What's next in technology?

[seolman]

While conducting some market research for a client I ran across some (not new but) interesting data about how the need for efficiency drives leaps in technology. Here is a thumbnail of the blurb that caught my interest:

1970-80 Everyone wanted a mainframe
1980-90 Everyone wanted a desktop
1990-00 Everyone wanted a laptop/portable
2000-10 Everyone wanted a cell phone
2010-20 ?????

I used to work on a mainframe that filled a 40x40 foot room and cost millions of dollars. Now, my laptop can do more and is faster.

What will be the "Everyone wanted a...." tag for the decade between 2010-20?

[vangogh]

I'm not sure we'll really know until the end of the decade, but at this point I'd have to say

2010 - 2020 Tablet

I think in 2010 Apple showed that tablets are a viable market. They sold 15 million iPads which is about 5 or 6 times more than the most optimistic predictions. Consider too those numbers aren't even for a full year and about half the sales were in the last quarter. In 2011 we're going to see the first real iPad competitors and now predictions for the entire market are in the 50 million or so range.

For the majority a tablet handles all their computing needs. Most people want to surf the web, do email, visit a handful of specific sites like Facebook. Most people don't need the computing power they would get with a laptop or desktop. I expect over the next few year we'll see more tablets being sold and less laptops being sold.

If I have to predict today I'm going with tablet. Ask me again in a year or two though…

[seolman]

You may be right Steve. The struggle seems to be finding a product versatile enough to handle anyone's connectivity needs (ex: phone, email, web). I think the fight will be between tablets and smart phones; projections on spending for text marketing tops $1.1B for 2011 and $1.5B for 2012. A lot of businesses seem to be placing their marketing bets into text but you know how fast a new idea can take off.

[greenoak]

i think it will be the decade of ipads... ipads with easier hookups to printers and desktops..
..i have an ipad and people who dont have one seem to want one.... the size is so neater than the phone..and you can read in the dark!! ... my little relatives love it for angry birds...i can imagine lots of improvements on it....

[Harold Mansfield]

I agree that pads are the most logical step. But I think connectivity is holding it back from exploding. As soon as you can use a pad for everything (including phone) all bets are off. Right now mobile phone companies are getting the best of both worlds...service plans for pads that are separate from service plans for phones, even though products like the Samsung Galaxy have the ability to be used as both..it is just restricted by the phone companies in the U.S. to be used as such.

There are already companies betting that pads can replace text books in school and we can certainly agree that they can replace laptops in the business meeting. Most people don't need to carry a laptop, they basically just need a portable internet device that holds docs and that they can use for communication. Recent years have gone from how small can we make it, to getting back to practical usage and back to larger screen sizes that people can actually use and see.

The only 2 things missing from Star Trek are warp drive (and intergalactic travel), and transporters. We have everything else that was conceived on that show.

[vangogh]

I think the fight will be between tablets and smart phones

I think these will actually co-exist nicely. I can see in time voice recognition software will improve, which will allow smart phones to get smaller if they want. Of course smaller means much of what we do now with a smart phone can't be done. The screens are small enough, but assuming most people also have a tablet the stuff you need the screen for could find it's way to the tablet, which offers the better visual experience most of the time. Not always as smart phones are a good size for hand held gaming, where depending on the game tablets are still too heavy to hold comfortably.

I can also see where smart phones evolve to become the remote controls for our lives and mainly serving to be the interface for many of our other devices.

[vangogh]

I think connectivity is holding it back from exploding.

Competition will eventually change that. Right now we're at the point where you can tether your phone to your tablet, though at an added cost. In time and with competition I don't think you'll have to. You'll get one connectivity plan for you and be able to use it on multiple devices.

The only 2 things missing from Star Trek are warp drive (and intergalactic travel), and transporters. We have everything else that was conceived on that show.

Funny whenever I think of the voice recognition software I think how phones will work like the communicators on Star Trek. They'll be small enough to wear as a pin on our chest and we'll just tap them and talk and they'll respond.

[billbenson]

I currently use a transcription option for voice mails. Its frequently gibberish, but they get two things right. The phone number and name are almost always correct. Particularly the phone number. I rarely listen to voice mails anymore which is very convenient.

Rather than what devices are available in the future, I think is going to be on the software side. Getting you phone contacts, messages, favorites etc in a database with information on your PC or whatever other device is a ways off. Particularly when we all use different hardware, operating systems, and applications. I see the improvement of this, probably in the open source arena the wave of the future. Maybe this will evolve to a cloud sort of thing?

[Harold Mansfield]

The iPad2 launched today:
Live from Apple's iPad 2 event -- Engadget

Looks like it has a few things that were missing before but were on the iPhone and iPod...2 cameras, faster, lighter, same price, and an HDMI output.

I have a new phone ( regular phone) that you can attach up to 2 cell phones to, so that when you are home your cell phone rings on the "house" phone..which is a lot more convenient having everything tied together. Now, combine that with my headset which is tied into my computer, Skype, mobile phone and that "house phone" so that no matter which rings it goes to the headset (different sounds of course).

To me, it's tying all these things together so that they work seamlessly with each other to be the logical step. Having the same connectivity at home or the office that I have outside of the home or office, without having to carry a bunch of extra stuff AND multiple plans has to be the way we wrap this all up. I'm hoping to see more of this in the future.

[Dan Furman]

Agree w/ the pad thing.

I think in the next ten years, it all starts to merge together. You'll have just one device - it'll be computer, internet, phone, music player, movie viewer with all movies streaming, etc (we kind of have that now w/ the iphone, but it's really too small for most things). At home, you'll simply have a larger screen to plug it into.