Slashdot Mirror
5 Predictions for 2012
Structured Audio writes "Mike Langberg of the Merc put up his 5
technology predictions for 2012. Well
chosen, although of course in 2012 speech
recognition will still be 10 years away :-)."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
All present and accounted for -- always. ...
Family, friends and co-workers will be able to instantly see where you are,
I think this will come much sooner and, by 2012, will be gone again once everyone realises how bloody awful it is.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
.....what gives? I talk to my computer all the time..I guess I'm ahead of the times.
I had a direct broadcast satellite in '92, so did over a million people in the UK. Predicting the launch in the US is hardly that impressive.
This years predictions include the Tivo like PVR becomming ubiquitous...
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
(drumroll please)
5. computers will be much faster than they are today
4. computers will be much less expensive than they are now
3. programs will take much more space than they do now
2. hard drive capacities will be much larger than they are now
and finally... (drumroll please)
1. there will be even more duped articles on Slashdot
The car: You should not have to ask how far it is to the next gas station. The car knows how much gas you have, how many miles to the next station, and your gas millage, maybe even the terrain. It should be more like:
Hal: John, I have determined you should not have passed that last station, maybe you should turn around now.
Hal: John, you have two miles more before the point of no return to that gas station you passed.
Hal: John, are you listening to me?
John: Shut UP! You dont know i have a gas can in the trunk!
Hal: John, yes you do, but its empty! Remember last time?
John: Nag, Nag Nag..
And every Slashdotter will have a lady.
Riiiight...whatever.....
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
I would guess it is also possible for networks to start doing what they do during soccer games when they can't take breaks -- scroll the add on top of the programming. You could be watching Friends, with a little "Pampers" ad on the bottom. This would allow for even more commercial time, and they could sell the time to sync to various moments in a program. (e.g Rachel is playing with the baby, roll the Pampers ad. They are in the coffeehouse, roll the Starbucks ad)
Another thing that can happen is a'la sports programming. At various times during the program, the picture would shrink, making enough space for an ad to be displayed alongside. Some people will put up with this if it means free, and you can't skip the commercials.
See, aren't ya'll glad I'm not a network exec.
If it goes away, good riddance. They have to be careful with subscription fees.. commercial TV is mostly crap, so it is hard to price it correctly. All my local stations together would probably be worth about $7/mo to me if they were to be commercial free. Can they make money with that?
The Internet is everywhere -- and nowhere.
;-)
This will take at least 15 years. People don't buy new washing machines all that often.
All present and accounted for -- always.
This will be in mobile phones within 5 years.
Walk now, pay later.
Probably unfeasible as described. More likely you will authorize payment for the item before putting it in the bag. The receiver at the entryway will only check that you don't leave with any unpaid items. 10 years is about right, I wager.
Prime time is your time
Not very adventurous there. 5 more years.
Finally, we can talk to our computers
People curse them every day, so this is already reality.
I doubt true voice control will be there in 10 years either, unless there is a major break through in AI technology. Before that, we will be limited to simple voice keyed activation.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
The characters, in the interest of drama, usually furrowed their brows, looked up at no one in particular, and assumed a deeper, "commanding" tone to their voice when addressing the computer.
Perhaps the computer uses a recognition algorithm based on all these factors to know when someon is talking to "it." My cat apparently has similar algorithms programmed in- I can speak in a conversational tone all day, even to a telephone, and the cat won't respond- but the moment I assume my "talking to kitty" voice, it snaps to attention.
Another interesting question about the ST computer- how did it route the person-to-person commnications before the individual spoke the receipient's name? You'd often here Picard's communicator pipe up: "Riker to Picard- you should come up to the bridge," or some such line.
One presumes that the communication did not go to everyone on the ship, only to be cut off when the word "Picard" was spoken. I always assumed the computer cached the outgoing communication until it was determined whom it was going to, and then retransmitted; the result should be a 1 second lag on the return to represent that, unless the computer subtly timeshifted the entire conversation to pad the lag into the spaces normally between words.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
What does speech recognition have to do with the Turing test? I will consider speech recognition to be a solved problem when computers can take dictation with the same error rate as a native speaker. They don't have to be able to understand what is said--that's a different problem altogether.
That would mean that internet connectivity has to be wireless and cheap. It would also require people to WANT their appliances connected to the internet. I'm sorry but my washing machine works really well right now on it's own without it bugging me to take it in or yelling adds at me. If that's why these machines want to connect (to rip me off, advertise to me, tell me i should take it into the dealer and pay more money) then I'm gonna be ready with a nice jamming signal for them.
2. The IM prediction and online presence.
Maybe it will be like somewhat as he says. But I sure as hell am not going to have a damn gps signal telling everyone who wants to talk to me exactly where I am. And I'm not gonna be available all the time either. My settings are gonna default to "leave me a god damn email msg and I'll get back to you when I can". Not 'here's my exact location, what I'm doing and 5 ways to page me right now'. :)
3. Walking out of shops and the rfid tag nonsense.
Riiight. A store with no clerks. Talk about easy to shoplift if you have your own programmable rfids. or just walk out next to someone else and charge your stuff to their card.
4. Tivo in every home, no restrictions.
Let's see if the mpaa + networks will just roll over for that one. My guess is it will be a crippled tivo ripoff with all sorts of DRM and palladium inside if that happens. Anything else will be illegal.
5. Speech recognition.
Don't know about this one. Everyone and their mother has thought this was right around the corner for the past 20 years.
Here's my prediction:
Corporate America will finally dispense with the play acting and be in direct control of the country. Instead of having senators from each constituency, we will have senator Disney, senator Microsoft, senator Tobacco industry, senator chemical industry. And the president will be the CEO of the country.
Liberty.
how did it route the person-to-person commnications before the individual spoke the receipient's name?
Ahh, this is an easy one:
IT WAS WRITTEN THAT WAY IN THE SCRIPT.
Because in 2012 the mayan calander ends and well all be dead anyway so who cares...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
After our semi-intelligent voice recognition car breaks down on the side of the road:
Driver: "This car is a piece of shit!"
Car: "The nearest restroom is 200 miles down route 54."
Driver : "God I hate this car, I want to kick it's ass."
Car: "The nearest brothel is located 4,364 miles away in the state of of Nevada."
Driver: "That's it, I've had enough of this you fucking car. I'm going to kill you!"
Car: "Security system activated. Electrifiying body frame."
Driver: Bzzwaaaarrrrrrzzzwaaaaaaaaaaa
Imagine an office landscape of about 100 people. It will sound like a chicken farm on fire.
Isnt handsfree silly enough to watch? Will the computer understand foul language and respond by deleting files (happens anyway if you use Windows).
HTTP/1.1 400
1 terabyte should be enough for anyone...
I don't have any faith in speech recognition.
I'm already using it, and it drives me nuts. When I add money to my "pay and talk" cell phone account, I am forced to use their new (within the past couple of months) speech recognition menu. I am literally answering a robot's questions, and she makes me want to bang my phone on the closest solid structure near me.
Welcome to Rogers At&T pay as you go service, would you like to add money to your account today? Please say yes, or no.
Yes
I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, would you like to add money to your account today?
Yeeeees.
I'm trying to ask you a question. Please answer with yes or no.
YEEEEEES
this is the part where I wonder if swearing at the system will make it work. Maybe it recognizes "i said yes you piece of shit android" No it doesn't (I tried), but it usually takes about 5 tries, and I get into the "add money to my account menu" where i can then use the keypad (still) to enter in my P.I.N., new card number, etc.
You have paid for a total of 0 pages and so far 0 have been used up (0 today).
Driver: Car, how far to the next gas station?
Car: Eight miles ahead at exit 37 there is a Chevron station.
Driver: Is there a Mobil station there?
Car: No.
Driver: Are there any closer gas stations?
Car: Yes.
Driver: Where?
Car: Six miles ahead at exit 36 there is a Citgo station.
Driver: Are there any Mobil stations within the next twenty miles?
Car: Yes, there is one four miles ahead at exit 35.
Driver: Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?
Car: To keep the costs of the service low to you, we present you with value-added featured placements first. By the way, wouldn't you like a larger penis?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
2) Have a lot of them turn out right
3) ????
4) PROPHET!!!
This page accidentally left blank
He obviously hasn't thought this one through; he's claiming that in 2012, anybody will be able to steal your credit card and then walk out of stores with anything they want, and there will be no impetus on the store to actually verify that it is you? Doesn't sound like a viable business model to me! Winona would then just claim that somebody stole her RFID and still steal from Saks!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
There will be a pill men (and women) can take to remove the need for shaving. Trade named Depilorex, those that take the pill will lose all bodily hair and be referred to as 'smoothies' leading them to start a cult that worships the head of Steve Balmer.
After years of mis-understanding and accidental death, new Tablet PC's will come out that are chewable, in colorful Flintstone shapes.
Bill Gates will be a distant memory having been killed in 2006 in a bizarre accident when his computerized bidet malfunctions (a brief investigation can find no evidence of tampering and very little evidence of Mr. Gates)
Steve Balmer retires from Microsoft in 2005 to star and produce in a remake of the Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Mr. Balmer also becomes heavily involved with the smoothie cult as it's symbolic leader and introduces ritualistic clapping and hopping to the group before being asked to reduce his role and "just be the head"
Terrorism is a thing of the past when, in a 2003 CIA plot, the leaders of al-Qaida are clandestinely fed Depilorex and cannot look at each other without giggling and are too embarrassed appear in threatening videos.
The new head of Microsoft, an incomplete 6 year old Bill Gates clone hastily harvested from the scene of his death, announces (via a translator 'Mr. Wuzzy his Spokes-Teddy Bear') the switch to a new open source philosophy, introducing the new direction with a new mascot, a fuzzy green reptile called 'Opensaurus' and changing the marketing tagline of the company to "We wanna play too! "
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Leave your phone at home?
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
So, let's say:
I live 70 years
I watch 5 movies per week (2 hours each)
one hour of high-definition movie is about 2 GB Then, in my entire life, I will consume something like 70 TB of data. Of course, maybe there will be 3D-surround immersion imaging devices... But eventually, we will be able to store locally all the information we can consume and produce. Storing more will be useless. Eventually, we will reach a point where more and better technology will be useless.
:-)
This reminds me something I read a long time ago: Knowledge Crash. Science progresses. It takes more and more time to reach the bleeding edge of science and improve on it. In the beginning of the century, you could write Nobel-prize class papers at 20. Now, you need to be a little bit older. Eventually, to improve on science, you will need a life-long study. And we will reach a point where human life will not be long enough to improve on humanity's knowledge. I know, teaching techniques improves over time, but even then, there will be a limit. The only way out will be a longer human life... or a limitless human life. But until Kurzweil's dream (read this too) become a reality, both technology and knowledge crashes are part of our future - and more technology will not be usefull anymore...
I wonder what kind of society we will live in then... and what being human will mean.
Here is a hint: just because the phone rings does not mean you have to answer it. In fact if there is someone physically in your presense it is IMPOLITE to answer the phone unless you are expecting an emergency. (Your wife could go into labor at anytime, your parent is going in for heart surgery, your kid is late in bad weather. There are others, but those are the big ones)
If I'm in your cube and you answer the phone I will talk to your boss about that, unless you are in customer service they can get voicemail and you will call back.
Many people are surprized that I, a strong introvert like my cell phone. They don't realise that I'm not a slave to the phone, the phone is my slave. If I'm sitting between two beatiful girls and it rings, I hit cancle without even looking at it. (As a geek I've so far had one such opportunity, I might have blown it, but it wasn't by answering the phone) Manytimes when I could answer it I will just look at callerid and send the caller to voicemail.
Not necessarily... Back at the turn of the century, there were 'doctors', and 'surgeons'. Now, there are hand surgeons, internists, gynacologists, eye/ear/nose guys, etc. Likewise, there used to be 'physicists', and shortly afterward there were 'theoretical physicists'... now there are high energy physicists, quantum physicists, particle physicists, etc.
Take any profession... expand it, through more knowledge and technology... you get to the point where you can have people specialize in barely-overlapping fields within the same industry - computer programmers vs. computer engineers vs. network engineers vs. helpdesk trolls, etc. Can your average programmer design a chip? Can your average chip designer program a GUI?
To view it another way, the age of the Renaissance man is well over... instead, we get the age of the specialized man, with more expertise in a chosen profession than any renasissance man could hope for.
-T