I’m a fan of this new show - “Dean of Invention’ - excellent.
It’s got me all in a fit in my head over some trends that first caught my eye back in 2005 and are gaining momentum as we enter into the 2nd decade of the 21st century.
OK, this is going to be kind of all over the place, but if you stick with me it will pay off:
- The Internet of things
Fist off, we heard a long time ago about the idea that objects around us should exchange data, allowing them to work together to be greater than the sum of their parts. RFID let Wal-mart track the locations of all of their products, and the new Scrabble flash is an awesome early case of this beginning to happen (Remember the video of those little boxes that could exchange data on TED?).
Also, there was the recent release of more wireless bandwidth.
Add to this the shrinking difference between the digital competency of the youngest and oldest among us.
- Social media utility
I recently read that the incoming tweens are using social media for less time at once than their predecessors. This makes sense as social media begins to mature as a medium. Did you really think we were all going to find 4 hours per day to spend on facebook?
It’s not that these new kids don’t like facebook, it’s just that they are better at it than us. They spend less time, but get more ‘Utility’ from sharing and recieving links, videos, photos, location etc.. I expect to see this trend continue (remember when AOL was a destination? Yahoo wan’t to be a ‘Portal’)
Paper.li get it.
Social media will go away or become everything, depending how you look at it.
- Mobile
An estimated 57 million smart phones are already in the hands of average people. These phones can do amazing things like, know where you are in space, how fast you are moving and at what pitch; serve and shoot video, host software, connect you to the cloud. The smartphone in my pocket is more powerful then the laptop I took to college.
That network of connected humans is growing to be a crucial part of our society, and will also serve to help us be an even greater force.
- Information/interaction
Two trends I am keeping my eye on are ambient information and device interaction.
As we get bombarded with more and more information, some are finding that new ways of providing data and information are really effective. And technology is providing those solutions.
We are not too far away from getting water usage and dating advice from our bathtubs and coffee makers.
There is also the recent explosion of touch screens, pinching and swiping, voice recognition, location triggers and even a Brain sensor. I don’t use a keyboard on my phone, I drag my finger across the screen, touching key letters to type in one fast motion (Shapewriter for Android - i highly recommend it).
- Moving toward passivity
At the same time all this is happening, we are facing the reality of our societies own wastefulness. We feel like we are always rushed, never enough time to do everything we need. We miss nature, we feel alienated from each other at higher rates.
That brings me to the other side of the coin - you don’t actually want to program and check in with all these devices do you?
We can use this singularity of technology to do all or most of this work for us.
- Web 5.0
The next step for social media is for the semantic web to socialize with itself. When we get there, our devices will cease being individual items, and all be part of the greater computer, the ‘singularity’ which can be a positive tool for humanity, freeing us to interact with each other and our environment, without much effort.
Well - thats my prediciton anyhow - we’ll have to get to the sematic web first.. which is going to rely on still more breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence, and we are going to need a more reliable, higher yield source of Power. In the mean time, enjoy your free wifi at Starbucks on your iphone.
