1. Better batteries: Though battery capacity and power have traditionally only improved about 7 percent a year, IBM thinks we may see smaller batteries that last 10 times longer than today’s.
Okay, I see these happening but what are the materials and will it be significantly more expensive than what we have now? If people are paying hundreds more for a few extra hours it will not be worth it. In any case getting more battery life from a smart phone will be well worth it to many people. However, the battery life on most of the products I use is more than efficient for my needs. I guess it is because I always plug in my netbook when it is on and my Blackberry gets like 3 - 4 days worth of charge. I will certainly not pay much extra for a super-battery.
2. 3D holograms: We’ve reported on early holographic tests, but things will get a lot more real. 3D holograms will infect phones, TVs, and all sorts of screens, making 3D something consumers actually want. No glasses needed.
I'm pretty sure that this is a waste of time because I'm not sure how popular 3D actually is or will be. I mean there hasn't been a huge jump in people buying 3D TVs this holiday season as far as I know. I am certainly not clamoring for 3D on a phone. It will be a big shrug like watching TV on a phone has been. The idea of a tiny 3D image coming out of an IPhone does not thrill me in the least.
I know 3D is a big hit at the movie theater but it is mostly a way for them to charge a higher price for pretty much the same product. It is just value added and it doesn't "make the movie" in anything except for Avatar. Also there isn't a huge jump in total moviegoers due to 3D from the data I have seen. There might be a huge number of people clamoring for 3D everywhere but I just can't see it.
3. Computer heat: IBM hopes to harness the energy produced by massive farms of computer servers and use it to heat and cool other buildings.
I think this will be great for server farms and things but worthless to everyone else. The problem I have is that aren't most server farms are away from buildings that can harness the heat? I can see the heat being used for different things in the building that house the servers but not for much else. However, if IBM figured a way to harness the heat and turn it into energy then you would have something. Other than that this is basically a waste of time.
4. Personalized GPS: Android phones already have turn-by-turn navigation, but IBM predicts this technology can get a whole lot better by pulling real-time traffic data, advising alternate routes, and even telling you how many parking spots are available in a nearby lot. Pretty cool, right?
Now this I believe will be the big winner in the next 5 years. The idea of a GPS pulling real-time data and using it for something like telling you if there is parking at your destination is awesome. This goes double for a GPS system that is tied into Google Maps that shows you the location of all sorts of different places around you. Kind of like a viewfinder App that scans your position and tells you all the food choices that are in your immediate area. There are all sort of interesting uses for GPS other than finding where something is. I think the usage of this technology will be very innovative in the coming years.
5. Citizen scientists: Finally, in five years, IBM believes that sensors in smartphones, cars, computers, and social networks will help scientists get a real-time picture of where and how you live. In other words, ordinary people will be able to donate their personal data to help scientific research.
Ugh, I hope this doesn't become a norm especially with the chicanery that some scientists engaged in during the Global Warming mess. They were certainly not the sober-headed arbiters of facts that scientists are supposed to be. Instead they were zealots who cooked the books and obscured the real science that they were supposed to be doing.
However, the ordinary people donating personal data thing might take off in the hands of marketers who will pay you directly for your personal information. The idea of studying your browser history, your social network usage, your purchasing habits, and the pattern of your everyday life will become incredibly valuable. Especially if they can get a whole bunch of this data together to form certain patterns.
I think the personal marketing plan will be the next big thing going forward. Google or whomever will know you better than your do how to sell you stuff. Also from studying your habits and millions like you they will be able to sell marketers the best basket of information that they ever had. So I think the days of seeing generic pitches or scattershot marketing plans will be a thing of the past. So a person like me will only see ads for video games, sour candy, sports, and the things I like and will be the most likely to buy.
No comments:
Post a Comment