de várias maneiras. Não há postagem, papel ou tinta para comprar. Apertar o botão enviar exige muito menos esforço do que carimbar e enviar uma carta. A casa típica dos Estados Unidos aparentemente recebia uma carta a cada duas semanas em 1987, mas em 2010 ela caiu para uma vez a cada sete semanas, sem contar cartões de felicitações ou convites [fonte: Schmid ]. Mas até mesmo convites e cartões de felicitações se tornaram digitais. De acordo com uma pesquisa da Pew Internet de 2011, naquela época, 92% dos adultos nos EUA que se conectavam à Internet usavam e-mail, 61% deles o usavam em um dia típico e 70% de todos os americanos usavam e-mail em alguma medida. fonte: Purcell ].

E as pessoas não estão apenas enviando e-mails pessoais. Praticamente qualquer pessoa que trabalha em um computador tem um e-mail de trabalho através do qual se corresponde com colegas de trabalho ou clientes, envia documentos, marca reuniões e afins. Mesmo em casa, não estamos enviando apenas o equivalente às longas cartas de outrora. Estamos enviando perguntas rápidas, links para sites e anexamos documentos, fotos , arquivos de música e vídeo.

Grande parte da novidade do e-mail diminuiu, e a comunicação rápida está ocorrendo cada vez mais por meio de mensagens de texto por telefone, mensagens instantâneas e mídias sociais.

Os sites de redes sociais facilitam a interação social e o compartilhamento de informações entre amigos, conhecidos ou até mesmo estranhos pela Internet. Eles geralmente permitem que você publique status de texto, links, imagens ou vídeos que podem ser acessados ​​por qualquer pessoa com acesso ao site ou apenas para grupos privados de amigos. Eles geralmente incorporam a capacidade de enviar mensagens privadas, e muitos agora também incluem mensagens instantâneas e recursos de bate-papo por vídeo. Os principais sites de mídia social incluem Facebook, Google+, MySpace, Tumblr, LinkedIn e Twitter, entre outros. O Facebook tem mais de 1 bilhão de usuários, tornando-se o maior site de rede social, mas há muitos outros com milhões ou centenas de milhões de usuários [fontes: Adler , Berkman]. Para algumas pessoas, as redes sociais substituíram o e-mail, as mensagens de texto, o telefone e até mesmo a interação face a face.

No início de 2013, mais da metade das pessoas que usam a Internet também usam regularmente as mídias sociais [fonte: Berkman ]. Os números nos EUA são mais altos, cerca de 74% em janeiro de 2014 [fonte: Pew Research Internet Project ]. Os sites sociais estão se tornando os principais meios de comunicação para alguns de nós, ou pelo menos os que passamos mais tempo. Um estudo da Experian de 2013 descobriu que as pessoas nos EUA gastavam 16 minutos de cada hora em sites de redes sociais, em média, por meio de computadores pessoais e dispositivos móveis [fonte: Gaudin]. E um estudo no Reino Unido em 2010 descobriu que um quarto das pessoas passava mais tempo socializando via redes sociais do que pessoalmente, e que 11% dos adultos evitavam eventos sociais pessoais em favor de mídias sociais, e-mail, mensagens de texto e similares [fontes: Fowlkes , Telegraph ]. Esses números provavelmente continuarão a crescer.

Uma grande desvantagem de tanta socialização online é que, pelo menos de acordo com alguns estudos, cerca de 7% da comunicação é verbal e os outros 93% são não verbais [fonte: Tardanico ]. Em outras palavras, estamos perdendo coisas como tom de voz e linguagem corporal, pelo menos quando nos comunicamos usando apenas texto. Isso nos deixa com muito potencial para falhas de comunicação e até deturpação intencional, o que é ruim para construir relacionamentos sólidos com as pessoas.

As redes sociais também estão alterando o jornalismo. Estamos recebendo cada vez mais nossas notícias por meio de links postados nas redes sociais e algumas histórias estão chegando até online primeiro. Cidadãos comuns às vezes capturam notícias em suas câmeras de celular enquanto estão acontecendo ou postam relatos de testemunhas oculares de um evento, e estes são captados pela mídia mais tradicional após o fato. As organizações de notícias tiveram que se juntar ao Twitter, Facebook e outros sites, e agora estão competindo com blogueiros e outros jornalistas amadores pela atenção dos usuários online.

Os sites de redes sociais estão nos permitindo reconectar com amigos perdidos há muito tempo, arrecadar dinheiro e conscientização para instituições de caridade, nos envolver em política (ou, talvez mais frequentemente, entrar em discussões políticas), compartilhar experiências e ampliar nossa rede de amigos e conhecidos do mundo real . Nós só podemos querer colocar algum tempo presencial com alguns deles também.

Em 2013, Michael Powell, chefe da National Cable & Telecommunications Association, declarou em uma audiência no Senado que a Netflix era o maior provedor de vídeo por assinatura nos EUA, não a cabo ou satélite [fontes: Eggerton , Komando ]. A Netflix na verdade começou como um serviço de DVD por correio, depois mudou para streaming e ainda fornece os dois serviços. A Netflix também é frequentemente creditada por levar a gigante de aluguel de vídeos Blockbuster à falência e ao fechamento. Blockbuster agora existe como um site de streaming e um serviço sob demanda da Dish Network.

Existem outros grandes sites de streaming, incluindo Hulu e Amazon Instant Video; site de compartilhamento de vídeos YouTube ; Sites de canais de TV como HBO Go e Watch ABC; serviços que permitem alugar filmes e programas de TV, como Google Play, iTunes e Vudu; e Redbox, que oferece streaming online e aluguel de DVD em quiosques especiais semelhantes a máquinas de venda automática.

Esses sites inovadores de streaming e aluguel não apenas perturbaram gravemente o mercado de locadoras de vídeo, mas também estão afetando os provedores de cabo e satélite, à medida que mais e mais pessoas estão cortando o fio e indo com assinaturas on-line apenas para sites de streaming. Se você não estiver vinculado a nenhum programa que exija uma assinatura de cabo ou satélite, poderá desistir do cabo e participar de milhares de horas de entretenimento para escolher online. Muitas pessoas que transmitem mantêm suas assinaturas de cabo ou satélite, no entanto. Os serviços de streaming, incluindo Netflix e Amazon, estão começando a desenvolver e oferecer sua própria programação original também.

Music has gone through a similar shift, with CDs being supplanted over time by digital downloads, starting with the inception of MP3 compression and music sharing (or pirating) sites like Napster, then moving to paid digital downloads from sites like iTunes and Google Play and now unlimited music streaming through services such as Pandora and Spotify.

Você pode consumir streaming de vídeo e áudio por meio de aplicativos em sua smart TV, DVD player, console de jogos, computador e até mesmo em seu telefone ou tablet. Também existem decodificadores de streaming dedicados, como o Roku, que permite baixar mais de mil aplicativos de streaming, incluindo a maioria dos principais players, além de muitos pequenos canais de nicho. Outras opções incluem a caixa Boxee e a Apple TV, e pequenos sticks HDMI do tamanho de uma unidade flash, como o Google Chromecast e o Roku Streaming Stick.

E-Readers como o Amazon Kindle , o Barnes & Noble Nook e o Kobo Glo tiraram uma fatia do mercado de livros em papel. A maioria deles apresenta texto em preto de alta resolução em uma página branca ou levemente cinza para uma leitura confortável, e alguns incorporam iluminação para que você não precise ler à luz do dia ou à luz da lâmpada. Algumas vantagens dos e-books são que eles tendem a ser pelo menos um pouco mais baratos do que seus equivalentes em papel, e você pode carregar dezenas ou centenas deles com você em um e-reader. Em alguns casos, as bibliotecas estão até oferecendo check-out de e-books. Os e-readers também permitem que você baixe e leia jornais, revistas e quadrinhos. E alguns deles permitem que você ouça uma versão em áudio de um livro enquanto lê.

Mas agora que tantas pessoas carregam smartphones e tablets, os próprios e-readers dedicados não são necessários para mudar para e-books. Existem aplicativos de e-reader, como Kindle, Stanza e iBooks da Apple, por meio dos quais você pode encomendar e ler livros digitais em seu dispositivo móvel ou computador. Alguns até permitem que você ignore downloads e leia seus livros na nuvem. O Kindle também fabrica seu próprio tablet colorido multiuso, o Kindle Fire , que facilita a compra e a leitura de livros, mas também o que você pode fazer em qualquer outro tablet.

One downside to e-books is that not everything is available in digital form yet, so you may still ave to read some of your chosen books on paper. Some people prefer the look and feel of a paper book and aren't likely to switch. Per a survey by Princeton Survey Research Associates International in early 2014, 69 percent of adults read at least one paper book in the previous year, 28 percent read at least one e-book and 14 percent listened to at least one audiobook. Some people use all three formats, although 4 percent of readers stick exclusively with e-books [source: Zickuhr and Rainie].

Smartphones and tablets allow us to access the Internet from nearly anywhere, essentially letting us carry around the bulk of human knowledge in our pockets, or at least a tool to get to that knowledge. They are beginning to replace a great many things we formerly used all the time, and are introducing us to services that never existed before. Phone apps let you check email, play games, surf the net, create text documents, access product reviews, find directions and identify music that is playing at your location, among a great many other things. These highly portable devices can act as music players, cameras, GPS devices , video viewers and e-readers. With the built in calendar, to-do list, dictation and voice activated personal assistant programs, they could begin to reduce the need for live assistants. And how many people wear watches these days?

Smartphones with cameras have already taken a bite out of the consumer camera market. The higher end smartphones have resolutions and other capabilities that rival many digital cameras on the market. A study from 2011 found that even then, people were using their smartphones for more than half of their spur of the moment photos, although they were a little more likely to use a dedicated camera for vacation shots [source: Donegan]. Smartphones also have the added bonus of allowing us to quickly share our photos and videos on social networking sites, and there are even photo editing apps so you can tweak and retouch your image before you upload it.

Many people are cancelling their home phone service, and, to a lesser extent, their home Internet in favor of the cellular data plans of their smartphones. Mobile devices are also allowing the Internet to reach areas in developing nations where it would be cost prohibitive to get traditional online service to the home.

As their processors get more powerful and cellular Internet connections get faster, both smartphones and tablets are replacing laptops and desktop computers as peoples' day to day computing devices. They have already become more powerful than a lot of our old laptops from years ago, they don't require as much power, and 3G and 4G cellular networks and WiFi connectivity have brought them faster broadband speeds.

They can also be used for word processing and accessing business related sites on the road, although their small screens and slower processors don't make them ideal for some business uses.

You can also use your smartphone or tablet as a remote control for a myriad of devices, such a gaming systems and video streaming devices. You can even buy infrared (IR) devices that work with mobile device apps so that you can control your TV and other hardware that usually requires an IR remote.

Smartphones, too, might share some of the blame for reducing in person communication. It's what many of us are using to check e-mail and surf social media sites, after all, even sometimes when we're out with friends or family.

Sales of smartphones surpassed sales of laptops in 2007 [source:], and surpassed sales of personal computers in general in late 2010 [sources: Wingfield, Arthur]. Laptops and desktops are still necessary for certain types of computing, but there could be a day when you're just as likely to plug your phone into a keyboard and monitor as crack open a laptop.

Smartphones and tablets are also playing a major role in our next disruptive technology.

Mobile apps and services are coming along to disrupt the traditional cash register. The path for moving away from the register was paved in part by the near abandonment of cash as our primary payment method. Per a Nielsen survey released in January 2014, 54 percent of people around the world and 71 percent in North America prefer plastic to cash for their daily spending [source: Nielsen]. We are also increasingly willing to make online purchases with credit and debit cards, including shopping on smartphones and tablets. These developments, along with the advent of touchscreen mobile devices and relatively easy access to the reliable broadband Internet connectivity, have made in-store smartphone and mobile-based payment systems a reality.

Major contenders in the mobile payment arena are Square, Intuit GoPayment, Pay AnyWhere, ShopKeep and even PayPal with PayPal Here (which lets you take credit cards and scan checks for deposit into your PayPal account). Some simply consist of an app on your device and a tiny card reader plugged into its audio jack. This gives even the smallest independent store or street vendor the ability to take credit cards. Retailers are charged a percentage per transaction, a monthly fee or both, along with the cost of the hardware, which is much cheaper than traditional registers and card readers. Square also offers a stand that connects to an iPad, bar-code scanner, receipt printer and related devices for a more robust cash register replacement. Mobile devices themselves have cameras that allow them to scan barcodes.

Some major retailers have been experimenting with payment and product lookup via dedicated mobile devices, too, including Barneys New York, Urban Outfitters, Gucci, Saks Fifth Avenue and Gaylord Hotels. Employees might be wandering the store with mobile devices, able to help customers anywhere. Tablets are even appearing at tables in restaurants to allow you to order items and pay with a swipe. Some companies, including Wal-Mart, have experimented with letting people check out entirely on their own mobile devices using apps that let them ring up merchandise. Such innovations could potentially be the death of waiting in line, although it could also reduce jobs.

Phones that incorporate Near Field Communications (NFC) allow you to pay for things without your physical credit or debit cards at NFC-enabled payment stations using apps such as Google Wallet. Online payment methods like PayPal are even being accepted at some stores, and for places that can't process PayPal payments, the service can issue users a debit card.

NCR and other cash register manufacturers may not have to worry about extinction, however, due to the rising popularity of the next item.

One technology that's becoming quite common in grocery stores and other large retail establishments is the self-checkout station. These usually consist of four or more kiosks, each with a scanner, a touchscreen monitor, a card reader, slots for taking and dispensing cash and areas on which to bag or place your purchases. There's generally one worker overseeing a few kiosks, and the customer does the rest -- scanning items, typing in the codes of produce and bagging the groceries. If something goes wrong, the worker will be signaled to come and help so that the transaction can go forward.

There's concern that self-checkout will lead to job losses for some of the millions of cashiers in the U.S. -- there were around 3 million in 2013 [sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thibodeau]. This is an issue that comes up whenever something is automated and only time will tell if they take a major toll on the job market or simply shift workers into other jobs. But some stores are giving them up due to customer service and job loss concerns, including the grocery chain Albertsons. Many people prefer to deal with a human being, although some prefer self-checkout.

Another disadvantage of self-checkout is the greater risk of theft. As an anti-theft measure, many of the systems weigh or otherwise sense the items you've put in the bagging area and check that against what you scanned. Of course, thieves will try tricks like weighing non-produce items as produce in an effort to sneak away with product. Some theft risk can be reduced with video monitoring software that can quickly alert a staff member to perceived wrongdoing, or conveyor systems that scan items quickly and automatically, making it harder for would-be shoplifters to slip things by the scanners.

Advantages include shorter lines and quicker checkout times, at least provided there are no complications. Ikea has actually opted to remove them from stores in the U.S. because they were causing longer checkout times due the difficulty most people had getting their items to scan.

But these kiosks are becoming more and more prevalent, and will likely improve over time. One expected improvement is scanners that actually recognize your purchases rather than relying on barcodes or keyed-in product codes.

Fitness and lifestyle trackers are all the rage, and there are many to choose from, including the Fitbit , the Nike Fuelband, the Adidas Fit Smart, the Samsung Gear Fit, the Misfit Shine and the Jawbone Up, among many others. They do things like track your workout time, steps (like a pedometer), distance and calories burned, as well as measure your heart rate and monitor your sleep patterns. Some work in conjunction with apps on your smartphone or an online portal where you can track your data, set your goals and possibly do things like log dietary information.

The devices and apps can use the gathered data to cue you to increase or decrease your workout intensity, let you share data with other users for accountability and motivation and, in the cast of at least one company (GOQii), get you in touch with an experienced fitness coach who monitors your data, sends advice and responds to questions (for a recurring fee).

Some of these devices are worn on your wrist or ankles , some wrap around your chest and others clip onto your clothing. They may have small screens, LED status lights or no display at all. Some require plugging in to upload your data and some sync wirelessly and automatically. Some work with only one operating system while others work with several.

Many modern smartphones even have sensors now that allow phone apps to perform some of these functions, like tracking your routes or your steps. Some even have heart rate checking capabilities.

These or similar innovations could disrupt personal training and other fitness related jobs, although there are some things a wearable device or app are not going to be able to do, like make sure you're using good form -- at least for now.

The cloud is made up of large groups of powerful computers called servers. They're usually housed in data centers or computer rooms, and these centers are running software that can distribute processing over their network across multiple servers. Users access cloud services remotely via their own web browsers. In fact, you could consider anything you can get to on the Internet to be in the cloud, since you're accessing the data on a remote server. And a lot of the media you're streaming these days is in the cloud.

The advent of cloud computing gives businesses the potential to quickly increase their processing capabilities without having to buy equipment or hire and train new staff, and often at lower cost than in-house IT expansion would require. Companies simply pay a host for whatever type of access and services they need. These types of services also mean that smaller businesses and startups that never would have been able to raise the capital to buy heavy-duty equipment and the necessary staff can gain quick access to computing power.

Types of cloud services you can purchase vary from simple data storage to server space on which you have to do most of the IT work yourself (albeit remotely) to fully realized software systems that you and other users can simply log into and use. Cloud computing is altering the way we consume and purchase business software and hardware. Having lots of your data in the cloud also allows data mining for business analytics.

You don't have to be a business to utilize the cloud. The wide availability of inexpensive broadband connectivity means many of us are always online and able to access data much more quickly than in the days of dial-up. You may already be using an online e-mail service like Gmail or Hotmail, online office software like Google Docs , or storing your photos, videos or documents on storage sites like DropBox, and you just didn't know to call it the cloud.

Storage space used to be expensive, but it's getting cheaper and cheaper. Many cloud services will give you several gigabytes of storage for free and charge you annual or monthly fees if you need more space. Anything that you store on them can be accessed from multiple devices and from any location with an Internet connection. It also makes it easy for people to travel light, or to share data with others.

Our always-on connectivity, along with a shift to downloadable software (also made possible by cloud storage), is allowing us to swap our heavier desktop and laptop computers for smaller, cheaper devices with less storage like netbooks, tablets and even phones. We can get to all our data online.

Possible drawbacks to moving things off of a local hard drive are the security of personal information, loss of data if something goes wrong (say your cloud provider goes under) and loss of access when you have connectivity issues. But physical hard drives can be lost, as well. The best solution is to keep anything you don't want to lose in more than one location, and that makes the cloud a good backup solution. If a computer or physical hard drive fails, the information can be downloaded from your cloud service to new devices.

Many of our phones now automatically sync our data to a cloud account so that we never have to worry about plugging them into our computers to upload or download data. If your phone is lost or stolen, in many cases you can wipe its data remotely and then reinstall everything easily onto a replacement.

The Internet began in 1969 as ARPANET, a method to link computers together for data sharing developed by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The development of the World Wide Web (the Internet as we know it) began in 1989 as a project by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee. In 1994, not long after the birth of the web, only 11 million people were online. By 2014, billions of people were on the Internet [sources: Berkman, Pew Internet Research Project]. With high-speed broadband connections at home and cellular data on a lot of our phones, many people are essentially always online.

The Internet has made most of the previously mentioned disruptions possible and then some. We have access to vast amounts of human knowledge through web browsers and search engines, along with incredible communication and information sharing tools. We can make Voice over IP (VoIP) calls, do video chat, instant message and send e-mail, all nearly instantaneously.

The Internet is transforming retail with online purchasing and mobile payment, education with online classes and our consumption of entertainment with media streaming, online gaming and downloadable e-books.

There are even some upsides that have job loss related downsides. People are booking travel themselves instead of using travel agents, doing their banking online instead of going to the bank, buying stocks online instead of consulting a broker and sending e-mail instead of posting letters. Brick-and-mortar retail store sales have suffered and now most also have their own online retail presences. People get most of their news online, leading to declines in newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Even serious news sites have blogs and social media accounts that link back to their articles.

You can pay your bills all at once from a single financial institution's website. The percentage of bills paid by traditional mail dropped below 50 percent in 2010, according to the US Postal Service [source: Schmid]. You can even pay for print postage from an online site for any physical items you do have to send through the mail and just drop them off at the post office or hand them to your mail carrier.

Our online access allows some of us to telecommute instead of driving to work, leading to changes in traditional workspaces and work practices. Video conferencing at work is more and more common. On the flip side, the Internet also makes it easy to check personal e-mail, peruse retail sites, post on social networking sites and otherwise goof off while we're at the office.

The Internet has transformed advertising, as well as and charitable and political fundraising. Any company or non-profit entity that wants to be taken seriously needs to have a wesite and a presence on the major social media sites, and even in TV and print ads, you might see Twitter, Facebook and other social network logos.

The so-called Internet of things, involving lots of gadgets that can wirelessly send data, is making the connected home a real thing. We're beginning to be able to control home appliances and monitoring devices from our phones while we're away from our domiciles. At this point, there's no limit to the possibilities that the Internet will bring in the future.

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