In 20 years our technology will reach a level of
personalization that will enhance every moment of our
lives. We’ll be more physically comfortable with the
furniture we sit on and the products we hold; only the
most relevant and personalized information from
friends and family will reach us; and our movement in
the digital world will be near telepathic.
I foresee several of today’s technologies as relevant to
this particular vision of the future. They will evolve to
not only be more powerful, but also more integrated
with one other.
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.
Your PMC and personal peripherals will become your
interface to every other computer, device and machine
you interact with. The only UI you will ever need to
know is that of your PMC.
Not only will your personal peripherals allow you to
explicitly interact with the digital (and physical) worlds,
but they’ll also provide subtle cues to your
subconscious. While looking through your information
glasses , a restaurant might emit a subtle, warm blue
tint because it was reviewed positively by patrons. It
will feel like a good place to eat. Are your spidey
senses tingling?
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 3G MicroCell at home. With
enough of these devices in place, even remote
neighborhoods and towns will enjoy solid wireless
access to the cloud.
So in the future, personal mobile computers (PMCs)
won’t even have signal strength indicators; wireless
access to the cloud will be pervasive and ultra-fast at
all times.
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 iCloud
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. Augmented Reality
Today’s augmented reality (AR) will add floating text,
symbols and 3D virtual images to a camera’s video
feed to make it more informative or entertaining.
Numerous iPhone apps like Layar provide local
information. Tissot watches and Olympus cameras
have webpages that let you experience virtual products.
And Lego has a great point of sale display that lets
kids virtually play with the toy inside the box they’re
holding. You can even use AR glasses to experience
this technology in a slightly more immersive, first-
person point of view.
In the future, AR glasses will project images onto the
lenses using components that are barely noticeable.
Your PMC will display information on your glasses
much like a heads-up display (HUD), for instance, with
symbols projected along the periphery. Look at a
symbol and say something, and your PMC will act on
the broadcasted message. Your PMC will also do a
great job of minimizing the information displayed,
limiting it to just what you need to know now.
6. 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.
Social networking may also become more integrated
with other components of our digital lives, like our
calendars, address books and GPS. When going to a
scheduled meeting with someone, you may be
presented with recent and relevant posts that person
made on Facebook to help prepare for small talk.
Image courtesy of Flickr , escapedtowisconsin
7. CAD, 3D Printing & Custom Products
Computer-aided design (CAD) products are popular
among engineers, designers and students for creating
3D product designs. But the software is often too
advanced for the average consumer to design his or her
own products.
In the future, however, CAD will allow the average
consumer to design his own custom products that are
both manufacturable and affordable. Consumers will be
able to use simple software to combine predefined,
configured product features. They’ll be able to
personalize further by adding their own color palate,
pictures, shapes and even personalized sizing.
3D Printing (3DP), like that from Dimension, is another
amazing technology that will take a 3D CAD model and
“print” layers of material, one on top of the previous, to
produce a real physical model. It can create almost any
shape, even those that can’t be made by traditional
manufacturing. The downside today is that the process
is slow, costly, and often doesn’t produce parts strong
enough for real world use. The technology in this
industry is always advancing, and in the future, it will
be able to produce robust parts quickly and cheaply.
3D Printing in an industrial setting is often referred to
as “additive manufacturing.” As products are ordered
online, versatile manufacturing stations controlled by
robots will quickly and affordably crank out custom-
manufactured products. The robots will be controlled
by process software that will be integrated with future
CAD.
Online custom products are slowly gaining popularity.
You can go to NIKEiD and design your own customized
Nike shoes. The downside is that they are pricey and
will take several weeks to get to you. Other websites
such as ShapeWays and Ponoko are useful for many
DIYers. The mass market appeal of sites like these will
grow in the future (when combined with the simpler
CAD described above) with fast, flexible and
inexpensive manufacturing.
8. Autonomous Cars
Today’s cars are packed with a variety of driver
assistance aids. You can get most any car today with
GPS, but luxury car makers such as Audi, BMW,
Mercedes and Volvo provide a whole lot more. Options
now include active cruise control, lane departure
warning/intervention, traffic info and blind spot
warning. These cars can even brake on their own to
avoid hitting an obstacle or pedestrian in front of the
vehicle.
A few years ago, DARPA ran its Grand Challenge , in
which teams competed to race fully autonomous cars
that drove themselves. They were tested in off-road,
highway and urban settings. Some of these competitors
later went to work for Google’s autonomous vehicle
efforts.
In the future, we will have autonomous cars, where
driver control will be optional. Even though the thought
might seem scary, the cars will be safer than any car
you’d pilot yourself. They will constantly evaluate their
current environment with multiple sensors -- and
they’ll never get distracted by text messages.
Will they be complex to operate? Not at all. Your PMC
will act as a user interface to any device, including
your autonomous car. It will know your schedule and
address book, so when you get into your car one hour
before an appointment, the car’s GPS will instantly
display the destination address and arrival time. All
you have to do is say, “Let’s go!”