As people get older they gain clout, respect and other sorts of
undeserved credibility. One way to get rid of such credibility is to try
to predict the future (and get it wrong). I feel like a new year is a
good opportunity to take a stab at this.
Tablets are an evolutionary dead end
Remember RAZR phones, palm pilots? Tablets will evoke the same sort of memories in a couple of years.
LCD/OLED as a window into the internet will be laughed at
I read a great book
about the history of cocaine. When cocaine was discovered, it was a
local anesthetic, virility potion, steroid, cure for nymphomania, cure
for addiction, etc. This all looks quite silly in retrospect, but it
really reminds me of the hype over internet connected screen touting
devices. "People used to think that the best way to stay connected is to
scorch eyeballs with awkward square flashlights with graphics on them".
It
blows my mind that even though humans have a multitude of senses, we've
settled on something that destroys eyesight and ties one to a desk.
Even best of breed phones, tablets are still tied to an access point,
cell tower and are useless in sunlight. Instead of communicating
directly, devices prefer to channel themselves via amazon or apple
servers.
Future
I think the future is in
wrapping information flow around the many senses (seeing, hearing,
tactile feedback etc). I think the future will be shaped more by
odd-ball hackers and less by tech messiahs & their knockoffs
repackaging the same thing every 18months. Hopefully B2G is the first
step in that direction. Perhaps it will result in extremely promis^H^H^H^H connected devices that will mate with every device around. I know we have the right people working on this :)
