1 post tagged “futurism”
Y! Answers has its problems (about half the questions can be answered better by Google searches, and about half of the questions are retarded), but sometimes, there's an absolutely brilliant question or answer. This is one of the brilliant questions, sheerly in terms of how compelling it is.
Which products, used by few today, will be essential in five years?
Think about how much technological innovation has changed our lives in the past 5 years…and what products we use every day now. What's the next big thing that will change the way we live?
There's quite a few ways this can be interpreted, which is great, "since the next big thing that will change the way we live" and the "products, used by few today, [but] essential in five years" could be completely different (ie, global warming and alternative energy), or it can be taken purely as speculation on technological trends. (either way, it's intellectual catnip for armchair futurists).
On the former perspective, I think global climate change and increasing energy prices will be definitely the things that change the way we live in the next few years. Barring cataclysm though, most alternative energy technologies are actually designed to allow us to sustain our lifestyle with mostly minor or unnoticed changes (E85 at the pump, switching to alternatives to natural gas and oil at the power station).
In a similar way, most biotech (disease cures, etc) are being designed to hold the line on how we live or affect only a minority of the population. The exception perhaps is the breakthroughs that are currently be made in anti-aging and rejuvination therapies. It's quite possible that some of the develops being made recently and in the near future wend their way through the FDA in the next 5 years and reshape how we deal with aging.
In terms of pure technology changes, the most interesting thing to do is to probably turn the dial back to 2001 and think about the biggest differences I can think of (admittedly biased toward net/tech):
- No iPod/ITMS
- No Cameraphone
- No Satellite Radio
- Blogging not mainstream
- Very little social media (Flickr, YouTube)
- No social networking sites
- No Wikipedia
- MMORPGs just taking off
What's interesting is that most of these things that are now dominant already had a fair amount of penetration, but just hadn't gone mainstream yet.
So here's my technological hitlist for 2011 (still no black monoliths in sight):
- Software as service is standard - we're starting to see some of this with widgets and with better web apps, but this will go to the next level. Things like social networking and media sharing services will increasingly be integrated at the OS level and prepackaged with hardware.
- Global digital identity / reputation / relationship system - as you're online persona gets tied to your offline persona and your physical presence (digital leakage?), this is a given. Perhaps the only real question is who will own and run this.
- Digital media - yes to media sharing and filtering, streaming shared and personal digital media from anywhere, and the privilege to buy DRM'd versions of just about anything that you can currently download for free (TV shows, movies, concert CDs). The future of the iPod is probably seamless wireless syncing and streaming, which leads to...
- Smart phones - it looks fairly obvious today that phones will be the primary convergence device in 5 years. They have networking down with 3G and bluetooth (sure, add in mesh if you want) and already have taken over photo capturing (currently 80%+ of digital cameras), and soon video as well. In five years, all phones will also serve as physical presence devices as well. Many of the services from point 1 will run on your phone.
- RFID - yes, I think Bruce Sterling will get his spimes and be able to Google his socks in 5 years. Walmart is already starting to slap them everywhere now that it's almost as cheap as printing, and it won't be long before Apple realizes they can manage your reaLife as well as your iLife.
- Self Monitoring - I'll throw in the outside bet that the Nike+ is just the start of a whole wave of self-instrumentation. I and other geeks have been obsessed with it for a while, but now that normal people are being exposed to it through every aspect of their lives (MMORPGs, Social Networking Software, Infoglut), it's pretty much a done deal.
- Personal Aggregators - mentioned tangentially already, but I think we'll start see a new generation of systems that will try to help you manage all the crap (offline/online/data streams etc) you'll be bombarded with.
- Shared everything - also touched upon, but I think we're moving towards a social-everything model. At the same time, I think with the development happening, I think we'll see much more fine-grained models that will more accurately reflect how we communicate and share in real life (say hello to private communites. Hi Vox!)
- e-Paper - actual honest-to-god E-Ink devices are finally starting to come out. And color/flexible e-paper products are being announced regularly. With rising paper costs and Newspaper companies openly talking about how e-paper readers would pay for themselves in a one-year subscription... Well, this would be pretty handy.
- AR HUDs - ok, this I think has pretty much no chance of happening, but wouldn't it be so damn cool? (or not)
- Fabrication - 3D printing/fabrication of all sorts has come a long way towards affordability (you can get a laser etcher for the same price as a laser printer cost a decade or two ago), and it's true that the physical world is like the internet for geeks (hoo-ray physical computing), but the difference really is that while the Internet has a capital cost approaching zero, physical computing is still a far ways off. But who knows, maybe there'll be some really compelling uses in the next 5 years that really launches things off.
