As futurists, we traditionally describe a fanciful home-scape of push-button perfection when asked to expound on the glory that is the yet-to-be. I hope to avoid this masturbatory pitfall, and instead offer some realistic predictions on what we should expect to be doing in 2015. A snapshot of what I consider to be the sure-fire expectations of this near-future. And I suspect they will be somewhat surprising to many in the tech-sphere.
The Death of the PC
In this case I am defining the PC as that which is intended for computation for computation's sake. The downfall of household computers can be traced back, in essence, to the dawn of the internet. The PC market exploded with the ease of the first real web browsers, and today the primary reason the average bloke buys one of these hunks of plastic is to surf the web. The sooner the umbilical core to the PC is cut, the better.
Users tend to be very goal centric. They don't see the usefulness of a multipurpose computer. They see the value of being able to send granny photos of the kids. They see the value of being able to strengthen old bonds on Facebook. The very moment they realize they can do all of this without a computer, is the moment we see the PC market start to dry up. And before you wonder when that will begin, take a look around.
Recently Apple has announced their iPad, and my first solid prediction is it will be at least 10 times more successful than any other person thinks. Perhaps 100 times more successful than the average guess. The reasons should be self-evident, but let's run them down for all the dumb techies out there:
- It already has everything most people need.
- It has a simple interface that almost anyone can use.
- Using it isn't limiting like prior efforts into this market have been.
Before you blow your stack, Dilbert. I don't mean it isn't limiting from computational standings. I mean it doesn't have a lame WAP browser, a tiny screen, or a crap interface. The iPad isn't for you, mister coder, it is for mister "I just wanna read that story about toads on Wikipedia." Guess who there are more of? Hint, it isn't you, techie.
In 5 years, my friends, we will all have 3 types of devices: A media device, (or 12) a semi-portable device, (like an iPad) and a portable device. (like an iPhone) Each of these has a specific range of uses.
The non-portables?
At home we will have a variety of dumb-terminal devices, each hooked into the internet to give us access to the rich media we demand. The cable and telephone companies will be on their way out, but not entirely converted over as yet. Your TV will still get cable, but it will also let you watch YouTube and if they get their act together, Hulu. Where today we see all-in-one PC/TVs, in 5 years you'll just see seamless access to internet content.
We don't need no stinking internet enabled toasters or ovens, but we will see the first of true 'smart' appliances. That dumbass internet fridge will finally become useful, because RFID (the item in credit and id cards that lets you tap rather than swipe them) has finally become commonplace. However, only that cool neighbor of yours will have one. You know the guy, the one with the electric snow-blower, the bastard.
Unlike today, many of your computer-controlled devices will function more like your old non-computer devices did. If you are up on the times you may even have a bathroom scale that syncs with your fridge, your credit, and the cloud to push dieting advice to your portable and semi-portable devices.
WTF is a Semi-Portable Device?
This is what your computer used to be. It is what laptops could have been if they weren't so friggin hard to deal with. This device will bear a striking resemblance to the iPad, it might even be called an iPad still. The house of the future will no-longer need remotes. Yes, the bane of every non-techie will all but vanish. They will be vestigial organs, kept around merely for the few people left who don't control their media with a semi-portable.
These devices will be at least an order of magnitude faster than the current soon-to-be iPad. This will allow it to switch between applications seemingly instantaneously, which will be the ultimate replacement for real multitasking. The TV viewer of tomorrow will pick up his semi or full portable device and select Comedy Central, or the Fred Channel, or play a movie off netflix without having to know anything more than what his network is called... And that only the first time.
It is rather humorous how techies see something like the iPad and assume it only has portable uses. That it is the device you bring with you everywhere. And perhaps some people may do this. However, the vast majority of people will simply replace their home computer with it. After all, who needs one? These devices do all the things we really expect of a modern computer. It accesses the internet.
Mobility
Speculation here is typically all about implants and brain interfaces. I expect to see the first of these devices by 2015, but I also expect most people to think you are crazy to have one. More common will be truly smart phones. They will begin to take on more roles and eventually replace our entire wallet. Within 5 years I expect to see the first proximity key app for telling your car's push-button starter that you are who you say you are. You will swipe your phone at the pump and in stores.
The near future will begin to be more and more about reduction. The iPad will cause the tech field as a whole to really sit up and take notice of who they should be designing for. And it will shift. Easy will be the new selling point. New versions will start to have less features, organized in better ways. Your device will take pictures, that will automatically be uploaded to all your photo albums, based on which ones the device has witnessed you log into. Not just the browser will remember your password, the phone will and it will only ask if you want to push it live or keep it private.
What about Porn?
Futurists often forget to talk about the impact sex has on a population. I won't make this mistake. By 2015 you will be far more likely to meet your wife online than in person. Dating sites like OK Cupid are breaking interesting new ground in mobile dating, and location awareness is just around the corner. In Japan, location aware sex services have been around for years, where matching potentials are forwarded to you by text message. In 5 years, we'll be walking in the mall and be alerted when our perfect match is near. We'll be aware of all their desires and interests before we meet them, and the system will be able to deeply search their photos to decide if they are even our type.
Pornography will be completely split between instantaneous amateur novelty, and AAA quality adult entertainment. The fist will feed users with exactly their kinks in a nearly endless stream of micro-payment or advertisement-centric audio-visuals. The latter will make the 3D TV market explode, make great strides in teledildonics and telepresence, and be the major technological impetus for serious holographic research. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the first car-cost sex android by 2015.
::Update:: A few people have pointed out Roxxxy. This is an interesting first pass.
But what won't we see?
No flying cars. No real advancement into alternative fuels. No nanobots. No human-intelligence AI. However, on this last point, we should be very close. We might even have laboratory AI of a human intellect, but it will be at that point merely academic.
Sadly, we still won't have home robots. The best you can hope for is a Roomba that can go up stairs and can understand what pets are.
Voice/Gesture control are cumbersome. Anyone who has used either before knows this, unfortunately Hollywood loves this crap. The best interface is none at all, and we will see a lot of that. Next best is simple, relaxed, in-lap or desk-top controls. The mouse has lasted so long because you need not lift your hand to use one, and yet it offers great accuracy.
If you listen to the buzz these days you'd expect everything to have a screen, and everything to be covered in ads. I am predicting a reduction in screens. Our semi-portable will be able to read-out all the details of all our devices, so your fridge need not have a screen. All other screens will be TVs, however, they might end up very large and very high def. In 2015, your TV will be at least 4000 pixels wide.
Augmented reality will not be a really viable option until you can wear the system contained in a pair of glasses as light as the norm for glasses today. Even then, the vast majority of people won't have them. It won't really take off until cybernetic implants are common-place. I don't expect that to happen by 2015. What I do expect to see on this front is augmented reality based ad installations in very public places. I also expect to see visual search, a form of augmented reality, to explode in our portables. Google Goggles already enables you to learn what a place is from a photo, expect to see this blossom, but don't expect to see it all the time.
Final thoughts
The near future is going to be very interesting. We are just now about to launch into a new age of usability in our technology. All we need to do is continue to demand these kinds of devices from manufacturers and they will deliver. Don't accept feature bloat. Voice your desires and they will be fulfilled. The internet will become truly ubiquitous for the majority of the population by 2015. Everyone will be online, with ultra-fast connections, from everywhere, at all times. This will shape the way we relate to products, people, and companies. It will be an age of instantaneous consensus. You will be able to easily research any item, any price, any provider and make the best choices. This power will alter how companies relate to the public. It will force transparency into the system.
It may even get the Government out of the stone age.
Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 8:50PM