Since the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the traditional workplace, affecting nearly every industry. The tech sector, which has been ahead of the curve in terms of flexible work policy, has been on the roller coaster as well but has remained remarkably resilient. Deloitte's 14th annual Tech Trends report, released on Wednesday, takes a look at the current state of enterprises when it comes to IT. The Deloitte report focuses on the experience of global organizations, across industries, in order to ascertain what tech trends are on the horizon. Deloitte employs a "wide-angle lens" to predict what's happening, according to Mike Bechtel, chief futurist and managing director at Deloitte.

The metaverse is one of the hottest buzzwords in tech, and this far-reaching vision of a next-gen internet will rely upon an entire ecosystem of companies to make it a reality. We cut through the noise to explain what the metaverse is, how it's being built, and who's building it. The business world is obsessed with "the metaverse": the concept of shared worlds driven by virtual products and digital experiences that are highly immersive and interactive. We already have virtual worlds featuring live concerts and online games where players spend hundreds of hours -- but metaverse enthusiasts see a future where entire societies thrive in an online realm inhabited by avatars of real people. While the space is still in early days, the longer-term implications may not be trivial. Some users -- especially younger ones -- may eventually earn, spend, and invest most of their money in digital worlds. The metaverse could represent a $1T market by the end of the decade, according to CB Insights' Industry Analyst Consensus. This dollar potential has caught the attention of players across industries.

The world's tech industry will be shaped by China, artificial intelligence, cancel culture, and a number of other trends, according to the Future Today Institute's 2020 Tech Trends Report. Now in its 13th year, the document is put together by the Future Today Institute and director Amy Webb, who is also a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. The report attempts to recognize connections between tech and future uncertainties like the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as the spread of epidemics like coronavirus. Among major trends in the report, 2020 will be the synthetic decade. "Soon, we will produce'designer' molecules in a range of host cells on demand and at scale, which will lead to transformational improvements in vaccine production, tissue production and medical treatments. Scientists will start to build entire human chromosomes, and they will design programmable proteins," the report reads.

The Future Today Institute today unveiled the latest annual Tech Trends Report, which highlights 315 trends, up from 225 last year. This is the 12th year of the Tech Trends Report. The report highlights top trends in areas like energy, robotics, AI, transportation, data, privacy, and security. Future Today Institute director and New York University Stern School of Business professor Amy Webb will release the report and detail highlights in a presentation today at SXSW in Austin, Texas. The report is written to be accessible to Fortune 500 companies as well as small business owners, universities, governments, and startups.

Advanced networking, serverless computing, and intelligent interfaces will reshape business processes in the coming years, according to Deloitte's 10th annual tech trends report set to release on Wednesday. The report examines how new technologies are currently disrupting industries, but will gradually reshape them in the coming years, a Tuesday press release said. Ten years ago, Deloitte published its first tech trends report, which focused on the popularity of smartphones and mobile applications, and introduced the emergence of the cloud and Internet of Things (IoT). Those two technologies are no longer new, evolving from emerging tech to necessary tech. Time will tell how 2019's emerging tech will revolutionize the workplace moving forward.

The Future Today Institute recently released the eagerly anticipated "2017 Tech Trends Report." Entering its 10th year, the report outlines in great detail the emerging technology trends, which will influence business, education, politics, government, education and society in the coming year. In an age where technology has the power to disrupt and transform a marketplace overnight, the Tech Trends Report acts as an early warning signal to organizations. By understanding the potential impact of these emerging trends, business leaders can integrate the report findings into their strategic thinking, allowing them to adjust planning, operation and business models accordingly. Failure to monitor these trends can place organizations at significant risk, potentially compromising their competitive edge or future growth by failing to react to shifts in the marketplace driven by technology.

The Future Today Institute has created a terrific, free report summarizing key technology trends and what they mean for tomorrow. I've embedded the report below so you can quickly flip through it. I read the whole report and highlighted the most noteworthy elements for book publishers below. That leads me (once again) to the topic of curation, a very important (current and) future publishing trend. Curation is becoming as important as creation, especially as we're bombarded with more information than we can possibly consume.