Technology
The Future of Technology is Integration
All you have to do is look around and almost everyone has a device in their ear, they’re either taking, texting, surfing or writing email. It’s not rocket science really, we are a mobile society, and we are getting more mobile by the minute. One of the challenges as I see it, how to get all this mobile technology into our natural way of living, to integrate it with everything we wear and everything we use. Ray Kurzweil is convinced that we will merge with technology someday, it will be in us rather than something we have to hold in our hands. Blue-tooth was supposed to be the beginning of the merge, but it’s cumbersome and still for the most part, FAILWHALE!
The traditional way we search has changed, you just have to run Google Goggles, point your mobile device video camera, take a picture, and it will auto-search for you. With the advancement of GEO Location you know longer need to carry a whack of tourist books to read about all the hot spots to visit on your vacation. Just run WikiTude and point your mobile device camera and read, here’s a demo:
Soon these technologies will be embedded in eye care, Bionic Contact Lenses, in the next 20 – 30 years or earlier, we will merge and become wireless devices. Ray Kurzweil has been predicting this for years, and we are now closer than ever to seeing the first generation.
Technology is changing very quickly, and much is being done to bring us closer to the Singularity, nanotechnology and stem cell research is already delivering low level experiments that prove we can merge and accept the technology within us.
The future of technology is integration, integration into everything, including humans. Someday in the not to far off future we will see the first Android, no not the phone, the artificial human. The next generation?
I’ll keep watching and sharing, but it raises many questions that can’t be answered. I keep wondering when these technologies are going to actually save us time, and make our lifes richer.
Until then, we still have to come together, collaborate and develop great new ideas on how to make technology solve problems like seamless commerce, simple toll booths, and an experiences that makes us come back for more. Sounds simple, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe when we actually do merge or integrate with technology will we find the technological Utopia.
In the mean time, let’s help one another and let’s solve the problems that need solving, while working on these integration projects at the same time.
iPad = Net Neutrality
Now that the iPad is available, many are jumping on the 1st version as a collectors item. Many are hailing the iPad as the future of computing, I don’t see it that way. I do see Apple’s iPad as a player in the Net Neutrality movement, it’s a closed system that forces you to play the Apple way. This gives Apple the opportunity to control what you can and can’t do with the iPad, what apps you can run, what you can look at on the Net and so on. It’s another mechanism of control which smacks the face of being an open opportunity. Yes the product will have an impact in many areas, and you will enjoy using it. The bigger picture is more bothersome in my humble opinion.
Firstly, it’s not a computer. Secondly, it’s more like a portal that can run apps on the cloud. Thirdly, the size is a problem for power users. I see the iPad as a distraction, mobile computing should be your focus if you are a developer of apps. You can argue that the iPad is a mobile device, but you would be hard pressed to convince me. With only 1.7 Billion people on the Internet to date and another 3.3 Billion to come over the next 3 – 5 years, the iPhone, BlackBerry & Android are more likely the tools of choice over the iPad.
There will be a niche for the iPad but that’s a far cry from being the future of computing. The future of computing is in the Nanotechnology field, we will merge with technology and become wireless devices in the next 30 – 40 years. I won’t be around to see it most likely but it will be very interesting to watch the progress.
I suspect I’ll pick up an iPad at some point, but it’s not the future of my computing. Soon you won’t be able to buy Desktop Computers (Towers), Laptop’s will slowly disappear in the next 5 years, leaving the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android & iPad? Microsoft just announced a phone as well, we’ll see more before it’s all said and done. Don’t bank on any one thing in the next 10 years, we are going to see more change than ever before, making it impossible to predict what is and isn’t possible.
Net Neutrality is all about control and Apple isn’t about to move beyond that model anytime soon by the looks of things. I am more interested in ecosystems that benefit all, not just a chosen few.
What do you think? Is the iPad the future of computing or is it a shortterm product making way for something better?
The Ambiquity of Technology
I’m thinking out loud today and thought I would share those thoughts with you. It’s been said we know the future, and we know what it looks like, but do we really? Yes we can predict with some accuracy what might happen, we just can’t describe the details, what color and what shape. Most people keep their head to the grind stone, look up once and awhile but for the most part they work till the bell rings. There are a chosen few who can’t stand the grind stone and have their heads in the clouds. I’m one of those characters, I love looking at the future, I love seeing what has yet to come and I love to share what most can’t see. It’s not that visionaries are better or smarter, they just see the world differently.
It’s not too hard to see that technology is getting more and more advanced and much smaller, we all embrace the use of handheld devices. Computers…towers and laptop’s will be a thing of the past in the next 5 years or so. Some of you remember the 1st Cell Phone, it was HUGE, today it’s almost the size of a credit card. If Ray Kurzweil is correct in his predictions, we will become wireless devices by merging with technology. Imagine that! Soon the Internet will be readily available anywhere in the world, it won’t matter which device you use, you will have access.
Embracing ambiguity is the secret sauce, and I mean embracing ambiguity in most things online, not just technology. Technology is growing exponentially, therefore we can’t really predict it’s advancement with accuracy. We can however see where technology is going, the deliverables are another issue. Like most things in life we can deduce them to an equation but we really can’t tell you in great detail or when it actually delivers. Visionaries can see what’s coming and they work hard to help you understand it, they just aren’t clear on when you can have it.
Creativity is a function of ambiguity really, we start with an idea, a concept and work within that ambiguity until it takes shape. If you invested in that ambiguity, that would suggest you have huge faith that it will come to fruition. Afterall, you wouldn’t risk without some form of faith that thing you are creating will actually deliver. So why is it so hard for most people to function in ambiguity? It’s a thing called security, we want some kind of quarranttee we won’t lose anything, but will gain everything. Technology is one of those rare fields where that’s possible and we are willing to accept almost every technilogical invention we lay our hands on. For some reason, most are comfortable here in the technology sector, even though the risks are the same in any other catagory or profession.
My point, we can’t possibly know the outcome of any one thing. We must dream big, and with that means we will have to risk big and create within the ambiguity until we have a clearer idea of what’s really going on with our creation. If we always played it safe, do you think we would be where we are today? I doubt it.
So, no matter what you do, whatever profession you happen to be in, try to embrace ambiguity and make it your friend. It won’t be easy, if you have ever been poor or had more month than money, you know what it means to not know where or how you were going to make the ends meet. That kind of ambiguity can turn you inside out, if you’re in Ministry or are required to raise funds in order to pay your bills, you know what I’m talking about.
I share alot about the future of technology, and the new open & free business model, and I need smart people to make sure the predicted progress is done right. Not only do I embrace ambiguity, and not everyone can, it is however easier to embrace the ambiguity of technology.
Are you a risk taker, are you comfortable with ambiguity? Is it the mystery that draws you or is it the anticipation of something new and cool to use?
How will you get Attention over the next 3 – 5 years
The World Is Coming – Will You Be Ready?
Back in 1994 the world was on fire for the World Wide Web, thinking then that we have finally found something that was going to change the way we worked and lived. Well, that’s partly true, we can do things we couldn’t do before, but it also didn’t save us time on a personal level. Technology merely allowed us to get more done in a day, we’re still working ridiculous hours each week. What happened, we didn’t see the crash that was coming. Today everyone is embracing Social Media as if it was 1994 all over again, bragging about those organizations that have embraced this environment and are having success. Many think that they have figured it out and will be the example for the rest of us. I believe we are wrong yet once again.
I’m 52 years old, allot has changed in my lifetime alone, Microsoft was birthed the year I graduated, 1975. I remember the introduction of Texas Instruments first handheld calculator, it was clunky and huge just like the first cell phones. Tape recording machines were as big as a suit case, 10 1/2 inch reels of tape spun forever. In the last 5 years, we have almost connected every person in North America via the Internet, 340 Million people use the Internet on this Continent. It’s amazing isn’t it, and yet we still don’t see what’s coming.
In the past 5 years Social Media has made it’s presence known, early adopters tried to tell us about it but we didn’t have time for it. Now we live on FaceBook and others like it, we can connect and talk with anyone who shows up. This phenomenon is also creating challenges for the Corporate world, we are moving away from a business model of control, that scares the daylights out of them. Control implies order, out of control means KAOS!
Today there are 1.7 Billion people on the Internet, that’s 25.6 % of the worlds population. Google is planning to send up 16 Satellites to provide free Internet access to parts of the world not connected today. Imagine if you will, if in the next 3 – 5 years, we were to have 5 Billion people connected on the Internet. How will the Internet look to you then, how are you using it now, will you change what you are doing, and how will we handle the problem of bandwidth? Imagine a day when Internet access is free, or covered in your property taxes. Have you spent time looking ahead, I do, and I can tell you, The world is coming, are you ready, will you be ready?
The Internet is moving away from computers as we know them, everything is going mobile, wireless handheld devices, and in the near future you will spend most of your time in Virtual Reality. The way we do business is changing yet once again, where a conversation is the sell, not the product or service. We are moving into a way of work where collaboration is required to build anything, we will coordinate and cultivate, we will change the way we organize our work. This broadband culture, click to get, access will come before ownership, the value of money will have to be re-determined and so on. We are slowly moving to an Open & Free Business Model, this will be a painful shift, it means the opposite of what we are doing now for the most part. Attention will be the new currency. Trust will be everything.
The World is Coming, Will You Be ready?