Future of Technology - Ed tell us the future!

[Shag]

My good friend Ed has always seemed to have his finger (albeit a large, sausage-like finger) on the pulse of technology trends.  He's one of the first people I knew our age that bought a cell phone.  He championed Google, Google apps, and other cloud computing apps much earlier than the rest (although I still question his faith in Google Plus).  He ditched his physical media ages ago (we all thought he was just being a curmudgeon) in favor of digital versions.  He is literally the original Unique Geek.

So I put the question to Ed (and everyone else), what is the next big change in technology?  Tablets, smart phones, the cloud, digital media, social media... all these have changed the world (well, at least the First World). What is on the horizon right now (even if it seems far-fetched) that will eventually become commonplace? 


The Irredeemable Shag

[Edward Crosby]

The pulse of technology seem to think tablets are it, are the future and will replace laptops and desktops for the average consumer. The tablet has already killed the netbook and most "technology seers" think this will also happen with desktops and laptops too. I, actually, have already seen this for myself not in the consumer space but in the corporate space. The company I work for, within the past year, has already started allowing some of our top management personnel to use the iPad in our network and most of them do in place of their laptop. I have personal experience from this because I was designated in my department to head this project and assist management, with the help from our field engineer team, to get integrated into our network. I've also heard of other companies going the same route. The tablet seems to be a better tool than a laptop, especially for those that attend and present meetings frequently.

Also, it seems that even a lot of the software companies are fine tuning their applications to work on tablets. A prime example is OnLive. They have developed a means of getting Windows with the Office Suite in their product specifically for the iPad and Android tablets so that you can install the OnLive app in iOS and Android, fire up Windows and, poof, you have Word, Excel or PowerPoint running on the tablet.

I haven't fully grasped the tablet fad yet myself because I am still waiting for them to go down in price some more, specifically the 10", which I think is starting to happen. I actually may purchase an Android tablet within the next 6 months or so. I've seen some of the better Android tablets (Samsung Galaxy Tab, Asus Transformer) drop as low as $300 and even refurbs as low as $250. That's a fantastic price. And, these examples mentioned have the option to attach a portable keyboard too.

However, it's not just tablets that are the big thing right now. It's mobile in general. The mobile space of the smartphone is super hot also and will be hot for sometime thanks to the competition of Apple and Android.

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Have a Better One,
Edward Crosby
http://about.me/edwardcrosby

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[Cary Preston]

There's going to a subtle paradigm shift in electronics. Physical media is slowly dying off, and new form factors are going to become norms. Tablets are beginning to become what laptops originally were- less-powerful desktops that could be used portably. Laptops have become what desktops used to be- the powerful mainstay for big tasks that can also be the center of your computing needs (how many gaming laptops have you see advertised?). Cloud computing is on the verge of being what it's been billed as being as more services and apps that used to be local are successfully shifted to remote servers. Microsoft is in the process of making Office a cloud service, Google's Chrome OS is a viable system (albeit a not so popular one). Instead of Microsoft ruling most of the world there will be an oligarchy- Apple couldn't care less about dominant market share because they've become unimaginably wealthy focusing on margin instead. Google is on the verge of creating a mobile ecosystem (devices, media, storage, productivity, apps, you name it), and Amazon isn't too far behind them. It wouldn't be a big jump from having a mobile ecosystem to a full one; and Google's products have always been aimed at every user. Microsoft has shown some promise and still rules enterprise, but they still aren't innovating (the only true innovation they've offered has been the XBox). 

Moore's law has been lessened but is still in effect; I agree with the assertion that devices will become more powerful and less expensive. My freaking iPhone has a much more powerful processor than my first Win98 desktop (45p MHz single core vs a 1 GHz dual core), has more RAM, better graphics, and almost as much hard drive storage. I think Google's Nexus will be a decent seller, and the iPad Mini will be even moreso (when even Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal talk about it it's safe to say Apple's making it). The field will be even more crowded when Microsoft enters the game later this year, but I'm still not convinced that they will be very successful- the market is going to be closer to saturation point by the time they are out, and they are three years behind. 

I'm hopeful and excited as to where media could be going in the next ten years. I think that more content creators will see the light and begin embracing digital distribution, be it sales through portals like iTunes or Amazon, or the eventual deployment of IPTV. It's already close- many new TVs are internet-capable (mostly for simple streaming of content) and a lot of channels like HBO and ESPN have digital versions; once they can generate enough revenue you'll see it explode. 

Lastly, publishing is changing rapidly too. Hard copy will never disappear, but I think the age of digital publishing is on us now. It's too easy to go about self-publishing and distribution for it NOT to be a coming tidal wave. 

[Van]

The two things Cary mentioned are exactly what I was thinking of.

I've been saying for a while that it's the dream of content-providers (movie & TV studios, etc) to convert everyone to receiving content through a streaming model. No physical media as "middle man" (DVD disk; CD; etc). That would give the creators/distributors greater control over that material--much harder to illegally (or legally!) copy movies, music, etc. I am sensing everything will be streaming/cloud-based in the next few years.

And yes, publishing has changed dramatically in just the last 1-2 years. I just did a podcast about this last week, at RevolutionSF. Mass-market paperbacks are dying. But I'm seeing a change at the higher end, too: Just a year ago, the small press I own sold about 20 times as many trade paperbacks as e-books in a given month. As of January, we are selling about 40-50 times as many e-books a month as trade paperbacks. It's been astonishing.

It has been suggested that our SF-oriented books naturally reach a more tech-savvy crowd, and that that explains the sudden shift. We are putting out another football book in a few months, and I'm anxious to see if *that* audience buys it more in paperback or e-book.

--Van
www.whiterocketbooks.com

[Jennifer Walker]

As much as I adore cloud-based work processes and streaming media, my concern is with the viability of our current service providers for the Internet connections. As much as I adore Google Docs (er, Drive), if my connection goes down I'm dead in the water. Same with streaming media.

Where do the pundits (and I mean that complementary) see ISP services headed, as that seems to be the faulty lynch-pin in the system?

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Jennifer "Scraps" Walker

The Helper Monkey Network
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[Cary Preston]

Providers are already working around that problem through a hybrid approach. Google Docs has been offering limited offline access for a bit, and Apple has come up with a working solution via iCloud (if you don't mind restricting your activities to iWork software): the document is stored locally on whatever device created it and is continuously updated to the cloud to provide access from any other matched device (or for download from the iCloud.com site) in the same way that Photostream works. It won't be in full implementation for documents until Mountain Lion comes out this month, though. 

Native storage won't ever go away entirely, but as more devices trend to cloud storage and always-connected status providers will move (even if begrudgingly like AT&T) to fill that void. I'm hoping to see more bundling of IP services to reduce cost; I know that AT&T offers some now but companies like Comcast have no partnerships to do so and the entry cost to offering cellular network access is prohibitively high. I was happy to see New York start a cool initiative this week- some of those old payphones that are more of an eyesore than public service are being changed to wifi hotspots.