The Times: Tech column - Tech trends to watch
By David Rowan
A COUPLE of years ago, when the most absurd technology ideas could attract funding, pundits were full of awe about the next big thing: a device fixed to your computer that would let you smell what you saw on a website. Somehow, the "digital scent" never quite caught on, but that didn't stop columnists from backing ever-more flawed concepts, from online pet-food stores to websites that let surgeons bid to perform your cosmetic surgery. So it will not surprise you if I chicken out of making predictions. What I will do, though, is point to six tech trends from 2002 that you ought to know about.
1: The personal microchip
It started with pets, but now people are having chips implanted under their skin. Last spring the Jacobs family of Florida became the first to wear a centimetre-long VeriChip transmitter in their arms, so their medical data would always be available. Since then, parents in Britain have asked for their children to be "chipped" in case of abduction, and the Home Office is considering the technology to monitor sex offenders. It is a privacy intrusion beyond even Orwell's imagination, but anxieties suggest that more of us will be wearing chips in our shoulders.
2: Wireless internet for free
As the telecoms networks struggle to make us pay for overpriced picture messages and mobile internet contracts, a quiet grassroots revolution has brought free broadband connections to streets across Britain. It involves subscribers sharing their connections using a "WiFi" wireless network, and is backed by an evolving language of street markings, called "warchalks", to tell passers-by when they are within range. ISPs and phone networks hate the idea, whose success is a welcome reminder that the web was built on community rather than profit.
3: The Google takeover
In another remarkable year, the search engine has evolved into a huge global newspaper, a vast shopping catalogue, a voice-recognising search tool, a fee based research forum and a profitable advertising medium. Yes, there are other search sites; but when you can fly first class for free, why bother with economy class?
4: Weblogs as a mainstream medium
According to some estimates, there are now 500,000 weblogs, or "blogs", where with little technical know-how anyone can publish their personal observations and link to webcams, other websites or "wishlists" of gifts that they hope site visitors will buy them. Mainstream media companies embraced blogging as a cheap, effective way to communicate, as did British schoolgirls offering suggestive photos in exchange for gifts. Expect the medium to grow even faster if there is a war with Iraq and critics feel that their views are excluded from "official" media.
5: Unplayable CDs and other scandals
In their desperate battle against piracy, the film and record studios are preventing legitimate consumers from enjoying music and movies that they have paid for. From the CDs that refuse to play in a PC, to TV shows that you cannot record, the trend is towards greater restrictions in the name of "digital rights management".
6: E-democracy
It is Whitehall's latest buzzword, and next May the Government intends to continue the online voting trials that began last summer. It is promising an "e enabled general election" some time after 2006, and believes that technology - from text-messaging to touch-sensitive screens - will reignite the public's passion for politics. But in the US, electronic voting in the mid-term elections revealed a range of problems, from software glitches to Democrats' votes being recorded as Republican. Considering the Government's appalling record on IT projects, perhaps we should start getting worried.
(The Times, January 14 2003)
A COUPLE of years ago, when the most absurd technology ideas could attract funding, pundits were full of awe about the next big thing: a device fixed to your computer that would let you smell what you saw on a website. Somehow, the "digital scent" never quite caught on, but that didn't stop columnists from backing ever-more flawed concepts, from online pet-food stores to websites that let surgeons bid to perform your cosmetic surgery. So it will not surprise you if I chicken out of making predictions. What I will do, though, is point to six tech trends from 2002 that you ought to know about.
1: The personal microchip
It started with pets, but now people are having chips implanted under their skin. Last spring the Jacobs family of Florida became the first to wear a centimetre-long VeriChip transmitter in their arms, so their medical data would always be available. Since then, parents in Britain have asked for their children to be "chipped" in case of abduction, and the Home Office is considering the technology to monitor sex offenders. It is a privacy intrusion beyond even Orwell's imagination, but anxieties suggest that more of us will be wearing chips in our shoulders.
2: Wireless internet for free
As the telecoms networks struggle to make us pay for overpriced picture messages and mobile internet contracts, a quiet grassroots revolution has brought free broadband connections to streets across Britain. It involves subscribers sharing their connections using a "WiFi" wireless network, and is backed by an evolving language of street markings, called "warchalks", to tell passers-by when they are within range. ISPs and phone networks hate the idea, whose success is a welcome reminder that the web was built on community rather than profit.
3: The Google takeover
In another remarkable year, the search engine has evolved into a huge global newspaper, a vast shopping catalogue, a voice-recognising search tool, a fee based research forum and a profitable advertising medium. Yes, there are other search sites; but when you can fly first class for free, why bother with economy class?
4: Weblogs as a mainstream medium
According to some estimates, there are now 500,000 weblogs, or "blogs", where with little technical know-how anyone can publish their personal observations and link to webcams, other websites or "wishlists" of gifts that they hope site visitors will buy them. Mainstream media companies embraced blogging as a cheap, effective way to communicate, as did British schoolgirls offering suggestive photos in exchange for gifts. Expect the medium to grow even faster if there is a war with Iraq and critics feel that their views are excluded from "official" media.
5: Unplayable CDs and other scandals
In their desperate battle against piracy, the film and record studios are preventing legitimate consumers from enjoying music and movies that they have paid for. From the CDs that refuse to play in a PC, to TV shows that you cannot record, the trend is towards greater restrictions in the name of "digital rights management".
6: E-democracy
It is Whitehall's latest buzzword, and next May the Government intends to continue the online voting trials that began last summer. It is promising an "e enabled general election" some time after 2006, and believes that technology - from text-messaging to touch-sensitive screens - will reignite the public's passion for politics. But in the US, electronic voting in the mid-term elections revealed a range of problems, from software glitches to Democrats' votes being recorded as Republican. Considering the Government's appalling record on IT projects, perhaps we should start getting worried.
(The Times, January 14 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, January 14, 2003
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