Current Technologies

5 Current Technologies That Will Shape Our Future

1. Smartphones

Smartphones, like today’s iPhone, are as much a computer as they are a communication device. Besides having a great multi-touch interface and fast CPU, they contain sensors like cameras, gyros, accelerometers, GPS and compasses. They allow us to calculate and communicate anytime, anywhere.

In the future, they’ll evolve into personal mobile computers (PMC). Assuming that Moore’s law holds true, mobile CPUs with near super-computing speeds will be entirely possible. The number, accuracy and performance of sensors will grow, the combination of which will give the user a very powerful sense of her surroundings.

Your PMC will move to your wrist and take the place of your watch. (Microsoft had this vision with SPOT, but the technology came too early and was too limited.) The device’s display will not need to be your primary user interface (UI), so the PMC can be a small, diverse fashion statement like today’s watches. The primary UI will become personal peripherals, like information glasses and headsets. You’ll be able to interact naturally in a visual and audible way.

2. 3G and 4G Wireless Broadband
“How many bars do I have?” We’re frequently checking smartphone signal strength when wirelessly browsing the Internet and retrieving our email. Today’s 3G and 4G networks provide acceptable but intermittent connections and okay speed. This must change.

The deployment of today’s cell towers is a slow, deliberate and costly affair. In the future, deployment will be faster and more organic. Wireless providers will likely credit homeowners’ monthly bills for having devices like AT&T’s 3 G Micro Cell at home. With enough of these devices in place, even remote neighborhoods and towns will enjoy solid wireless access to the cloud.

3. Cloud Computing
There is certainly a lot of hype around cloud computing, but few technology providers have done a good job explaining or providing services that are relevant to the average person.

The two most notable exceptions are Google and Apple. Google Docs is arguably the first cloud-based app that gained mainstream traction. Apple’s i Cloud looks like it has the potential to cross the chasm and move the early majority into the cloud.

With tomorrow’s cloud computing, all of our personal information and the applications will be available to us at any time. Whether you’re editing a text document while riding a train, or adjusting a sales proposal at a client’s office, you’ll never be without the information needed to complete a task.

4. Eye-Tracking / Voice Commands
Today’s eye-tracking technology from companies like Tobii is used heavily in usability research. Where are people looking on a webpage, and how do their eyes move around it? Voice recognition products like Dragon from Nuance are used extensively when transcribing voice to text.

In the future, this technology will be combined with augmented reality (AR) to create a near-invisible and natural user interface for your PMC. We’ll call these information glasses. The object you’re viewing and the words you speak will be transmitted to your PMC, which will interpret your intent, find and compute and then transmit the results back to you visually and/or verbally. Look at a restaurant and say, “Do they have good salads there?” A moment later, you will hear the highest-rated salads, communicated via your information glasses either by visual display or audible voice, depending on what you are doing at that moment, like driving.

5. Social Networking
Social networking as it exists today on Facebook and Twitter requires users to do extra work to extract value. We must diligently manage our community of friends and followers, and weed through all the tweets and posts for those that pique our interest. In the future, the management of our network will be dynamic and automated; the system will make and break connections to ensure maximum value. As updates are posted, for example, only those relevant to you at the present moment will make it through the filter to your PMC.