I am thinking especially of entertainment and home appliances? What can we expect that will be widely affordable? Voice-recognition ? Virtual-reality? 3-D cinema (something better and more convenient than today’s) ?
Also are there good web-sites which deal with interesting technologies which are likely to be mass-produced in the next few years?
The first paragraph is perhaps a better fit for GD, but this would be the one I think about more.
I wouldn’t look for any substantial changes in what you find at home by 2007. Things may be a little smaller, and a little faster. But unlikely to a degree that any significant thresholds will be crossed. The unfortunate incidents at Bell Labs, which came to light last week, is one reason for pessimism… it might be more difficult to get research funding for a lot of the super-cool stuff they had been working on.
Second, I think we have reached something of a plateau. We have the internet, we have some pretty amazing computers in many homes, we have DVD’s, we have cell phones. The public, in this highly shitty economy, might very well ask: “Why should I shell out for another gadget when I am (will soon be) out of a job?”
The question might very well be, “Can you think of anything else that a cash-strapped public would be willing to pay for?”
Well, voice-recognition is available and affordable now on your computer.
In five years, expect voice-recognition on Palm-sized devices; the ability to dictate and have it send out the results as email; the ability to use it to answer phone calls and transcribe the conversation as a text file. (=beginning of end for the regular telephone)
About the economy, the recession or slowdown is unlikely to last more than 1-2 years if past experience is any guide. So I don’t think it would necessarily be a big concern for a roll-out of tech products in say 2007.
"Well, voice-recognition is available and affordable now on your computer. "
What kind of voice recognition software packages are you talking about. Does it just recognize simple commands or can it take down dictation? How accurate is it?
What about PC’s that can talk .>s that likely in a five year hoirzon?
IBM’s Via Voice and Dragon’s Naturally Speaking are specifically designed to take down dictation in various programs, with the De Luxe versions also recognizing instructions to tab to the next cell or create a new record or make a chart or open the presentation wizard, stuff like that. You have to train them to recognize your voice and you have to proofread afterwards, but it’s as accurate as handwriting recognition on things like Palm Pilots, and within shooting range of the accuracy of mediocre typists.
For simple instructions (NOT dictation), the MacOS does that for free.
My Mac can talk right now. Eudora tells me if I have errors, repeats back what I’m replying to, and reads the whole email to me if I want; iCab (the browser I’m using right now) will speak whatever I select (I just had it read your post to me; you misspelled ‘horizon’ so it read it as ‘HOYer-zun’); the OS itself will read error messages and prompts if you wish; my Text Editor, BBEdit, will read anything on command; FileMaker will perform the “Speak” command (literal text or field contents) in any of its scripts on the Mac; and so on. Any program that chooses to can implement the speech function of the OS. Nisus Writer even lets you encode text in any of several languages, and the OS knows the phonics of speaking any of them, so if I want it to read your post back to me as if it were French or German or Italian, it will do so. (Much more accurate when dealing with actual French or German or Italian text, of course).
HDTV should become popular by then (at least the manufacturers and the US government think so)
even if they’re not HDTV, large flat screen TVs will become more affordable and popular
so will LCD computer displays (although CRT’s still have some advantages)
there will be better cellphone service, and there will be less and less difference between cellphones and PDAs
there will be more wireless networking, wireless peripherals etc.
personal video recordeers (like TiVo) will become common
there will be more anti-copying protection on consumer audio/video devices, but DVD-ROMs will get more popular as people find ways around the protection
hopefully one of the various flash memory devices (CompactFlash etc.) will become the standard, and will become much cheaper
PCs will start to be sold with out a floppy drive but with other removable storage devices, hopefully including flash memory devices (THAT should drive the device prices down)
Yeah, my girlfriend’s Sony PC came stock with flash memory reader built in, I thought that was pretty cool.
I think the biggest difference is going to come from vastly increased amounts of physical storage memory.
With lots and lots of memory, a lot of devices become practical. Pocket-sized $200 multimedia devices that fit in your pocket and can hold an hour of DVD-quality video and an almost unlimited number of still pictures and MP3’s. You’ll be able to buy cheap disposable cameras that take 20 pictures and then spit a little memory stick out that can be plugged into your univeral memory port at home. With cheap memory, there will be music videos in cereal boxes and video games in happy meals. You’ll have a personal memory device on your keychain that can carry your photo albums, copies of all your personal documents and work documents, a novel or two, a digital signature protecting it all.
And it surely has a slot for a Memory Stick too, being Sony, and all.
I’ve got both on my Sony PictureBook. Until the price comes down on Memory Sticks, I’m not getting one. They’re cute though.
In 5 years…
Windows 2004 will ship. There will be bugs.
In 5 years…
Windows 2004 will ship. There will be bugs.
The Tablet PC is coming out in November, and even as a first generation device it kicks ass. http://www.pcworldmalta.com/specials/acer/
This will revolutionize data collection. Imagine that you can now throw away all your notebooks. Go to a meeting, take notes, and it is already stored as data. Either as a photo or converted to text. That will save anyone who works with handwriting and PC’s a huge amount of time everyday. This is gonna be one very successful product launch.
[hijack]
I had a dream about a week ago where I was in a store looking for music. Instead of compact discs it was stored on some sort of microchip, about the size of a domino. The chip just snapped into the player device, somewhat like a Lego brick. I don’t know whether such technology would ever be developed or would be practical, though. Such a medium would be smaller and be virtually resistant to scratches and other forms of wear-and-tear to which even CDs are vulnerable.
[/hijack]
It is pretty certain that HD will be common in that amount of time. Content is rolling out for HD very quickly now and it is getting pretty worthwhile to have it.
Most of the big network primetime is in HD now. For example, here is tonights line up.
ABC
Eight Simple Rules For Dating My Daughter
According To Jim
Life With Bonnie
NYPD Blue
CBS
JAG
The Guardian
Judging Amy
NBC
In Laws (two back to back episodes)
Frazier
Hidden Hills
Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno
WB
Smallville
Pretty much all day HD shows on Discovery HD theater, HD.net, HBOHD, and ShowTimeHD.
Monday night football will be in HD soon, ABC will do the superbowl and the Stanley Cup finals in HD this season.
In April or March, ESPN is coming out with ESPNHD that will mirror the primary ESPN channel.
I was out of town, could you please expand? (on the incidents, not you yourself)
My neighborhood Radio Shack salesman told me starting next year PCs will have an internal Cable Modem.
Any day now DaimlerChrysler will release the new 5.7 Hemi, starting with full sized Ram Pick-ups and culminating with the Chrysler 300M (N?) and Dodge Charger.
New generations of camless engines wil have poppet valves actuated directly by electronic solenoids.
With gasoline/electric hybrids becoming more prevalent, gas turbines will make a come-back.
Camcorders will come with recordable DVDs.
In Medicine, artificial enzyme technology will enable doctors to provide an effective treatment for dissolving Beta-Amyloid plaques which destroy the brains of Altzheimer’s sufferers: a similar technique will be used for Bovine Spongiform and other prion-borne diseases.
The next wave of superconductors will have such a high critical transitional temperature they will be cooled with freon instead of liquid nitrogen, thus enabling devices to be integrated in household appliances and automotive applications.
Illegaly cloned children will begin being born outside of the USA.
After initial moral and ethical outrage, the children will be accepted as normal human beings, because they are.
New advances in paralysis treatment due to spinal cord injury will result from fetal stem cells implanted at the injury site.
The other day, I saw a “multimedia refrigerator.”
Don’t ask.
3DTV: Sharp Develops 3D LCDs, To Begin Mass Production Autumn – Doubles as a standard TV and no funny glasses required. Pixels from objects in the foreground are differentiated and sent out in two slightly different directions two create a stereo image when your sitting in the “sweet spot”
Hydrogen Fuel Cells: MicroFuel Cell will make the transition from the lab to a shipping product, integrated into devices, by late 2003 – Clean, renewable fuels for use in cars, homes, and consumer electronics will start making serious inroads in the energy market by 2007.
Audio spotlight: Audio Spotlights installed in Bibliothèque Nationale de France – Ultrasonic audio emitters that can direct a beam of sound like it were light. Currently in use in several places; the Dodge Maxcab concept truck has an audio spotlight system that lets each passenger listen to their own music source without headphones.
Electronic-ink: Companies on Track to Commercialize Ultra-Low Power Color Displays for Handheld Consumer Electronics in 2004- Inexpensive, flexible, ultra thin, low power displays that in some from will probally replace LCDs and even organic LEDs.
Tricorder:OQO UltraPersonal Computer- A full featured winXP computer with 10GB storage, 1GHz CPU, 256MB ram, and a color display, and it’s about the size of a deck of cards. Treo 270 available: PDA Cellphone combo. By 2007 I expect we’ll have very small devices that combine the functions of organizers, web/email, cell phone, music and video players, portable gaming, and anything else that runs on a computer.
Humanoid Robots: Sony Robotics- Sony’s on its fourth gen animal consumer entertainment robot and second gen humanoid, and the market is growing. Honda Robotics - Honda has been updating its general-purpose robot servant since the 80s
VR: Fully Immersive Spherical Projection System - “Allows a person to walk, run, and crawl smoothly and naturally around an arbitrarily large VR world by putting the user in a rolling sphere suspended on air bearings.” For use in gaming, military simulations and manufacturing engineering product and factory design projects. I don’t think they’ll be terribly common in 5 years, but VR will have more applications for the general public.
Some very cool things are in the pipeline but I’m always amazed at how quickly even the most fantastic new technologies get taken for granted by the general population. It’ll be no time at all before I hear someone say, “Your VR set doesn’t have hepatic touch sensations? How do you live?”
It’s not just to control the fridge, but to act as a central server for all household electronics. Many companies think it’s the perfect place to put a server/terminal - every household has one, it’s big already so additional electronics won’t make it noticeably larger, and the big front surface is a perfect place for an LCD touch screen. It would act as a central terminal to control various appliances including lights, security systems, entertainment systems, etc.