What's next?

The Kindle thread on the Sports and News board got me thinking. "What's next?" really is fascinating to think about because it's so hard to know. The iPod was introduced 10.5 years ago. There have been a dozen fairly radical different offshoots of it in that decade, and now they're all nearly extinct.

I got my first cell phone probably 11 years ago, after my first year at college. I had a landline as a freshman and haven't had one since.

So, what will be different in 10 years, at least speaking of tech we use in our daily lives? Have we been through the great wave of change or are we still in the middle of it? Was the cell phone and the internet that great change, and everything since has been a refinement? I can't imagine anything will change my daily life in the next decade the way cell phones and the internet did in the last, but, well, it's certainly possible.

So, what will? Here is some low hanging fruit, and maybe one wild idea:

-- It goes without saying internet will be many times faster. With the Google Fiber project and that kind of stuff, I think even today's speeds will look incredibly pokey. There are a lot of politics and shitty cable companies than can stand in the way of this, though. It's crazy to think not everyone is caught up yet. I first got cable internet 12 years ago, at college, but my parents, who live in a rural but populated area near a large city, still can't get it. They rely on a horrible satellite service that has slow speeds and a very restrictive usage cap, and it's their only option this side of dial up.

-- The first time I plugged my computer into a TV to watch a downloaded movie was in 2005. I had a friend in high school in the late 90s who downloaded Star Wars Episode 1 frame by frame. It took him about six months. I bet in 10 years, services (maybe Netflix. Maybe Amazon) will have brought together all the meaningful parties and that virtually every TV show ever filmed and every movie ever made are available nearly instantly. That's another easy one because tons of it already is, but I can definitely see a day soon when it ALL is. Again, there are a lot of corporate concerns that could slow this way down.

-- One device to rule them all. Or, at least a few fewer devices to rule them all. There's enough of a difference right now between e-readers, laptops and tablets that I would use them each, if I had them all. (I have an e-reader and a laptop). Those lines have blurred a ton in the last few years. Surely that will continue. I think an e-ink solution will develop that merges at least the e-reader and the tablet to become the ultimate entertainment device. Laptops will probably survive for more serious tasks, though I bet desktops continue to slip away. I think a phone will always be somewhat separate as well. There's a screen size problem that will never go away, unless....

-- Some sort of wearable computer that's cool, not nerdy. The augmented reality programs will make it awesome for using everything from Yelp to GPS directions. Integration between Facebook and something like Yelp will be much further along and all be sewn in there. Maybe you can watch movies and TV on it through a computer contact lens or something? A device/phone in your pocket broadcasting to your eye? Maybe that's more than 10 years away, but maybe not.

 

Dinner.

 

We need to answer this question before I start my next thread:

 

A weekend off, some beer, some Mexican food, and the Kentucky Derby.

 

Flying cars and monorails.

And, seriously, Apple will own Visa and Google will own MasterCard and our phones will be our wallets.

 

Whatever is next...why just look to the porn industry of course. They always are on the cutting edge of technology.

 

Driverless cars that can automatically maintain optimal spacing between each other. A mixed blessing in that it takes away the pleasure of controlling the car yourself, but opens up incredible advances in traffic management and logistics.

 

I thought about that but didn't put it down because I'm not sure it will be around in 10 years. I wonder what kind of infrastructure upgrades would be required, if any. Can you have one car on the highway driven by GPS if the next 10 aren't? Is there a problem if one's driven by a human and 10 by GPS? I don't know. I agree, it will definitely happen some day, but since I have no idea as to some of the engineering and science behind it, I don't know when.

I'd cut my work time in half if I could type and manage photos as I commuted to and from games. Can't wait.

 

California is on the eve of dropping $100 billion + on high speed rail...and I read a well-researched article the other day that noted driverless cars really are on the horizon, and within 20 years people will be zipping back and forth between SF and LA in them, thus making the HSR a very expensive public transit boondoggle.

 

This is definitely the answer. Seems to be a real push to get this to be a reality right now.