Week-in-Review: Emerging technology trends and the future of work

Escaping the trough of disillusionment for virtual and augmented reality [TechCrunch]: S. Somasegar writes about AR/VR's long road to mass adoption, stating, "Gartner has placed VR within its tech hype cycle as precariously struggling out of the trough of disillusionment, described as a period of waning interest as'experiments and implementations fail to deliver.'" However, while Somasegar says mainstream adoption is still likely three to five years away, "We still believe that in twenty years, VR will be a ubiquitous force and as pervasive and transformative as the internet was in the 90s or the smartphone was in the 2000s. Every 2D interface will be re-imagined and re-architected for 3D." He goes on to outline some of the big opportunities in AR/VR just waiting to be tapped by "those brave enough to weather the trough of disillusionment." Google artificial intelligence guru says A.I. won't kill jobs [Fortune]: Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of artificial intelligence startup DeepMind, recently addressed some common concerns around AI at an O'Reilly event, and Jonathan Vanian recapped the highlights in Fortune this week.