Sunday, September 28, 2008

Could these shocks become true?

Almost everyone has talked about the progress of technology and what's more to come. According to an article, " 10 future shocks for the next 10 years, " there are 10 potential changes that will occur within technology.
First, the high cost power and space is going to force the IT world to look at cloud services. It's almost like we just dump requests to the machine and get results. Second, by 2018, the human/machine interface will be ubiquitous, with people walking around giving voice/whisper commands and using ear bud audio and an eyeglass display that superimposes a machine-enhanced view of the world on ordinary vision. Nobody will notice that half the population is cyborg, because we'll get there one small step at a time, as iPhone belt-clip holders give way to the iBeltBuckle, iGlasses and iEarRings. Third, you come home to do a little work on the computer, and when you turn it on, it boots up in just a few seconds with no issues. You open e-mail and it comes up without your having to wait. In fact, this new OS doesn't even have an hourglass icon! For the rest of the night, your computer does everything you ask it to do, without any waiting or errors. Fourth, a memex device will continuously capture all audio and video from your daily experiences and upload that content to the cloud, where it will recognize your tasks, interesting information, and reminders -all searchable. A summary of important content from your day will be available through your PDA automatically. Fifth, the smart phone evolving into the preferred instrument for constant connectivity, with voice interaction, facial recognition, location awareness, constant video and sound input, and multi touch screens. Sixth, By 2018, automation will have hit enough labor sectors that while the GDP will continue to grow, fewer and fewer people will receive that growth in the form of wages. This will drive either social collapse or the establishment of a no-apologies welfare state. Seventh, one day you'll be able to see a picture of something or take a picture of something, and load it into a search engine and have it scan the pic, search, and tell you what it is. Eighth, in the next 10 years, perfect governmental tracking and monitoring of each human being will become reality. Ninth, devices that are always receiving information and displaying it on low-draw screens in the cover of phones and portable computers will meet networks that are always available to make your interaction with the information world more like a flowing stream. Tenth, by 2018 we will use technology to remember and fortify social connections. You'll get together socially with a friend, geo-locate, take pictures, Twitter, make notes and videos, and so on, and it all gets automatically filed away.
While some of these shocks sound good the majority of these 1o future shocks, come as a shock. At times, it is hard to imagine how far we have come in technology already and will become even harder to imagine progress in the next years ahead. These shocks can almost be compared to the book"1984," and the movie "The Truman Show," where there is little or no privacy. Where would we go to be alone? How will we react when we know were being followed? This article reminds me of the video we watched in class called, "The Machine is Us/ing Us." This video showed the idea that with the use of the web and technology, we must consider our ethics but most importantly our privacy as an issue. Without privacy, there becomes an easy access to information and can be dangerous.
Overall, within the next couple of years the machine will be a big part of our lives. Technology will give us all the information we need. It will watch us and wait for us to use it for vital information. We have become a world based on CMC using electronic devices to communicate.

1 comment:

Mike said...

That was an extremely interesting artical and did come as shock to me. I agree, that if this is the way technology happens, then privacy will be an issue. Instead of "Big Brother watching you", technology will be watching you and waiting for you to use it. This is a shocking thought.