Thetownend.com

Ok, enough doom and gloom, lets change the subject.

THe other day I was watching something on tv and a song came on I liked the sound of, so I did the following steps:
Paused and rewound tv
Fetched iphone
Pressed play and played song again
Shazam'd it (and hence got title)
Bought said song on iphone via itunes

(said song was you and me by nero incidentally)

Now, this thread isnt about me me me and all my technology by any stretch, I am way behind technology wise on many fronts, but my point is this.
All these advances have happened for me in the last 12 months or so.
It is fooking frightening how far and fast things are moving on, the way I deal with music and films now is completely differnt to what it used to be.
Where the fook will we be and what will we be doing in 12 months time, let along 10 yrs.

Shazam is quality

Shazam and soundhound are great aren't they.

Think back to as 'recently' as 1995. The internet was just going mainstream. Fast modems could offer you 56K. Mobile phones were big and the battery lasted barely 9-5. DVD was in its infancy so VHS was the preferred storage device. TVs were CRT and took up a fair bit of space. The PS1 had just been released.

Technology moves pretty fast. I think the laws of diminishing return have to come into play at some point, the technology advance will slow sometime.  But in 15 years time who knows what we will have.

I am still waiting for hoverboards though.

it is amazing when you look back and compare with now at how fast technology has moved.

the next 15 years will be exciting. we can compare back against the PS3, Iphone 4, Ipad 2 etc. But it's hard to imagine there being a leap forward like we've had from the very first mobile to the Iphone4 or the PS1 to the PS3 or 56k to 100mb.

This is effectively my job, albeit in my case focusing on how technology will enable manufacturing, but we have many other analysts looking at how technology will effect our daily lives in the future

My predictions...

expansion of personal marketing (think blade runner where advertising boards will reference you by name and display products that appeal to you personally) - smart phones 'know' your location, loyalty cards know what you like, combine the two and next time you're in Sainsbury's you get message's on your phone telling you about offers on products you have bought previously

Phones have developed, shrunk and are now at a size that is deemed practical (even though they are slightly bigger than the tiny Nokia's that were around 5 years ago) - next obvious phase is 4g and true streaming media but off all the things that will effect us I believe the biggest will be not the devices themselves but the powering of them - the biggest limitation of smart phones is the operational time - a lot of focus is going into battery technology and efficient processors - imagine a smart phone powered by kinetic energy, each time you move the phone the movement adds charge to the battery so as you walk the tiny movements are continually charging the battery.  

The cost of power is rising so finding ways to use less power and alternative methods of recharging will become important - OLED technology requires far less energy to display a picture - expect to see far greater use in smart phones and TV's over the next 12-24 months.

15 years from now?

Car's that drive themselves is a definite possibility - Google are investing millions into the technology. Why? because getting from A-B is often time that is unproductive - create a car that drives you and you can spend more time surfing the net, working or watching porn online.

Holographic TV is a real prospect as is web enabled glasses that allow you to navigate and type using eye movement (think advanced Steven Hawkin technology)

Bionics - absolute possibility by combining nano technology with stem cell research

....

Oh and one other thought...

George Orwell's 1984 demonstrated overt surveillance governing the lives of everybody... by 2019 marketing surveillance will make this seem like child's play.  Almost every item of value that you purchase will have embedded software that will send updates back to the manufacturer on your life pattern which will then be used to develop products of the future.  This in itself doesn't seem too scary but you pretty much wouldn't be able to sneeze without someone knowing where, when, length of sneeze strength of sneeze, what make of tissue you used (if at all), who was stood next to you, what clothes you were wearing, the weather conditions... and the list goes on...

So, as a bi-product, does this make the world a safer place or a more dangerous, less private one?

You could argue a safer one, with embedded software you could create an iPhone 8 app that is associated to say your shoes and if they detect they are more than 10 feet apart from each other they send a notification to a friend or Police that something is potentially wrong or sounds an audible alarm to warn you that you have left it behind.

You could also argue a more dangerous one - this personal data has to be stored somewhere and, with cloud computing becoming the more obvious solution to many data storage issues, a lot of data about you is being stored somewhere in the virtual world. How do you know this is in safe hands? what happens if someone bad can access it?  Well, they would know exactly where you are and what you are doing. They would also know where you are not and when the best time is to burgle your home or steal your car but then the chances are they are carrying something that has embedded software themselves and would pinpoint them within the area of the theft at the time...

Was reading about this the other day - sounds amazing - although have to wonder how much data they can potentially obtain as if anyone else is like me, they save everything on their iphone!

It didn't stop Google trying to obtain everybody's wifi information whilst compiling street view (knowing which unsecured wifi routers are in each area is very useful to someone like them) so don't be naive in thinking that there isn't some 'reputable' firm like google harvesting the data from you're iPhone right now...

so do you think there will be big advancements in technology that is actually useful to humans, most of the advances seem to be in entertainment and pleasure products, but you mentioned cars that drive themselves and whatnot this is obviously a more practical use of technology, are there other advances being made?

I guess the different means of power is obviously a big one, battery powered cars etc.

Read about Ray Kurzweil on this stuff.

something i did find quite interesting which will enable humans, well surgeons in particular, is a technology developed by Nvidia (Graphics Card manufacturers) who have been able to create software which aids motion compensated surgery.
which i find quite amazing

http://www.deskeng.com/virtual_desktop/?p=2533

Was that the sequel?

You mean 3D holographic TV? A few tech companies have already patented ideas for that.

Augmented reality will be the next big thing IMO. As soon as the tech is perfected and the glasses can be made smaller, it's possibilities are endless. Imagine having a PC without the need for a monitor, mouse or keyboard.

 Boy's toys....does it make us any happier?  No.  Does it improve the quality of life? Debatable.

Just because you old folk can't come to grips with new technology ;)

I'm surprised you can cope with getting on the TEF...

[url width=400 height=595]http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/silver%20surfer.jpg[/url]

We'll be wanking into buckets of sawdust and in 2-3 years in most major cities there will be free Wi-Fi and mobile services will start to run more and more over IP instead of GSM.  Eventually development of GSM technology such as 4G will disappear over time.

Fixed home lines will shortly converge with your mobile so you have one number or two numbers and use either regardless.

All of which seems self-evident except for I'm not sure where the sawdust fits in? Will we have to do this to power the phones?

I think I alluded to that further in the post using a simpler description

Think it's a Rikki Hunt idea...

And as luck would have it, he's got a bumper supply of premium sawdust he could sell us....

Spunk powered gadgets - it's the future Davis.

I’m interested to see exactly how much free Wi-Fi starts to affect traditional GSM operators over the next few years as it potentially opens the mobile market to anyone with a cheap voice interconnect service.  

That's right, disenfranchise the Jaffas

Anti sementic.

Is that concrete Batch?

Whilst free wifi is possible it is unlikely to ever be truly free... You will pay for it in edvertising on your phone and it's this form of monetisation that carriers will tap into and why marketing intelligence will become so important

No, it was a prince freak hacking the title of my copy on kindle and an example of how our minds can be twisted by technology

Wireless device charging will be around soon(ish).

That stuff freaks me out!

It's already here...

Yeah, witricity is already here, it's just not ready for application in the home yet.

Can't wait for it though. Bye bye wires, bye bye OCD!

Yeah, I meant for the consumer.

You can get those grid things that you just put stuff on to charge it, no wires needed.

Like Wildcharge. I don't really see the point of them, only if you're charging loads of stuff at once I guess.

What is going to be brilliant is when I can walk into a building and my phone, laptop or pocket vibrator will charge itself without me having to do anything.

And myGrid which has little adaptors in the gadget case, still contact, but no wires.