A question I am often asked is, "Why did you get out of your comfort zone?" By any which yardstick, I ought to have stuck to honing my skills as a journalist and a writer. To which my simple answer is: "Because if I didn't, I'd be obsolete before I hail the next Uber." Uber is the new F-word. That if we don't take cognizance of entities like Uber and the forces that are shaping it, it is only a matter of time before a lot many of our livelihoods will be obsolete. To most people who've grown watching businesses evolve, this company makes no sense. I mean, come to think of it, what is it? An app that resides on my phone and allows me to hail taxis from wherever I am. And by all accounts, is one of the most unprofitable start-ups the world has ever seen. But for whatever strange reason, it is among the most valuable and sought after. But users like you and me are enamoured by it; traditional service providers don't know how to deal with it; policymakers have no clue what sense to make of this animal; and it is just but one metaphor for how the world is changing dramatically--India included. I touched upon how it is just one among the many things changing dramatically and how the ground beneath India's feet is shifting on Founding Fuel, the platform I co-founded. Why does it concern me?

It's hard to believe this is my 10th annual predictions piece for VentureBeat. VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall asked me write my first prediction piece in 2007 for the year 2008. The tech landscape has changed a lot since then. In 2008, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo, and now Verizon could acquire Yahoo for $4.8 billlion. Cloud computing made its mark in 2008, back when no one could have imagined Amazon would be leading the space.

"Video consumption will continue to increase as cheaper mobile internet connections become available and the connected user base grows. As a result, mobile-and-social-friendly video formats such as short videos, vertical videos, and live videos will become more common. We will see several of these platforms invest heavily in original content in order to try and entice new users. Pricing will be competitive, choices aplenty - all good things for consumers. Long-form programming will become the cornerstone of this battle. Ad spends on video creators and video platforms will increase significantly as brands try to find the most effective means to reach their target audience. Success will no longer be measured predominantly by video views - engagement will become the new TRP," opined Ashwin Suresh, Co-founder of Pocket Aces.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) or cognitive technology is no more about a machine playing chess. AI is on the streets driving our cars. It is in our call centres chatting up customers in dulcet tones. AI is drafting and reviewing legal documents with immaculate precision. It is even doing what we could never dream of: You can trade using indices derived from satellite imagery (of all the things!).

With the rise in self-driving technology, the latest automobiles are grabbing more attention at The Consumer Electronics Show. Las Vegas – January 3, 2017 – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles unveiled the Chrysler Portal Concept at CES 2017 today. While CES is an acronym for Consumer Electronics Show, the running joke at this annual Las Vegas event is that CES is turning into the Car Electronics Show. Many of the world's biggest auto makers have become a major part of this highly-publicized conference – which serves as a glimpse into the future of technology -- by dominating much of the North Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as surrounding facilities. And it doesn't seem to matter this Sin City event falls on the heels of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Here's a fun way to spend a long weekend: Contemplating whether you'll be replaced by a robot. Employers could feasibly swap out machines, using existing technology, for humans in 50 percent of today's jobs, says a new McKinsey report. That's not just low-paying work but plenty of white collar employment as well, and that works out to $16 trillion in wages worldwide, and $2.7 trillion in the U.S. The are plenty of caveats to that projection -- the biggest one is that the automation won't happen until 2055, or maybe 2035, or maybe 2075? But it's still the kind of big, headline grabbing number that definitely gets your attention, particularly when the incoming U.S. administration is talking about saving/restoring jobs by pulling them back from the likes of Mexico and China. Trump-watchers, including the New York Times' Maggie Haberman and Axios' Mike Allen, have already taken notice.

Every organization collects, stores and retains portions of dark data. It's the digital equivalent of emotional baggage which hangs around after every user interaction, transaction, and customer engagement. In fact, not using data effectively is costing United Airlines almost $1 Billion annually in lost revenue. Gartner Inc. describes dark data as "information assets that organizations collect, process and store in the course of their regular business activity, but fail to use for other purposes." For travel companies with a strong online presence, dark data represents a sizable portion of all data stored.

Notably, the same way is passed by the product owner's company. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Oleg Lola, CEO of MobiDev, will provide a generalized overview of the evolution of a software product, the product owner, the needs that arise at various stages of this process, and the value brought by a software development partner to the product owner as a response to these needs. All in all, the key value that can be added to the success of your product does not comprise technical expertise and corresponding development resources only; true success is possible when the software development company becomes a reliable long-time partner that keeps developing the product further and making it continuously relevant. Speaker Bio Oleg Lola, MobiDev CEO, is a talented business manager and a skilled mobile developer who has a 10-year experience in software engineering. He understands the needs of startups and tech companies.

Steven West steps into a remote enemy hideout clad in a 350-pound exoskeleton, sensors piercing the darkness and displaying digital info on his helmet visor, until a shock of static feedback knocks him to the dirty floor. A band of locals surround him with pipes and rebar. "The feedback stopped, leaving his ears ringing, and grainy video feed warped back into view as he was struck again. This scene isn't pulled from the latest Clancy-esque techno-thriller, but a short story written as part of a new Marine Corps exercise using science fiction to think about possible threats 15 to 30 years in the future. "Water's a Fightin' Word" recounts what happens when a squad of Marines on a humanitarian mission in Africa gets surrounded during a global freshwater shortage. The author slips in glimpses of military technology in its infancy today, such as the exoskeleton, electromagnetic pulse weapons, and combat-ready robots, and combines it with likely geopolitical scenarios, such as conflict over water and other environmental resources. Officers at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory/Futures Directorate in Quantico, Va., came up with the idea last year to host a sci-fi contest to spur creativity, as well as get uniformed Marines to conceive of threats in a different way. A total of 84 entries were narrowed down to 18 finalists, who were paired with professional sci-fi writers--including "World War Z's" Max Brooks--during a workshop co-hosted by the Atlantic Council. After months of editing, the top three stories were collected in "Science Fiction Futures: Marine Corps Security Environment Forecast 2030-2045″ and published online [PDF].

"Jia Jia" can hold a simple conversation and make specific facial expressions when asked, and her creator believes the eerily life-like robot heralds a future of cyborg labour in China. Billed as China's first human-like robot, Jia Jia was first trotted out last year by a team of engineers at the University of Science and Technology of China. Team leader Chen Xiaoping sounded like a proud father as he and his prototype appeared at an economic conference organised by banking giant UBS in Shanghai's futuristic financial centre. Chen predicted that perhaps within a decade artificially intelligent (AI) robots like Jia Jia will begin performing a range of menial tasks in Chinese restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals and households. "In five to 10 years there will be a lot of applications for robots in China," Chen said.