10 future shocks - for the next 10 years

infoworld.com reports
Though may not be an alvin tofflers article or Nostradamus predictions, worth a read...

Shock No. 1: Triumph of the cloud

My main prediction is that the high cost of power and space is going to force the IT world to look at cloud services, with a shift to computing as a cloud resource occurring in the next five years. So like the old mainframe model where we didn't care how the machine is configured, we just dump requests to the machine and get results. In fact, cloud computing services
will resemble mainframe service bureaus. We're already starting to see cloud service bureaus, such as Amazon's EC2. Ultimately, the emergence of cloud computing will reduce the need for computing at the enterprise level. -- Brian Chee

Shock No. 2: Cyborg chic

By 2018, geek chic will look a lot like what today we'd call a cyborg. The human/machine interface will be ubiquitous, with people walking around giving voice/whisper commands and using earbud 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 (hey, that's catchy!), and iEarRings. A new generation of computer viruses will take over the new display technology. Sometimes they're fatal, as when the computer display shows an empty street, when in Actual Reality (AR) the street is filled with high-speed traffic. Other times they're just funny, as when the display insists on showing mustaches on every face in view. -- Bob Lewis

Shock No. 3: Everything works

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, hiccups, or errors. The interface is intuitive and sleek. It even changes based off what you're currently doing so that you can access features of the OS that you need while you're, say, working with e-mail or editing pics. We'll call this OS "Windows Sci-Fi" because we're all dreaming if we think that'll ever happen. -- Sean McCown

Shock No. 4: Nothing escapes you

In 1945, Vannevar Bush conceived of a device called a Memex that would store and retrieve all information accumulated throughout one's life. In the next 30 years, advances in speech and video recognition, the power of cloud-based computing, and real-time, continuous, wearable content capture will bring the Memex vision to life. Just think: You'll be able to leave a meeting without worrying about manually capturing your to-dos. You won't have to remember that interesting thing your friend mentioned over coffee. You won't have to write down the thought that sprung to mind when you saw an advertisement on TV or a billboard on the way home.

Vannevar's Memex vision will come to fruition through your next-next-next-generation PDA. The device will continuously capture all audio and video from your daily experiences and upload that content to the cloud, where it will be parsed to succinctly recognize your tasks, interesting information, and reminders -- all searchable, of course. A summary of important content from your day will be available through your PDA automatically. And yes, like Google Chrome, a "p0rn mode" option will ensure that the things you don't want remembered won't be. -- Savio Rodrigues


Shock No. 5: Smartphones take center stage

I see the smartphone evolving into the preferred instrument for constant connectivity, with voice interaction, facial recognition, location awareness, constant video and sound input, and multitouch screens. The keyboard won't go away completely, but it might be virtual: Think about typing in the air on an image projected from your "smart glasses." Business desktops would evolve into docking stations for your smartphone, with large screens and input devices, Gigabit or better connectivity, and local resources comparable to one of today's big servers (technical desktops would be similar, but with way more onboard CPU and GPU power, as well as massive memory and storage, all connected to massive servers and cloud resources). In this vision, the laptop nearly goes away. -- Martin Heller

Shock No. 6: Human-free manufacturing

We're already close to the perfect factory. (It employs one human and one dog; the human is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the human from touching anything.) Right now, manufacturing in the U.S. is up, while manufacturing employment is down. 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. -- Bob Lewis

Vannevar's Memex vision will come to fruition through your next-next-next-generation PDA. The device will continuously capture all audio and video from your daily experiences and upload that content to the cloud, where it will be parsed to succinctly recognize your tasks, interesting information, and reminders -- all searchable, of course. A summary of important content from your day will be available through your PDA automatically. And yes, like Google Chrome, a "p0rn mode" option will ensure that the things you don't want remembered won't be. -- Savio Rodrigues
Shock No. 5: Smartphones take center stageI see the smartphone evolving into the preferred instrument for constant connectivity, with voice interaction, facial recognition, location awareness, constant video and sound input, and multitouch screens. The keyboard won't go away completely, but it might be virtual: Think about typing in the air on an image projected from your "smart glasses." Business desktops would evolve into docking stations for your smartphone, with large screens and input devices, Gigabit or better connectivity, and local resources comparable to one of today's big servers (technical desktops would be similar, but with way more onboard CPU and GPU power, as well as massive memory and storage, all connected to massive servers and cloud resources). In this vision, the laptop nearly goes away. -- Martin Heller

Shock No. 6: Human-free manufacturing

We're already close to the perfect factory. (It employs one human and one dog; the human is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the human from touching anything.) Right now, manufacturing in the U.S. is up, while manufacturing employment is down. 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. -- Bob Lewis

Shock No. 8: Big Brother never sleeps

In the next 10 years, perfect governmental tracking and monitoring of each human being will become reality. Some people will accept LoJack implants for personal safety. Face-recognition technology tied to video monitors at street corners will also contribute. Also very possible: LoJack-style technology along with a digital voice recorder embedded in drivers' licenses (it's optional -- hey, driving is a privilege, not a right). The actual trigger will be pulled when Mercedes-Benz buys General Motors and acquires OnStar, which by then will be private industry's principle purveyor of "Personal LoJack" systems. Shortly thereafter, Russia will have acquired Mercedes, either through conquest or by buying it with oil money, so Russia will know the exact location and movement of most affluent Americans. So will China, which will have manufactured the LoJack transmitters, surreptitiously adding a backdoor feature that lets the Chinese government track everyone as well. -- Bob Lewis

Shock No. 9: Unbroken connectivity

Checking to see if you're connected to a network will seem as old-fashioned as turning on a device to get information in 10 years. 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 than a chain of data lakes. From sports scores to friends' activities, the idea of interrupting your activities to get the news will be a thing of the past. -- Curtis Franklin

Shock No. 10: Relationship enhancement

My 2018 prediction is that we 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. You may forget what happened, but you can access it all again when you search your own personal store, either by matching keywords or simply preparing for the next social event with same friend. There will be no difference between "online friends" and "real friends". This will be life-altering. We already have the freedom of not having to remember street directions. When we have the freedom not to remember what happened in social interactions, it raises a fascinating question: Will this solidify personal relationships or change them in some other way? -- Jon Williams

Can Nanotechnology make man immortal?

In his novel ‘Prey’, Michael Crichton created the fictional world of nanotechnology running amok in human life. Some believe that the tiny particles have the capability of reversing the aging process in humans. Is it possible for nanotechnology or the ‘power of the small’ to make man immortal? The current trend in technology does not point to that direction but some over enthusiasts feel that some time in the distant future nanotechnologists could decode the mystery of life and death. Currently the smallest human-made particle is 20 nanometers in diameter. A human red blood cell is 10,000 nanometers in diameter. By building an autonomous robot 1/10,000th time that of a red blood cell, it would be possible to program it in such a way that the tiny robot could reverse the aging process in humans when once inserted in the body cells. The interior of the human body would then replicate an ocean of floating nanobots commanding human metabolism.

While the concept of nanobots is in the theoretical stage but nanotechnology has been expanded to anti-aging treatments by direct infusion of electrons in the skin via nano current that is equivalent to over one-billionth of an ampere. Nanotechnology is currently used widely in dermatology and in regenerative medicine research. However, nanobots have not been tested yet but some nano devices have been found to work on a number of animal specimens. It has been possible to cure type-1 diabetes in rats with a blood cell-sized device. Scientists at MIT have been able to develop microscopic devices that can remove cancer cells from the blood stream and destroy them. Given the current rate of acceleration in technology, in the next two or three decades these devices are expected to become powerful enough to work inside human cells.

Source: NanoWerk
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Falling Prey To Machines?

ScienceDaily Falling Prey To Machines?: "It's coming, but when? From Garry Kasparov to Michael Crichton, both fact and fiction are converging on a showdown between man and machine. But what does a leading artificial intelligence expert--the world's first computer science PhD--think about the future of machine intelligence? Will computers ever gain consciousness and take over the world?"

"Comparisons between the brain and electronic hardware are also difficult to draw. For example, the issue of 'fanout' demonstrates the complexity of the brain over even today's most sophisticated computers. Fanout refers to the number of connections an element in a network can have to another element of a network. Today's most complicated computers have a fanout factor of about 10. The human brain, however, has a fanout of 10,000.

'We don't have the faintest idea of what machines with that kind of fanout would be like, so inference from the capabilities of present machines to such machines is feeble at best,' notes Holland. 'As Nobel Laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann says, three orders of magnitude is a new science.'"

Manual for Conserving Paths - Paulo Coelho