On The Brink: The New Technology that will Make Desktop Computing Seem So BC

If you've been watching the new technology market lately, then you know that we're in the midst of a major consumer product upsurge by way of e-reader technologies and plastic tablet computer capabilities. But, what may be less obvious is the vision behind these technologies and what they mean for the future of our world. I’ve been following the conversation, although from somewhat of a distance, over the course of the past few years and have several observations/predictions. 

First: the term "smart growth" is about to reinvent itself. Today when we think of smarter cities, communities and workplaces, we think of doing things better than before but the kind of thing that most of us consider “smart” is about to be old hat. Innovations in the technology realm are leading the way for a true re-envisioning of the physical and material landscape. 

Second: Faster, thinner computers is no longer where it’s at; instead I think that the internet bubble is about to burst in a way never imagined. I predict that the way that we compute and communicate via “online” technologies will change drastically and these technologies will become more readily and unobtrusively integrated into our day-to-day affairs. This whole concept of typing and pressing buttons is fading, the world itself is becoming more interactive. 

Third: Computers as we now conceive them will become obsolete in the next 15-20 years (maybe a bit longer, but not much). We will move away from online “chat capabilities” via a text screen and move towards interactive real-time capabilities that sense movements and can capture images in a format strikingly close to the real thing. Correspondingly, the global network will become increasingly flat in the advent of new technology, as smartboard-type interfaces will make long-distance interaction more realistic and move us more and more towards a paperless economy. 

Fourth: The notion of “privacy” will become a major concern and we will have to rethink the way we lock down personal data, “browsing” information, etc. 

Microsoft highlights some of the possibilities well in their 2019 Future Vision series:

A few reasons I think we’re moving here: 

• Advances in e-ink capabilities 
• Increased mobility of technology and demand for such mobility 
• Touch screen capabilities of new products on the market 
• The introduction of Apps (imagine Google Apps not for your phone, but for the physical world) 
• Vast improvements in search capabilities of internet browsers 
• The release of “reality mining” and “augmented reality” prototypes 
• The social media revolution of the past 5-6 years. We want a more connected world, but the current technologies don’t quite measure up to the “global village” concept envisioned by Marshall McLuhan. People want more, and the developers-candidly-want to make more money. 
• This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8), which I’ve posted before, was remarkably spot-on with only a few exceptions. 

Think this is crazy? Well, Neil Gershenfeld predicted it over ten years ago in his book When Things Start to Think: 

All along the coming interface paradigm has been apparent. The mistake was to assume that a computer interface happens between a person sitting at a desk and a computer sitting on the desk. We didn’t just miss the forest for the trees, we missed the earth and the sky and everything else. The world is the next interface. 

A more technologically-integrated mode of reality isn’t just in the movies anymore. Gershenfeld and others at MIT’s Media Lab are turning ideas into reality with some of their new creations. Their research has been featured at numerous TED conferences. Similarly, touch screens and prototypes for the kinds of technologies shown in Microsoft’s video are cropping up all over the place. The question today is not “will this happen” but rather, “how will we choose to live in light of these new advances?" 

Here are a couple more videos to get your mental juices flowing further: 

• CES 2009: Intel 3D Touch-screen Display
• Esquire's Augmented Reality Issue: A Tour
• Microsoft Surface - The Possibilities