This is an era of disruption. Technology innovation, the intensifying march of digitization, and the cumulative effect of the "big exponentials" - the laws of accelerating growth governing processing power, storage, and bandwidth - are shattering, reshaping, and redefining economics in and across industries. Companies in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sectors are in the vanguard, bringing these new opportunities to market - even as their legacy businesses are threatened by them. TMT companies have begun to engage in end-to-end digital transformation by digitizing the value chain in their core businesses and enter new disruptive businesses. Still, they are subject to massive dislocation and attack.

While 2016 saw plenty of shiny new tech on the shelves, it wasn't much of a year for significant breakthroughs. Even the latest iPhone 7 drew groans of boredom. Will things get any better in 2017? Expect the big buzzwords of 2016 – the Internet of Things, voice search, blockchain, artificial intelligence, chatbots, virtual reality and augmented reality – to be less about theory and more about real world products embedding themselves in society. However, with post-Brexit, post-Trump isolationism a possibility and threats to free markets, free movement and data privacy on the horizon, 2017 could see tech battle with the prospect of an un-connected world.

Cyber threats are an ever-present danger to global economies and are projected to surpass the trillion dollar mark in damages within the next year. As a result, the cybersecurity industry is investing heavily in machine learning in hopes of providing a more dynamic deterrent. ABI Research forecasts machine learning in cybersecurity will boost big data, intelligence, and analytics spending to $96 billion by 2021. ABI Research finds the government and defense, banking, and technology market sectors to be the primary drivers and adopters of machine learning technologies. User and Entity Behavioral Analytics (UEBA) along with Deep Learning algorithm designs are emerging as the two most prominent technologies in cybersecurity offerings, especially in innovative hot tech startups.

South by Southwest has unveiled its list of featured speakers for the upcoming fest, which includes the cast of Veep, Seth Rogen and exec producers of AMC's, Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkrik, John Cena, and more. The fest, which runs from March 10-19, will feature discussions from fields in tech, film, music, television, business, literature, government and journalism. Check out the list below. Jessica Shortall (Social Impact) – Jessica is the Managing Director of Texas Competes, a coalition of more than 1,200 Texas companies making the data-driven case for Texas to be welcoming to LGBTQ people. This business-oriented voice has become a national model.

DARPA boasts that the system can snag a "full-size" drone, but don't expect it to catch any Predators. SideArm can snag a drone as heavy as 1,100 pounds, which means it's not quite strong enough to catch the plane-sized Predator or its larger siblings. There already exist rail-and-hook systems to catch small and medium-sized drones like the ScanEagle. In those systems, the drone deliberately flies into a tall net, halting its momentum. DARPA's experimented with alternative landing and launching systems before, like this quadcopter-launching body and sky hook, with modest success.

Ahmed Elgoni felt like he'd struck gold. The 24-year-old video game developer from South Africa had in November secured a ticket to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco -- a cultural mecca for anyone who wants to make video games. A sponsor would cover the cost of his round-trip flight from Cape Town. Just two weeks ago, he received his visa to enter the U.S. Then President Trump signed an executive order banning refugees and travelers from seven countries. Elgoni grew up in South Africa, but he was born in Sudan -- one of the countries listed as part of the travel ban. As a dual citizen, he now doesn't know if he can attend GDC, which runs from Feb. 27 to March 3. "No one's sure of what's happening," he said.

If, for example, a robot like IBM Watson can search a patient's records or analyse an x-ray more effectively than a human, this is better for the nation's health and should be brought in. Over time, these different systems will hopefully start to see a whole organisation run more efficiently, which may result in fewer staff. But this will be an organic shift, that happens over a period time, and it will be for the greater good. You wouldn't expect to find labourers milling corn by hand today, when a machine is far more efficient. The only difference today is, we're not going to take any Luddites out the back and shoot them.

Uber has reaffirmed its flying cars ambitions by hiring former Nasa engineer Mark Moore. Moore has 30 years of experience at Nasa, and becomes the director of engineering for aviation at Uber Elevate. "I can't think of another company in a stronger position to be the leader for this new ecosystem and make the urban electric VTOL market real," said Moore, who published a white paper on vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (VTOL) back in 2010. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Quadcopter drones are great for aerial photography, racing, and backing up Lady Gaga during the Super Bowl halftime show. But puny propellers don't cut it for serious jobs, which is why military missions and humanitarian aid drops use unmanned aerial drones that resemble airplanes. Fixed-wing drones can fly further and carry more. The trouble is, winged aircraft can't takeoff or land vertically like quadcopters, and the hybrid machines that combine the utility of wings and the ease of quads tend to be complex and expensive. Further compounding the challenge, fixed-wing drones need runaways, which you don't often find in the remote locations where drones are most useful.

Vizio admits they secretly used software to track people's TV viewing habits. Now they've agree to pay $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit with the FTC and New Jersey. TV maker Vizio is paying $2.2 million to settle charges over software on some of its smart TVs used to collect viewing data without consumers' consent. Starting in February 2014, Vizio captured information on 11 million consumer TVs about information about what viewers were watching on cable, streaming services and over-the-air broadcasts without TV owners' knowledge or consent, according to a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General. The agencies announced the settlement Monday.