Thirty Years in Computing

Jacob writes "Jacob Nielsen, usability guru, writes about the last 30 years of computing and his predictions of the next 30 years of computing. An interesting read. quote: 'Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today.'"

Comments

we'll never recognize computers

[etcremote]

I predict that in 30 years, what is and isn't a computer will be hard to distinguish.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[wonderwidget]

Uh-huh...where's my jetpack?

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[sixteenraisins]

We're already there. Cell phones, PDA's, and handheld game consoles (Nokia N-Gage, anyone?) are already blurring the line between what is and isn't a computer.

What I think will be interesting to watch is how software also starts evolving from apps with a narrow focus (think along the lines of early 90's WordPerfect) to apps which try to do pretty much everything - perhaps a bad example, but MS Word already allows table and cell editing similar to Excel, graphics manipulation, and desktop publishing.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably won't be "computers" at all. They'll simply be smart everything and the idea of a computer probably won't exist. There will be pervasive computing everywhere though. And as for Nielsen, you should read up on some of his earlier predictions and see just how credible he is (do a find on predictions): http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[OECD]

I predict that in 30 years, what is and isn't a computer will be hard to distinguish.

Conversely, movies and other linear entertainment will be utterly recognizeable. There will always be a place for good stories, and it's very hard to 'write' a good story on the fly and interactively. It starts to look too much like the tangled yarn that is life.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Guy I know once talked about looking at an old Sears & Roebuck catalog from, I think, just before WW1. In it there was a section for early power tools. They sold power saws, screwdrivers, etc. just like they do now. The difference was, though, to use any of these tools, you had to buy a separate motor. This was a bulky thing that you set on your workbench next to your project. It came with a variety of adapters which you could use via a chain drive or something along those lines to power your saw, screwdriver, etc.

The analogy here is pretty plain, I think. I'm not sure that the idea of "the computer" as a separate machine will ever entirely go away, but certainly the computing power in everyday appliances (TV's, radios, hell, even toasters and refrigerators) is growing all the time. The standalone computer may eventually go the way of the standalone power tool motor.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[agtwilight]

I just want to know if the RFID tag is implanted at birth and where it gets implanted. Also if we will playing Everquest 9 on the PSP 7 or someone is going to make something cool in the next 30 years instead of copycats.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[dark404]

umm... blurring the line? They ARE computers. A computer is an electronic device that is one thing, and can do three. It must be programable. And it must be able to retrieve, store, and process data.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anubis350]

In thirty years? The line's already become blurry. Is my cell phone a computer? My programmable microwave? The digital parking meters outside my window. Those of us here on slashdot would say instantly yes, that they are a limited computers for specific tasks or at least contain limiting computing power because we know, at least to some extent how they work. But the common consumer would probably say no. So tell me, will it really take 30 years? I think itll probably be far sooner. As I said, the line is already blurred, how soon before it fades altogther? I give it 10 years before the line is too blurry to be able to tell what is a computer and what isnt. --Aaron

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer: A device that computes, especially a programmable electronic machine that performs high-speed mathematical or logical operations or that assembles, stores, correlates, or otherwise processes information.

Fine. I'll wait another 17 seconds before posting. Geeeeeeezzzzzzze.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[bigman2003]

That's a good point. Because current WE need to GO TO the computer. Soon, the computer will just be where we need it.

Tablet computers are an example of this. A small tablet, that is hooked wirelessly to your network can be used for e-mail, etc. Of course the tablet will get smaller and smaller, and soon not recognizable as a 'computer'. It will be similar to a piece of paper.

Now, most people connect their MP3 type player to their computer, and download the music. Eventually, your MP3 player will once again, connect wirelessly, and just download everything- because storage won't be an issue. Of course it will be smaller, and barely noticable. But once again, you won't need to go to your computer.

Currently you can buy things on-line on your computer. But wouldn't that be better from your TV? Just yesterday there was an article the next Xbox having more computer functionality. With HDTV quality screens, I would rather make my purchases from my couch, not sitting at my desk. Why go to the computer, when the rest of my house is more comfortable?

Sitting in my 'office' at home isn't fun- it's not where I want to spend my time. I'd rather be out with everyone else. We've been tied to the keyboard long enough, and I think we'll start moving away.

Yes- I really would like a web-enabled refrigerator...It would be nice to walk into the kitchen, and get my news/e-mail while standing there drinking out of the orange juice container.

When display devices get advanced enough that they can simply be 'printed' then we can have them everywhere. This will be the biggest step forward.

Your TV is actually a great display device- because it streams in a lot of different information. But it is too big, bulky, expensive and ugly to have everywhere. But when I can place a display in the wall of my bathroom, I can use it while I take a crap. It won't be the luxury device of a Texas oilman anymore- it will show up in everyday life.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[filmsmith]

But I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.

nngh-hey!

fs

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

MY GOD!! If you're going to use the phrase (something anyone) USE IT CORRECTLY!! There is no goddamn comma after the subject! Take a goddamn english class.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[mhesseltine]

What I think will be interesting to watch is how software also starts evolving from apps with a narrow focus (think along the lines of early 90's WordPerfect) to apps which try to do pretty much everything - perhaps a bad example, but MS Word already allows table and cell editing similar to Excel, graphics manipulation, and desktop publishing.

One word: EMACS

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[pgnas]

The most significant convergence will involve the computer and our best friend, the Television.

Computers will be the center of the house. The "Media Center" computers are in the infant stages, these are the early attempts to bring the computer to the part of your house that currently receives the most attention.

When this technology becomes seamless, television will become an interactive and more personalized experience.

Do you like the outfit that Jennifer Lopez is wearing? "Click here to buy". "MMM, that pizza looks good" click here to have one delivered.

Personalization will allow for advertisers to provide to you the things that you are interested in making their advertisements more effective.

In addition, Television re-runs and first-runs will be individually selected and provided on-demand.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[joggle]

I don't know about all of that. While some things may become cheaper, many things will simply become better (not cheaper).

For instance, those power tools in that old Sears catalog probably didn't cost more than modern power tools, possibly less since they were simpler and didn't each have their own motor and battery (even after adjusting for inflation). Laptops only cost about $1000 less than they did 15 years ago and have been pretty steady for the last 6 years or so.

I predict that many technologies will start off relatively expensive and then stabilize after 5-10 years, just as many technologies before them did (TVs, microwaves, etc.).

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Awperator]

Computers will be so ubiquitous that we wont even realize that we are plugged into the matrix.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

MY GOD!! If you're going to use the phrase (something anyone) USE IT CORRECTLY!! There is no goddamn comma after the subject! Take a goddamn english class.

I'm sorry, but your rant appears to be completely incomprehensible. With what exactly did you have a problem?

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that tablet computers will be the way of the future; at least, in the mid term. I'm writing this on a laptop, sat in my living room, while watching Futurama on the TV. (It's the Willy Wonka episode - don't ask about the secret ingredient!)

Anyway, the point is, I really don't want to write this post (or, in your example, buy things) on my TV screen. Even a HDTV would likely be too far away; the text would have to be so large so as to make reading anything other than tabloid headlines awkward. Even if the TV took up the whole wall, it wouldn't be natural.

No, a tablet with paper (or near-paper) quality, or some holographic projection thingy floating a foot or two from your eyes, that's what you need. And you can still keep Futurama in the background.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[anthony_philipp]

two characters: vi

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[eBayDoug]

I yearn for the day when miniaturization has lost its cache. They day when my computer is the size of the early AT&T cordless phones. The Ones that fit well in your and and you can actually put between your ear and shoulder. My PC would be about the size of a brick, yet thinner and half the weight, with ALL the bells, whistles, good guts.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[dgatwood]

I'm guessing the apostrophe in the plural form of PDA.

The grandparent poster must simply have been reading the message upside-down. :-)

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Lodragandraoidh]

"The computer will be where we need it..."

It already is where we need it. With the internet and wireless technology we can interact with information systems almost anywhere in the world. With Satellite phones we can be anywhere (except maybe deep underground - and people who are in that environment on a regular basis would have technology to deal with it).

For example, I keep all of my files on a central server. I can access those files via an HTTP connection from any machine in my network - and if I wanted to - anywhere in the world via a VPN portal into my network.

I don't think I will be writing a paper, or reading email from my blender or toaster anytime soon; there will always be a place for a 'console' type machine with a keyboard - whether its a PDA/cellphone (tricorder, anyone?), a laptop, a tablet or a traditional desktop PC. Which brings up an interesting point - will the keyboard go the way of the dinosaur?

I don't think so. I have tried using magnetic tape, and more recently digital recorders with mixed results. I have found that I tend to be more self-conscious when I use a voice recorder - so I don't record the true words I might normally use in a text. For example, if I were writing a novel about terrorists, I would feel very reticent to vocalize the flow of dialog while waiting in an airport lounge. Also, some environments where there is noise create a loss of fidelity on the recording - sometimes to the point of being indecipherable. Finally, recordings still need to be transcribed; voice recognition software is nowhere near ready to handle flawless automated transcription. Given that - I would rather have a laptop than a voice recorder any day - and thereby cut out the middleman.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Kyosuke77]

Is my cell phone a computer?

I know mine is. The damn thing takes a leisurely 10 seconds to boot up when I press the power button. I thought it was ridiculous when I got it, and equally ridiculous was the fact that it seems to allow for firmware upgrades.

With modern cellphones incorporating fairly complex computing tasks like voice recognition, internet access, modem functionality, and digital image and video processing, not only are they computers, but they're easily as powerful as desktop PCs were 13 years ago, if not moreso. And , on top of all that, they inherently (being cellphones) have some pretty advanced wireless networking technology with widely accessible connectivity.

And if anybody still doesn't believe me, I'll gladly crack open their cell phone and show them the CPU.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[ObjetDart]

Currently you can buy things on-line on your computer. But wouldn't that be better from your TV?

No. Why on earth would it be better from the TV? Are you saying that sitting around in front of a TV is better than sitting around in front of a computer?

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Scorchio]

I remember reading an entry on techtales.com about a confused user who logged in on someone elses machine and couldn't understand why she didn't see her own desktop. Funny, but also insightful. Maybe this is how it'll turn out.. when you log into a computer, you see your desktop, your files, your applications, on whatever computer you happen to be using at the time. Whether this will be through a fast connection to a box you have sat at home or rented storage at some large central repository, I don't know. Imagine if Google took a step further than storing a gigabyte of your email to storing several gigabytes of your documents, desktop settings, licenced applications, etc...?

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[RogerWilco]

>MS Word already allows table and cell editing similar to Excel,
>graphics manipulation, and desktop publishing.

WP 5.1 did do a lot of that in the nineties already.
WP 6.0 did all of it in 1994.
In features WordPerfect was and is still way ahead of MS Word.

You could do calculations, references and use variables in WP5.1 tables.

WP was always a more serious DTP tool. WP 6.0 already supports folding signatures to do 2-up, 4-up, 16-up, booklet, separate font libraries, absolute page positioning styles, kerning, ligatures, a good equation editor, TextArt, fully WYSIWYG, etc.

And lo' and behold, it still uses the same file format for all versions since 6.0. I can make a file in WP 10+ for XP and my dad can use it on his 486 in WP 6.0 for DOS.

Where Word had the advantage is in usability and OS support (!)
It lost it in the win3 and win32 steps MS took, where playing catch-up - only having a version about 2 years after the OS arrived -
gave Word the opportunity to overtake WP.

I could go on, but I've found that this site is very complete
http://www.wpvsword.com might you be actually interested in the difference between WP and Word.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Dr. Evil]

People find price-points. Notebooks are a bad example because 15 years ago, they weren't very practical.

When mono LCD came out, nobody wanted plasma. When colour LCD reached about the $3k mark, nobody wanted monochome. When NiMH batteries came out, nobody wanted NiCd... so are you willing to shave $200 off the price of your notebook to cut your battery life by 70% replacing your LiIon batteries with NiCd?

Up until about 5 years ago, technology in Notebooks could be seen as "sucking less intolerably" rather than "improving". 5 years ago, people started to say, "no, that screen is big enough", "no, 2 hour battery life is enough", "no, I don't need the full speed of a desktop... office apps will run fine for me"

Now you have the option of a moderate notebook for $1k+, a super-portable notebook for $3k+, a super big and powerful notebook for $3k+, or a super-tough notebook for $4k+.

The price will continue to drop until some dramatic new killer feature brings it up. E.g. paper-like display quality, or multi-day battery life.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to rant about something, rail against confusion of then and than. Now that's something to bitch about!

For reference, when you're comparing two things, the word is than (with an A) not then (with an E). Corrected examples from this thread:

• I think we have a better shot of getting an "out of the box" original thought from an episode of Star Trek than some of these guys.
• My wristwatch has more computing power than the fastest computer in the year 2004.
• ...games with real interaction rather than scripted events.
• ...stagger back out with more stuff than I'll ever be able to sell.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[owlstead]

True, but you could also put down an interesting environment and let people make up their own fantastic stories. This is already happening with online games and it will get more and more advanced. I am not particularly worried that it will be a "tangled yarn that is life". I'm more worried that it will be a battlefield.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[PurifyYourMind]

This is primarily due to feature creep. Look at MS Office and Windows for prime examples. Instead of, say, conducting a statistical survey to see what features most people use the most, and then having everything else as "modules" (like Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird extensions), MS just includes everything.

Same goes with hardware. Keyboards are a good example. It took me awhile to find the Keytronic keyboard that I use at home right now. It's simple, sturdy, and attractive in a minimalist kind of way. I had to wade through dozens of competitors who had "Internet keys", "multimedia buttons", and on and on. Prices stay the same because capitalism makes vendors want to differentiate their product. The only way most companies can think of to do this is to add features. Simplicity and elegance goes away, and technical support nightmares increase.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[jesterzog]

What I think will be interesting to watch is how software also starts evolving from apps with a narrow focus (think along the lines of early 90's WordPerfect) to apps which try to do pretty much everything - perhaps a bad example, but MS Word already allows table and cell editing similar to Excel, graphics manipulation, and desktop publishing.

That's true. I've been suspicious for a while that apps in the way we think of them will eventually disappear along with the generic desktop/laptop/notebook/PDA computer. Word processing and spreadsheets, for instance, are quite different tasks... yet we essentially operate these tasks through the same interface. (Keyboard, mouse, monitor.)

This is mostly due to the superior economics of cramming lots of digital tasks into the one box. Word processing used to be done on typewriters, then electronic typewriters, but before the typewriter could develop much further with the computer technology, word processors became good enough and took over.

Using the same physical tool for several things is cheaper and it takes less space. What you lose, though, are the advantages of having specialist features on the hardware. It creates confusion, because it's often unclear to a user which parts of what they're doing will work the same, and which parts will work differently. (The keyboard and mouse are normally modal -- they do different things depending on the internal state of the system.)

I think the real challenge of successfully implementing ubiquity is figuring out how to effectively combine the necessary functionality for people's tasks with specialised interfaces that are easy to understand. I'm personally skeptical that this will involve leaving these tasks inside a generic box in which people "run" an application that they want to use.

I like to hope that computers will eventually merge into the background so we won't need to think of them or necessarily decide what application is necessary for the task-at-hand. This will probably involve a revolution of sorts in what hardware is, and a big merging of what software is and how it interacts with other software... if different software can even be distinguished.

I don't think it's too unlikely that computer hardware will end up as a public good (in the same way as roads and street lighting), much more merged all around society than the discrete computers we buy and sell today, with task agents (of sorts) following people around as they interact and do things.

On the surface it's an HCI issue, but realistically every segment of computer science is involved.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[cmcginty]

He means:

"(Nokia N-Gage, anyone?)"

should be

"(Nokia N-Gage anyone?)"

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[rs79]

With HDTV quality screens, I would rather make my purchases from my couch, not sitting at my desk. Why go to the computer, when the rest of my house is more comfortable?

Dude, you need a better desk.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[NateTech]

There is nothing new under the Sun.

Everything's a copycat of something. Only a very few inventions are truly revolutionary. Most are *evolutionary*.

When you stop worrying about the copycats and just enjoy whatever "stuff" you like, you figure it out. And then you start improving on the things you like, instead of worrying about other people's things you don't even use. (Whatever they are.)

Don't waste brain cycles worrying about whether there will be an EverQuack 2000 or whatever -- it's either going to happen or it isn't, but if you want something truly new and revolutionary for computers, just go make it.

Otherwise you're just a whiner in the recliner...

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[RockDoctor]

I predict that in 30 years, what is and isn't a computer will be hard to distinguish.

The essential tools in my job (and to a large degree in my hobby) are a 1-kg geological hammer, a number of plastic bags with string neck-ties (for today's samples), a hand lens, a pencil and a notebook. That's "note book" as in multiple sheets of waterproof paper bound together against a board firm enough for writing. The only significant technological changes in the last half century have been the introduction of propelling pencils (so I don't need to carry a pencil-sharpening knife, but I do anyway.) and the production of plastic-coated papers which are more waterproof. But if the water is chest-deep anyway, often you've got more concerns than keeping your notebook dry.
I don't see any benefit to computerising any of those tools. Cameras, voice recorders etc are so delicate that they can't survive the conditions (or can't be guaranteed to survive...), and the prospect of computerising the rock hammer is utterly laughable.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[MrRTFM]

and the prospect of computerising the rock hammer is utterly laughable.

How about in 45 years time when you can set your new computerised Rock Hammer to 'auto mode' and it magically applies the right force depending on the chemical properties of the target.

It could quickly smash through the normal rock with a large force then switch to delicate strokes as it detects something interesting - fossil, whatever.

I was kind of joking when I started writing this, but we never know - I certainly wouldn't have trusted computerised AntiLock brakes 30 years ago.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[RockDoctor]

and the prospect of computerising the rock hammer is utterly laughable.

How about in 45 years time when you can set your new computerised Rock Hammer to 'auto mode' and it magically applies the right force depending on the chemical properties of the target.

Well, in 45 years I'm likely to be a subterranean daisy erector (using the well established 'pushrod' method). But whether or ont there'll be a computerised rock hammer ... I doubt it.

1. Will there ever be sufficient market to support the development of the technology? I'd doubt it.
2. What would the comparative cost of the new versions versus the old ones? Much higher, I'd guess, which is always an issue.
3. Will the new technology provide sufficient new features to encourage take-up? I'd doubt it. (While there is useful information to be taken from the resistance of a rock to splitting, it's hugely complicated by questions such as the state of weathering of the rocks, to which there are no simple, quantifiable answers.)
4. What would be the reliability of the new technology? (If I do something perfectly normal, like beating the blazes out of a lump of gneiss to get a sample, and I split the shaft of my hammer (again - I'm on my 3rd shaft), will I be able to get it repaired in a fishing store in a 5-house village on Skye? OK - I've got to take it to Edinburgh to get it repaired - that's 3 days travelling time. Plus another week while they wait for parts, because this is an AutoHam Mk 13, and I haven't upgraded to the AutoHam Mk 27.)
5. And why haven't I taken advantage of the trade-in upgrade offer? Because no Mk 27 can replace the fact that this AutoHam Mk 13 is the one that I cut steps across the icefield on Central Gully of Beinn Laoigh that foul Sunday. It's got some sentinemtal value (even if it's had one new head and 2 new shafts since then). GRIN

Excuse me while I cuddle 'the Equaliser', my pet hammer. "All rocks are equal, but some take more equalising than others."
The Equaliser and I have shared a degree course, years of work in the mountains, no small amount of ice climbing, a couple of bar fights ... A friend in need.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[MrRTFM]

1. I agree - but what if its really cheap to produce the 'autohammer'

2. Yes it would be higher - but a lot of people bought 'pet rocks' in the '80s [Marketing!]

3. Probably not

4. Given the past history of computing devices - the first 15 years will be pretty shitty, but it would get better after that.

5. Well, if the auto hammer could give you any sentimental value, then lets hope that it never comes true, because there would probably be lots of horrible legal clauses built in (based on the historic Patent/Copyright/DRM Laws) which force everyone to upgrade automatically, or lose their access.

Perhaps a good test of this (completely fabricated) technology would be an endurance competition - your Equaliser, vs the new shiney AutoHammer01 - :)

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the 4 kings of the card deck and the King of England, right?

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[kiwipeso]

I'm working on doing this feature (profiles) on Kaos BSD.
It uses a mix of Bittorrent and gnutella to distribute it around the net. As security, you just use an access key cd to unlock your files.

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the writer's use of the comma in that instance is correct. It's analogous to saying, "Would you like to take an English class, you imbecile?" rather than saying, "Would you like to take an English class you imbecile?"

Re:we'll never recognize computers

[Anonymous Coward]

The plural form of PDA should actually have an apostrophe. This form is correct when the noun (in this case, "PDA") is an abbreviation or initial.

Think outside the box!

[erick99]

I'm sorry but this is not how you look into the future:simple extrapolation of the present. Nielsen simply takes all of the features we look at today and scales them up (3PHz processor, exabyte hard drives, etc.). My God, whatever computers look like in 30 years will probably bear little semblance to what we use today.

He and other futurists might do better to look at what we use computers for now and what we don't, but could, use them for in the future. They could also think way outside the box and think about how computers will physically change (will it still be everything in one box or will the hardware be as distributed as software can be) or how computers will integrate into everyday life.

I guess I expected a bit more imagination. 30 years is an awfully long time in terms of technological development.

Keep smiling!

Erick

Re:Think outside the box!

[Throtex]

Yea. 3 PHz? What if I have an asynchronous processor, you insensitive clod!?!

Re:Think outside the box!

[AviLazar]

I think we have a better shot of getting an "out of the box" original thought from an episode of Star Trek then some of these guys. Though in thirty years it will be cute to hear "My wristwatch has more computing power then the fastest computer in the year 2004." Considering I remember my teacher saying that in 1995; comparing his wrist watch to the ENIAC :)

Re:Think outside the box!

[AKAImBatman]

Actually, the extrapolation procedure doesn't work too bad. It's just a matter of connecting the dots. I have a book from 20+ years ago about the future of video games. Some of the claims were:

• Games could allow more than two players. Perhaps even enough to play a full game of soccer or football! (The picture showed a "dome" with controls in a ring around it.)
  
• Games will be able to be played over great distances! (The picture showed a chess board with a wireless antenna on it.)
  
• Games will be so much more realistic! (Shows a handheld game with a full scene of a motor bike jumping a dirt ramp.)
  

None of these predictions were wrong per say. Rather, the author failed to connect the dots and follow the the most likely path of games. Why have an arcade machine with 15 control sets when you can simply hook machines together over long distances? Why have a chess board with an antenna when you can play the same thing on your super-realistic, Hi-Res, 3D screen?

The future of computer technology has always been known. It's simply been a matter of developing the power to do it. The only failure of the visionaries was in their lack of understanding market conditions and forces. They thought of each technology in a vacuum and didn't put them together as actually happened.

Re:Think outside the box!

[inoffensif]

and where does bio-tech technology fall in all of this. Foret about only hardware driven machines. How will they interact with our bodies in 30 years. Just a thought. 30 years is a long time.

Re:Think outside the box!

[richieb]

I'm sorry but this is not how you look into the future:simple extrapolation of the present. Nielsen simply takes all of the features we look at today and scales them up (3PHz processor, exabyte hard drives, etc.). My God, whatever computers look like in 30 years will probably bear little semblance to what we use today.

Just assuming that there will be just one processor. Probably the number of processors will be measured in KP (kilo-processors).

Re:Think outside the box!

[SerpentMage]

No kidding... The article is so lacking in imagination it is not even funny.

I even doubt that he is right. The reason is because it will become impractical. Right now we have plenty of CPU power on the desktop. For example we can build cars (drag racers) with 2000HP, but is it practical for a mainstream car? Not with oil prices being what they are.

As you point out computers will integrate into mainstream and the features that we pre-occupy ourselves with (RAM, CPU Speed, etc) will become irrelevant. Even now I do not say the MHZ of my computers, as it is not proportional to performance.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Anubis350]

I agree, I seriously doubt in 30 years my computer will be the desktop box on my desk it is today. Nielson comments on the physical change from 30 years ago to today in his article but says nothing about how he predicticts it might change 30 years from now. Who knows, perhaps our "displays" will be direct nueral implants into the optical nerve. WOuldnt that be cool :-). -Aaron

Re:Think outside the box!

[TGK]

Of all the futurist sci-fi authors out there, the best and (in my opinion) most realistic rendition of future societies is given in Peter F. Hamilton's Reality Disfunction series.

Note: Think away the energy manipulating poltergeist possession thing to get my point.

Human society divides along two lines, Adamists and Edenists. Adamists embrace nanotechnology and information technology. Edenists embrace biotechnology. While the division isn't that plausable, most of the tech described from the Adamist side of things is a real possibilty in the distant future. We're allready seeing the beginings of it.

My predictions:
1.) Augmented Reality will be the killer app that moves the personal computer from your desktop into the category of wallet, watch, and keys that you need to leave the house.

2.) Increases in display technology and plumeting memory and processor costs continue to push more embded devices into the marketplace.

3.) Computer interaction will edge out human interaction as the primary means of doing buisness. How this happens will depend on the particular industry. It has allready happened to the banking industry. Some of this will be online interaction, an appreciable portion of it will be based on biometrics and customer tracking. The privacy people will object to this, but will be overcome by the allmighty dollar.

4.) The computer applications we use will continue to become more abstract and seperated from the data they handle. The reason this occurs is the cycle that drives hardware also drives sofware. Hardware sells because people want to run the latest software. Software sells because people who have the latest hardware want things to run that pushes their system to the limit. Programers thus write applications that allows a more sophisticated rendition of the same dataset. Not to use Microsoft as an example, but compare Excel 95 to Excel XP. What's the difference?

5.) Longhorn will begin a trend in operating systems that SGI first demonstrated with the Onyx. The OS is the redheaded stepchild of the mainstream software market right now. It is untilitarian, focusing more on getting its job done and less on looking slick. Apple has tried to change this, SGI has tried to change this, Enlightenment has tried to change this. Microsoft will succeed.

Most of these predictions are more like 10 years down the road instead of 30. What's really interesting are the social change that this kind of technological integration will bring about. What will happen as the governments of the world lag further and further behind the corporations as providers of the day to day services that people depend on?

The next 30 years of computing promises more than just faster system and bigger drives, it promises radical changes in where computers are found, what computers do, and how human beings interact.

Thirty years is a long time, and while I wouldn't put a bet in for me being able to get an 802.11 jack for my head in that time frame, it's only because I don't think the FDA would allow it by then.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Mecanico]

You are right maybe we wouldn't even be able to call them computers because of the many differenc aspects they could cover...

I may be exagerating, but maybe "Best Friend" or "opossing team" would be more adequate terms by that time.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that in 30 years we won't have any computers at all. Instead, we'll have spice, and hot Bene Gesserit women. Yes, I am predicting the Butlerian Jihad.

Re:Think outside the box!

[mikael]

Games could allow more than two players. Perhaps even enough to play a full game of soccer or football! (The picture showed a "dome" with controls in a ring around it.)

There are networked arcade racing games. While they may not have been that popular at $0.50 for 1 minute, they are much more playable for a kid's birthday party, where the cost is included for a whole afternoon's entertainment.

Games will be able to be played over great distances! (The picture showed a chess board with a wireless antenna on it.)

You can play a chess game with another person using your mobile phone.

Games will be so much more realistic! (Shows a handheld game with a full scene of a motor bike jumping a dirt ramp.)

The latest handheld games are going to be able to do this.

For anyone who's interested, I've scanned in some old Byte magazines from 15-20 years ago.

Re:Think outside the box!

[AKAImBatman]

You're repeating what I said. The book wasn't wrong. It was simply off on how those technologies would be combined.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Deflagro]

Again i'd have to point to Kurzweil about this. People don't realise how quickly we've advanced since the computer was created. Every technology we create only fuels new techs with fuels new ones exponentially.
In one century we've experienced multiple revolutions, industrial and technological. Considering we've been around over 10 times that long (civilised anyhow), i'd say it's amazing.

I just think tech advancement happens on a much shorter scale as you'd have to change the measurement yearly almost.

I think it's exciting that i'll be alive to see some really crazy advancements, as long as human nature stays out of it and we don't destroy everything.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article: "The specifics may vary". And:

"Science fiction authors do a better job than I do of speculating on future advances and the implications for human existence. However, one thing is certain: The transition from punched tape to the Web and megapixel displays is merely the first and smallest part of the evolution of user interfaces."

He's not pretending he's Nostradamus. Every time something about Jakob Neilson gets posted, /.ers jump all over him. I'm not a raving fan (and I hate the look of his web site) but he has made some contribution to the field of usability: at the very least, he's drawn attention to it. And that's what he's doing now: bringing our attention to the USABILITY issues of tomorrow's computers.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Anonymous Coward]

The future of computing will look like magic to us now, just as a set of matches would look like magic to a caveman, or a television set to someone from the middle-ages.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Saeger]

Yes, Nielsen is guilty of the "intuitive linear" view of progress, when the reality is that progess is exponential in any evolutionary system.

Required reading for any so-called Futurist should be The Law of Accelerating Returns , which is more comprehensive than the more familiar Moore's "law".

An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.

When confronted by this for the first time, a lot of people are understandablyshocked, and quick to dismiss it.

Re:Think outside the box!

[badasscat]

Actually, the extrapolation procedure doesn't work too bad. It's just a matter of connecting the dots. I have a book from 20+ years ago about the future of video games. Some of the claims were:

* Games could allow more than two players. Perhaps even enough to play a full game of soccer or football! (The picture showed a "dome" with controls in a ring around it.)
* Games will be able to be played over great distances! (The picture showed a chess board with a wireless antenna on it.)
* Games will be so much more realistic! (Shows a handheld game with a full scene of a motor bike jumping a dirt ramp.)

It's no stretch to think that in the future, graphics will be better, and different types of games will be possible with more computing power. But statements like the following have really becoome a pet peeve of mine:

Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today.

News flash: people *like* linear presentations and plotlines. We don't have linear presentations in games right now because of any technical limitation in the medium, we have them because that's what people *want*. Case in point: the Final Fantasy series. FFXI - the first MMORPG in the series - has sold fewer than 700,000 copies worldwide on both the PC and PS2. FFX - the last truly linear game in the series - sold 5 *million* copies on *one* system. FFX-2 was offline but also not linear, and it was criticized by some as a result and did not sell as well as FFX. Part of the reason people buy games in this series is *because* of the linear story-telling in them.

There will be a market for both types of games in the future, as there is now. I'm not saying linear games are all the market has room for. But we've had linear presentations in various mediums going back *thousands* of years; it's a method of storytelling that's been perfected by many skilled artisans. Can you imagine Shakespeare as a choose-your-own-adventure? Our human desire for linear stories goes much deeper than simple technical limitations; such stories are present in all cultures and have been basically since man learned to communicate.

There's nothing "more engaging" about persistent worlds; in fact they've already become passe, with most MMORPG's just copying each other. It's just a different style of gameplay, which has yet to reach maturity. Someday it will, but there is nothing inherently superior about that method of gameplay, just as there is nothing inherently superior in sports games vs. RPG's or in fighting games vs. platformers. They're just different genres.

I don't have any problem with extrapolation to predict the future in computing, because most of that extrapolation is born of the assumption that processors will continue to get faster, and applications more complex. I think that's a safe assumption to make. But I do have problems with expectations of fundamental shifts in the way humans have enjoyed their leisure time for centuries just because a faster CPU enables them to. It's not up to consumers to fit their interests around their PC's; it's up to hardware manufacturers and application designers to fit their products to consumers' interests.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. There is no guarantee that we will even be using binary logic in 30 years. For example, this could be the norm, or something we haven't even invented yet.

The only thing that seems certain is that computers will evolve in ways that we can't predict.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Saeger]

It doesn't have to be Us Vs. Them when it comes to thinking machines. Certainly there will be those who romanticize the bio-human condition, but AI and IA is an inevitability that we'll need to guide rather than futiley attempt to destroy.

For me, the anti-machine Jihad was always the most depressing aspect of Dune. bunch of luddites.

--

Re:Think outside the box!

[Dun Malg]

He and other futurists might do better to look at what we use computers for now and what we don't, but could, use them for in the future. They could also think way outside the box and think about how computers will physically change (will it still be everything in one box or will the hardware be as distributed as software can be) or how computers will integrate into everyday life.

Yeah, I've heard "futurists" like him before. One goofball suggested that "in the future" we would store ALL our music on a disc the size of a dime that we'd be able to carry around with us everywhere and, when we purchase an album, we'd hand the clerk our disc and they'd add the music to it. Totally fails to take into account the "lose- and steal-ability" of a dime-sized disc. Pure extrapolation only works up to a certain point, then you have to ask yourself, "why?"

Re:Think outside the box!

[foobsr]

Well, he is only human.

Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today

Especially this is pretty old stuff. I recall having read a short-story back 4 decades that centered around a woman being addicted to a totally immersive (way before Gibson) role playing game.

We'll also spend a big percentage of the computer power on defense mechanisms such as self-healing software (to root out bugs and adapt to changing environments) and aggressively defensive virus antibodies. We'll need such software to protect against "social engineering" attacks, such as e-mail that purports to come from your boss and asks you to open an attachment.

Big vision. What about directly being netted into all your communication channels using some improved-portions of the unused parts of the brain ?

Oh, and hell ... ... However, one thing is certain: The transition from punched tape to the Web and megapixel displays is merely the first and smallest part of the evolution of user interfaces. If we keep human needs in mind and harness the increased computer power appropriately, there will be great and exciting things ahead in our field. Presumably (best case if at all) it will be more like the wintermutes thinking about how to improve human communication skills than vice versa. Ok, I recall that I was called a moron when I argued that computers would be the better chess players.

Jakob Nielsen is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group and a specialist in Web usability. Ah, yes, they give a Checklist of 111 specific recommendations like the 55 new makeover tips advertised on the front pages of the relevant readings.

What a worls. Hopefully silicon-alikes will take over soon.

CC.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Paulrothrock]

Apple has tried to change this, SGI has tried to change this, Enlightenment has tried to change this. Microsoft will succeed.

WHAT?!?

Ahem... sorry. First; we don't know what functionality will be built into Longhorn, and we only have a vague idea about what it's going to look like (which, by any standard, is a lot like OS X, but with less screen space for actual work.) The operating system should only look cool if it helps you to do work. Like the blink tag. When used correctly (to make a blinking warning sign), it saved bandwidth and enhanced the user experience. But when used with abandon (giant blinking paragraphs), it sucked ass and was deprecated.

OS X, for the most part, uses flashy things to let you know what it's doing. Progress bars have little animation in them so you know if the computer has frozen or not. Buttons are highlighted with little bubbles around them. Minimizing windows to the dock is accompanied by an animation that lets you know where they're going.

Also, building functions (like picture slideshows or printing options) into the OS is a waste of code. Make it run well, make it work well with other software, and make it easy to understand. An operating is for operating the computer, kind of like a librarian; it handles requests and management of the system for other software. It should not replace other software. Specialization breeds efficiency.

That being said, I see the OS as a major component in systems going away. Things will be able to share information without drivers and IRQs and configuration. Got a bluetooth GPS receiver? You can pull that information into any device in any program. Transparently. Automagically. Cell phone? Use it to connect to the net, find people, take pictures. Modular, transparent networking using dedicated devices and software: That's the future of computing. One-size-fits all never fits right. Make hardware and software small and modular, and people can choose the features they want without sacrificing performance on things they don't need.

Re:Think outside the box!

[RicktheBrick]

I do not care how fast or how much storage is available, I only care what the computer can do for me. In 30 years if I am still alive I expect to totally rely on a computer network for my security. I expect to go to bed in a totaly dark and quiet bedroom with a computer watching and notifing me of any problems it can not take care of which will be very little. I expect that none of my devices I own will be of any value to anyone else since they will only work for me unless I release them for another's use. Automobile will drive themselves so one will eat, sleep and be entertained while being driven. Work will be directed remotely so one will be able to be in India and yet work in the United States in a manufacturing plant. There will be very little need for transportation of people since every thing will be able to be done remotely even sex.

Re:Think outside the box!

[stateq2]

(will it still be everything in one box or will the hardware be as distributed as software can be)

That's similar to what I think. I think in the future, all computers w/ simply have extremely powerful hardware, and everything else will run via emulation. Similar to how emulation is done today, certain hardware will be distributed in the form of emulator software, and we'll be able to run whatever we need at full speed.

Re:Think outside the box!

[Lars T.]

Instead, we'll have spice, and hot Bene Gesserit women.

The Spice Girls?

Re:Think outside the box!

[TGK]

What I mean is that none of those earlier attempts to raise the bar on the user's experiance with the OS succeeded because they were backed by companies without the market clout to make the product fly. Like it or not, MS has a history of brining out products which prompt people to buy new hardware to run it.

Look at figures for computer sales around the time Win95 came out. Look at those same figures for when XP came out. When MS brings out a new OS and it's a major change (or when they say it's a major change) people make an effort to bring themselves up to date.

I'm not addressing this as a good or bad thing, but I am saying that as the interface becomes glitzier and snazier you'll start to move away from the taboo of the computer as a device of academic or work related function and more towards something that is designed as an integral portion of home entertainment.

He's old and obsolete

[magefile]

Ignore him! Oh, and did he post this himself? "Usability guru"?

It won't really change...

[gerbick]

Gaming won't really change... heck, I'm still waiting for my flying car.

Re:It won't really change...

[stanmann]

Well given the random and consistently lower qualities of movies today, I don't see how gaming can't help but be more engaging in 30 years.

What?

[MrRuslan]

Still no hollowdeck?

Re:What?

[TwistedSquare]

Still no hollowdeck?

No, they haven't perfected the technology yet to prevent the outside collapsing onto the hollow inside ;)

Re:What?

[beatleadam]

No, they haven't perfected the technology yet to prevent the outside collapsing onto the hollow inside ;)

I could have sworn that was filled with Caramel...maybe it was Nougat :-)

Re:What?

[Virtex]

Thanks to termites, my deck is pretty hollow.

Um...

[DrEldarion]

Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today

Uh, don't computer games now have simulated worlds and interactive storytelling? Morrowind anyone?

Re:Um...

[platypibri]

or Everquest even?

Re:Um...

[stanmann]

Well some think everquest may be dead, others posit that it will continue to live, time will tell and you can read about it here

Re:Um...

[Kenja]

"Uh, don't computer games now have simulated worlds and interactive storytelling? Morrowind anyone?"

While I liked the game (and am currently playing the Bloodmoon expansion). Morrowind was about as interactive as a chose your own adventure book. Sure, you could do things that where outside of the script. But they had no effect.

You could rob all the great houses blind while the guards watched, you could kill entire towns, you could reach the rank of guild master in any of several guilds. But nothing changed. No one reacted diferently to you regardless of what you did (unless you where wanted for murder or something, then you had to pay a small fine. And keep in mind that you realy could kill entire towns without getting a price put on your head). One would hope that in the future there will be Morrowind like games with real interaction rather then scripted events.

PS: My favorite example of this problem in Morrowind is when I would walk into a house vault naked, turn invisible, unlock the vault doors, take anything not nailed down,stagger back out with more stuff then I'll ever be able to sell, and all the guards say is "we're watching you. Scum!". I bust out laughing every time that happens.

Re:Um...

[Kenja]

Ok, I'll bite. Whats the "story" in Everquest? All you do is sit in line waiting for your turn to kill somthing in the hopes that it will drop an item that will help you kill the next thing you wait in line for.

Re:Um...

[stanmann]

which part of the story, the dark elves are at war with the halflings, the frogs recently invaded grobb changing it to gukta. there are tigers that live on the moon. There is plenty of story to read, participate in, and develop.

Computer games in 2034?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

DNF due in March.

Re:Computer games in 2034?

[GeckoX]

Nah, my prediction is obviously more accurate:

Updated June 1st, 2004:
DNF to be released "when it's done"

Compu...what?

[Deflagro]

I agree with someone else's post. A computer won't be a box with a monitor, etc..
It will prolly be like a PDA that has periphs you can plug in and just have everything virtual.
I mean, 30 YEARS! Considering the exponential advance in technology, all we'd have to do is find a new battery model (nanotech i'm sure) and voila.

I'm gonna be in my rocking chair playing final fantasy XX i'm sure.

Re:Compu...what?

[AviLazar]

nonotech, schmanotech...I'm talking dilithium crystals baby :)

Re:Compu...what?

[grumbel]

Just consider the last 15-20 years, back then computer where very small, directly build into the keyboard, almost made no noise beside the drives, could be plugged into every TV and 'just worked', no need to maintain or reinstall the OS really, just insert another floppy and viola it worked.

Today computers are in most cases big noisy grey boxes. People have to reinstall or maintain their OS, manually install security patches and every once in a while a nice internet worms does funny things with your machine. GUIs are still pretty much the same as the first GUIs that apeared, just a bit more colorfull here and there, but fundamentally still pretty much the same.

Beside getting faster, bigger and louder and more throublesome in maintaince there really wasn't much change in the computers you normally use in the last 15-20 years, sure memory has grown bigger and now we can do some cool new stuff, but fundamentally not much has changed, some issues have even getting worse.

That said, technology might improve expotentially, user interfaces however do not. Just look at something basic like 'undo', neither Linux, Windows or MacOS provides an 'undo' on filesystem level, instead they provide this ugly workaround of a trashcan which doesn't help on a plain 'rm' or if you overwrite a file instead of deleting it. Versioned filesystems however are nothing new and should be easily doable with todays machines, however non OS does it that way, which just shows that hardware might be evolving fast, software however is not.

Re:Compu...what?

[Deflagro]

And that may be the bottleneck too. Considering designing an interface requires intelligence and a certain....foresight or empathy.
We can make molecular computers and quantum cryptography, etc.. but when it comes to using it, we run the same things we're used to.
We really need an increase in intelligence to advance and when we can teach our machines to think for us, then the bottleneck is gone and the exponentail becomes exponential only limited to resources... it's all very interesting.

Re:Compu...what?

[blighter]

While I think you may be onto something in that the increased capabilities of computers have come with increased complexity, responsibility and potential for disaster, you should realize that the evil operating system XP does have a rudimentary "undo" feature: System Restore.

So perhaps we will see more progress on the ease of maintenance front along with all of these pie-in-the-shy predictions about raw power.

Re:Compu...what?

[CreatureComfort]

Well, if we're depending on an increase in human intelligence (as opposed to machine intelligence) for the next level of advancement, we're all doomed. We'll just be trying to remember how to bang the rocks together by 2035. At least judging by what passes for the current level of intelligence, and watching the trend in the people around me.

Re:Compu...what?

[Deflagro]

That is true I suppose. I have a history of ignoring that pesky preview button.

Just imagine when the machines think FOR us? Geez, we'll be morons...they'd prolly just get rid of us or make us work in their salt mines :)

Re:Compu...what?

[mr_mischief]

They're bigger because we wanted user-upgradable parts. They're louder because they need to be reliable and not burn up in a couple of months -- it's one of the prices of getting faster. They're less secure because we're connecting them to one another to enable things we couldn't easily do 15-20 years ago.

You can easily buy an SBC with an AMD Geode 1 GHz CPU and 128 megs of RAM, put your storage on CompactFlash with an IDE convertor, and have integrated Ethernet on it. With no fans needed and solid-state storage, it'd be quiet. With everything but the CF on one board, it'd be small. It would run most software people run on the stock desktops.

VMS indeed does do versioned filesystems. It's not too long, I'm sure, before there's a Linux filesystem that implements it at the FS level if there's not already. Until then, there are versioning systems at the application level.

There are all kinds of software we have now that we didn't 15-20 years ago. You're almost certainly reading /. on a web browser. SMTP/POP3 email software certainly wasn't the norm on desktops 20 years ago. We have much better animation now than then. We have realistic computer audio done mostly in software (this is enabled largely by the processor speeds and memory sizes, but the software to take advantage of it is fairly new). Instant messengers which work outside the LAN are certainly new within the last 15 years. The programming languages used to write other software have changed much over the last 15-20 years. Machine translation of natural languages was a dream 20 years ago, but now it's getting reasonably accurate. Software in just the last couple of years has taken big strides toward displaying everyone's languages together on screen in the proper character sets -- even with more than one alphabet in use at a time. Desktop operating systems have come from offering filesystem services and port access to one program at a time through the days of cooperative multitasking into the days of memory-protected preeemptive multitasking and even machine virtualization.

Sure, the uses of the individual applications may not have changed much -- reading text, editing text, listening to sounds, playing games, todo lists, calendars, address books, etc. Tewnty years ago, though, could you open your address book, drag a CD-quality sound clip into it, and type an annotaion before clicking a button to send it to someone on another continent?

Re:Compu...what?

[lostchicken]

Nah. My computer is tiny. I carry it around all the time. It's the second fastest computer I've owned. It's got a 300MHz ARM chip on it, and a pretty good display. It's my HP iPaq 4155. My PDA is as powerful as my old computer. So, we're at that point already, to where computers are tiny, but I have a bigger computer because you can make a computer faster if you make it bigger.

Re:Compu...what?

[grumbel]

Well, yes, we are at a point at which we could make small computers, but the computers for the masses are still rather large. Not really because the users need bigger and faster computers (for a bit of Office computers a few years ago were already more then fast enough), reliability and silence would be far more important, but just because they still sell better, luckily thats slowly changing now.

Getting a tiny, noiseless computer that you can plug into your normal monitor, tv and USB keyboard are still far away from being the norm and in most cases either quite expensive or very hard to get.

The main driving force behind computer development the last 10-20 years where just making them faster, but not better or more userfriendly, luckily we are slowly reaching a point where computers are almost fast enough for almost everything, especially when it comes to normal use, so that the arguments for a new computer no langer can be just 'faster'.

IN 30 years,,,,

[Jailbrekr]

I think there will be a backlash against technology. We will hit a critical point in our social evolution where we say "enough!" How much of a backlash, I know not.

At least I hope there is a backlash. Too much, too invasive, too quick.

Re:IN 30 years,,,,

[DLWormwood]

At least I hope there is a backlash. Too much, too invasive, too quick.

Kind of like the Butlerian Jihad?

Re:IN 30 years,,,,

[Adriax]

Too much, too invasive, too quick.

Isn't that the famous last words of the Dodo bird?

Re:IN 30 years,,,,

[SoCalChris]

I think technology will keep getting better, but we'll see it less. In fact, it is already happening.

Take Tivo for instance. A few years ago, if you wanted to record something, you had to set up your VCR, program it, make sure there was a blank tape, etc... Now you just punch into your Tivo that you like certain kinds of shows, and they are recorded for you. In the future, devices like Tivo probably won't even need you to tell it what to record, it will know what you want to record based on what you watch most.

Another example is cars. The new Mercedes recognize who is driving, and adjust the seats/mirrors/stereo to what that driver likes automatically. They also recognize if a seat is empty, and in an accident it won't deploy the airbags for empty seats. Some of the new cars don't even require a key to start any more. The owner carries a card with a RFID chip in their wallet that the car recognizes, and allows them to drive the car without having to use a key. Even 10 years ago, the things that are standard on a lot of new cars would have been unimaginable.

I think things will keep getting far more technologically advanced, but we will see it less and less.

Re:IN 30 years,,,,

[Dun Malg]

I think there will be a backlash against technology. We will hit a critical point in our social evolution where we say "enough!"

I don't think we'll ever hit that point. One thing about technology is that it get more subtle. There's never going to be so much technology "in our face" that we'll freak out about it. Luddites will, but they freaked out about the electric light...

Re:IN 30 years,,,,

[iabervon]

In the future, the idea of shows happening at particular times will be completely lost. People will be mystified at the idea that, if you turned on the TV five minutes after the last episode of Friends started, you'd miss the first five minutes. That's like saying that if you downloaded DooM a week late, you'd start on mission 3. Available bandwidth will make the idea of broadcasting, except where it's live or something, nonsensical.

Computer Games in the Future

[bl4nk]

I predict they will have a hat or helmet type of device that somehow can link up with your brain to transport you in to the game, giving you the ability to touch, smell, see, and BE inside the game as if it were an alternate reality. Games will no longer have 'controls,' as your mind will be the ultimate gaming device in the future.

Re:Computer Games in the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah buddy, like you're raking in the chicks! Go back to your hentai tentacle porn and let the adults here have a nice conversation.

BTW, a night with Rosie does not equal being laid.

Oh, and even before you come back, I have a wife, and I keep her

quite

satisfied.

Re:Computer Games in the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

> BTW, a night with Rosie does not equal being laid.

No, but it *does* involve a lot of taco farts, mutterings in the night about "if *I* were Tom Cruise's vagina...", and a very real risk of death by crushing.

Wait, you *did* mean O'Donnell, right?

AGHHH Recursion!

[darth_MALL]

'Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today.'. You mean like this?

No, in a visor.

[www.sorehands.com]

The entire computer and display will be contained in a pair of cool visors and respond to voice control and where you are looking.

Re:No, in a visor.

[Greyfox]

They'll actually have the visor by 2007. It'll take another 30 years to make it cool.

Re:No, in a visor.

[www.sorehands.com]

I am telling my kids to get me the visor with laser beams attached. Forget the shark.

I think

[Anonymous Coward]

People who started using computers after the PC revolution have no idea about the miserable user experience that centralised computers imposed. Even the worst PC designs today feel positively liberating by comparison.

Re:I think

[Mr.Dippy]

Besides the spyware comment, you describe Windows XP to a tee!

Think about what they thought of thirty years ago

[jb.hl.com]

I bet, thirty years ago, there were loads of geeks who envisaged an online community of sorts, where tech and computing could be discussed freely.

If Slashdot is the product of that, christ knows what 2034 will have...

Interactive storytelling?

[spidergoat2]

Boy! What a limited imagination that guy has. I'm expecting a holo deck by then!

Re:Interactive storytelling?

[WormholeFiend]

you're deluding yourself... they'll never invent a holodeck, and if someone did, he'd be prevented from marketing it, because if everyone had a holodeck, no one would ever go outside of it, except to eat and defecate; this would lead to the downfall of mankind, as reproduction and social activities cease altogether.

Re:Interactive storytelling?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like the informational video in the Futurama episode, I Dated a Robot...

Re:Interactive storytelling?

[PaleBoy]

You are assuming that people actually want to experience the kind of things that they imagine they want. People may get tired of having their every whim catered to, virtually.

Dialing up your desires pales in comparison to the shock and surprise that is reality.

Re:Interactive storytelling?

[WormholeFiend]

you must live in an exciting place.

nothing random and exciting ever happens here.
well, at least, very rarely.

Re:Interactive storytelling?

[PaleBoy]

Hmm. Perhaps if it wasn't rare, it wouldn't be exciting? From a certain perspective, just being able to communicate via message posts over the internet is pretty awesome stuff. However, it's hard to get excited about something you are accustomed to.

And I think that's why the real world has the edge in total entertainment value. In a holodeck, your satisfaction is limited to merely the most satisfying thing you can think of. In the real world, things happen that you would never dream of. It would be hard to love someone who would always say what you want to hear, for example.

Additionally, the sheer contrast between beautiful and ugly and easy and challenging and fair and unfair make even just walking around outside a pretty engaging experience.

Having said that, I think I am going to go out for a walk.

I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[lawpoop]

These people should do some reading on narrative theory.

A story is a meaning applied to events after they have occured. A game is a game, like sports or a board game. You can only make a story out of it after events have been completed. A story has a status quo, an event that disrupts that status quo, and a hero who overcomes a challenge to create a new status quo. You can only joing narrative events to actual events after they have all taken place. If you have a wandering storyline, what's to say that this particular event is the shift to the 2nd or 3rd act? It's only after you have everything that you can make a complete story. And that's not to say that there's only one story. Any event might serve as any of the narrative events, depending on the story you're telling.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[31415926535897]

A story is a meaning applied to events after they have occurred.

Then perhaps your definition (or the standard definition, whatever) is narrow, or perhaps they just misused the term, but I don't think that is the point.

I think the point the author of the article was trying to make was that instead of having a "story", or some linear sequence of events happen to the player (the character), you will have a completely interactive world where your actions can change the world, and that changed world affects you differently now, which essentially changes the story.

If you have a wandering storyline, who cares what the 2nd or 3rd act is? Why must there be an act structure in the story at all? If it's because that's how all stories are, then it will be quite an innovation to break the model of story and expand it to this interactive level. If it's simply how story is defined, then let's change the definition of story or call this interactive game play something else.

I think we can see the start of this in the MMPO games we have now. A lot of them are still linear though, but the paths are getting wider. In that sense, they are still a story because the game designer has determined what the story will be. However, with exponentially increasing computing power and the innovation of a few people/companies, I do not see fully immersive storylines as an impossibility in the near future (meaning, in our lifetimes).

Who knows? I guess only time will tell.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just arguing semantics. It's important to understand when you study something like narrative theory you learn a semantic system specific to that study. The words don't mean the same thing outside narrative theory.

You seem to understand exactly what they ment by immersive storylines. We all do. There isn't a problem you are needed to fix.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[lawpoop]

Remember that a story is something you tell after the fact. It has a punchline, like a joke. Something that hits you. Good stories are planned out, and their telling is practiced.

For good, unplanned stories to happen, I think that will only happen in MMORPGS with either great AI (unlikely), or a lot of freedom for avatars. And then, again, *a story will be a re-telling of events that have already happened* . Hey, did you see what happened in $_MMORPG yesterday? I finally got my castle fortifications set up, and that jerk Ermond did a surprise attacks, but he didn't know that I had a pet dragon, so I let his forces in, and they all died a fiery death! That'll teach him.

The thing is that currently, a computer doesn't have enough AI to be a narrator. Right now only a human being can wedge events into a narrative stream and tell it to someone.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[zephiros]

A story is a meaning applied to events after they have occured. A game is a game, like sports or a board game. You can only make a story out of it after events have been completed.

I will never understand why this old chestnut appears every time there's a discussion of interactive storytelling.

By your definition, fiction is impossible. When the author sits down with a blank sheet of paper, he should be stuck, since there are no past events for him to relate.

But of course, we know this isn't the case. Even school children are capable of inventing fanciful, novel stories. The path to interactive storytelling is collaboration between the player and the computer to produce a narrative which is both interesting to the player and dramatically compelling. The narrative is a product of this process, it is not the process itself.

Perhaps we need to come up with a new term. When people say "interactive story" they obviously don't mean "give me a book I can shove into my Playstation." They mean "give me a piece of software that allows me to have an experience similar to reading a good book, but also provides me agency, and allows me to control how I experience events."

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no. You can create stories in the process of telling them. Have you ever made up an erotic fantasy together with a partner? Do you, when you watch a mystery movie, think of the story as something that "has already happened"? No, you are waiting for the story to happen! The twists and turns that are unpredictable make the story. Why not "make them up" as you tell the story, create the movie as you show them? Technology might be able to one day. Re-read your narrative theory, please.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[RobinH]

A story is a meaning applied to events after they have occured. A game is a game, like sports or a board game. You can only make a story out of it after events have been completed.

Perhaps, but I can still see the technology applied to porn, pretty soon, actually.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[CreatureComfort]

Because we all know what a great storytelling vehicle a good porno is.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[Otto]

But of course, we know this isn't the case. Even school children are capable of inventing fanciful, novel stories. The path to interactive storytelling is collaboration between the player and the computer to produce a narrative which is both interesting to the player and dramatically compelling. The narrative is a product of this process, it is not the process itself.

The problem is that storytelling is hard. It's easy to create a story. It's tough to create a compelling and interesting story. And it seems to be damn near impossible to do it without knowing what the main character is actually going to do.

This is why we don't have any good examples of immersive fiction yet. Think about it, you're basically telling the creator of the game to create a compelling and interesting story without knowing exactly what the main character in the story (the player) is actually going to do. This seems pretty hard to me, and is likely why most attempts have ended up as just more complicated versions of choose your own adventure. They come up with perhaps a dozen ways the story could go, max, then program those in using branch points. At some point in the game, you can either go do this or go do that and thus the branch is chosen. But after replaying it several times, you run out of branches.

To create something truly compelling, you'd need a lot more freedom of action. However, the program is fixed. It can't change. So anything it does must be scripted in advance. This means that truly immersive storytelling is, in fact, impossible without some form of artifical intelligence, to let the story actually change according to an unlimited number of actions.

Now, that's obviously too far. So since we're not going to let the computer tell the story, we have to let the programmer of the computer do it. This means that the possible lines are fixed. Now, if someone were to spend a hell of a lot of time on it, they could possible come up with several dozen branches at each chosen branch point in the story, and thus give the illusion of truly immersive story by sheer number of possible things to do. After about 30 possible choices at a branch point, the human brain can't really tell the difference anyway, unless they're presented with options of things to say like console games do, and such. But if the choices were actual actions that the player carried out, 30 would be more than enough.

The problem with this is that it's such a big job. If you're going to provide that kind of freedom of action, you're looking at writing thousands of similar but separate stories. And no cheating like many games do, where no matter which branch you take, the impact is slight at best and the story remains mostly unchanged. We're hoping for replay factor here. We want total changes in the storyline. Some cheating this way is okay, because things happen that way sometimes through no act of your own, but still, too much of this and you lose the point of doing it on a large scale in the first place.

Immersive storytelling is simply a hard, hard thing to do. I don't think that technology will solve this problem either, because it's not a problem with the technology. We can do it now, for that matter. It's simply a matter of spending enough time actually writing the thing out on a grand enough scale to make it seem to be unlimited. But that's still big enough to prevent it from really happening so far.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[RobinH]

Because we all know what a great storytelling vehicle a good porno is.

True... usually less story is better.

Maybe women's porn then.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[zephiros]

The problem with this is that it's such a big job. If you're going to provide that kind of freedom of action, you're looking at writing thousands of similar but separate stories. And no cheating like many games do, where no matter which branch you take, the impact is slight at best and the story remains mostly unchanged. We're hoping for replay factor here. We want total changes in the storyline. Some cheating this way is okay, because things happen that way sometimes through no act of your own, but still, too much of this and you lose the point of doing it on a large scale in the first place.

I anticipate that, at some point in the playtesting of the original Myst, someone probably said "It would be awesome if I could just walk around, and look at the puzzle from any direction I wanted."

And some patient programmer no doubt explained that such a thing would be impossible. Since each screen was hand-drawn by artists, you'd need thousands of artists spending years to draw pictures of a given room from every possible vantage point. And you'd need to ship gigabytes of image data with the game.

Of course, we now take that level of immersion for granted. And there aren't thousands of starving illustrators locked away in dungeons, drawing views for Doom III. Different views are created in real time by specialized hardware, using complex maths. When you zip through a room in Far Cry, how many thousands of paths could you have taken?

I tend to think the interactive "storytelling" problem will, given time, shake out the same way. We will stop working with stories as individually hand-crafted products (like paintings). We will instead begin to work with them as processes (like renders of a 3d scene).

This will require a lot of work to define the theoretical underpinnings of this process, and to create the tools people will use to create these potential-rich environments. It will also require a fundamental shift in the way authors/creators work. This will be hard. It will be resisted, both by technical types (who view the problem as insoluble) and by creative types (who view the loss of authorial control as anathema).

But it will happen, because the promise is so compelling. Perhaps because the experience of getting wrapped up in a computer game is much the same as getting caught up in a good book.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[Otto]

And some patient programmer no doubt explained that such a thing would be impossible. Since each screen was hand-drawn by artists, you'd need thousands of artists spending years to draw pictures of a given room from every possible vantage point. And you'd need to ship gigabytes of image data with the game.

Okay, but there's a bit of a difference here, as I see it. This theoretical programmer was mistaken. First off, each screen was created by artists, true, but it was then rendered by computer. So creating those thousands of screens was simply a matter of creating the scene and throwing processor power at the problem. We didn't have the processor power at home to do it in real-time back then, we do now, and thus you can go buy RealMyst and there you go. Computer graphics pros use the computer as a design tool and then use a rendering engine to create the final product.

But storytelling isn't a process that lends itself to "rendering" by computer in the same way. Right now, storytellers don't use computer power to actually write the story that they designed. At best, they use word processors and certain tools to help them with spelling errors or grammar problems or what have you. They still use it as a tool to help them do the creation and not as an engine to actually create the final product, is what I'm getting at.

If we had the equivalent of a rendering engine for story telling, then you'd be on to something. So far, we don't. It requires a pretty fundamental leap to get to that point, after which your arguement might apply, and we'd be able to throw processor power at the problem to solve it in much the same way that being able to walk thru Myst was solved.

And that's just for storytelling in general. To apply this sort of thing to a gaming environment, you have to think of a way to create storylines, not just to create actual words and such. This involves concepts, ideas, a whole host of fundamental knowledge of "how the world works". None of which computers actually understand. A computer is good at crunching symbols in a logical fashion using rules that we define for it, but it has no concept of the meaning of those symbols or the reasoning behind those rules. To do what you're thinking would require such a massive input of data about, well, everything on the planet, that I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.

It's not that we can't do it, it's that it's a job that's too big for estimation on a time scale. There's more effort and logic involved in creating this sort of thing than pretty much all the programming ever done by all of humanity up to this point.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[zephiros]

This theoretical programmer was mistaken. First off, each screen was created by artists, true, but it was then rendered by computer.

My example is handily defeated; Myst was a poor choice. However, the analogy works with countless SCUMM-style 2D adventure games. I suspect you grasp my point (that this is a matter of a paradigm shift), which makes arguing the analogy sort of pointless.

This involves concepts, ideas, a whole host of fundamental knowledge of "how the world works".

Disagree. Again with the 3D graphics example. Apples are tasty, can be cut into wedges, and rot if they're left out in the sun too long. However, if you're trying to present an exciting chase scene, in which an apple cart gets knocked over, a 3D engine can abstract apples down to a model, texture map, and collision mesh.

I think we can establish similar abstractions for things we might want to present in the course of a story. Can I enumerate the optimal model? Nope. I can point you to people who have tried (Crawford, Bringsjord and Ferucci, Mateus and Stern, Cunningham, various russian structuralists and folktale analysts, etc), but no one has discovered the magic recipe.

Regarding the apple problem, we're obviously dealing with a lot more complexity here. Most toddlers have a workable mental model for how apples fall, but most adults don't understand why people behave the way they do. However, while the problem is more complex, I don't think it's intractable. And it probably doesn't require everyone to have a copy of Cyc on their desktop.

Re:I doubt there will be immersive storylines

[Otto]

However, while the problem is more complex, I don't think it's intractable.

I don't think it's intractable, I simply think that any solution is going to require an input data set that's so large as to make the whole thing self-defeating.

In other words, there's no solution to the problem because the only possible solutions are bigger in scope than simpler solutions to the original problem (immersive storytelling) you're trying to solve in the first place. To create a system capable of doing it you need some new models, and a hell of a lot of data input. More input there than to simply create the huge immersive story to being with.

Disagree. Again with the 3D graphics example. Apples are tasty, can be cut into wedges, and rot if they're left out in the sun too long. However, if you're trying to present an exciting chase scene, in which an apple cart gets knocked over, a 3D engine can abstract apples down to a model, texture map, and collision mesh.

You also need to know that Apples are sold in carts on the street. And that this only happens in certain scenarios, most likely where you get cobblestone streets. That sort of thing. And all this other stuff that you need for telling the "story". I'm not talking about rendering the apple bouncing down the pavement here, but how in the world do you program a computer to come up with the option of knocking over a cart and possibly pissing off the apple seller and that has an impact on whether the apple seller is nice or mean to you later in the game?

The "story" cannot be programmatically created in such a fashion, without a huge amount of knowledge of real world type data. The visuals can, but the story is why you make the visuals a certain way, not how to render the things.

I'm still trying to figure out...

[Throtex]

...if the network is the computer, or if the computer is the network, or what! Stupid Sun...

Shared game content

[ArsonSmith]

One thing the gameing industry needs is a shared content license similar to how open source is set up. If someone spends 6 months makeing a detailed land scape for level 14 of a game and it turns out the everyone blows through level 14 in just a couple of minutes is level 14 worth those 6 months?

Not really, but if that level was "Open Source" sort of speak, it would then be able to be modified, with modifications going back to the original, and used in the next game. With several improvments over time that section would eventually become a great peice of colabirated art.

Re:Shared game content

[Have Blue]

Games can already be modded, but modern single-player games tend to require an overall plan for the gameplay and story, and consistency in art and design. It would be difficult to maintain all of that while giving up direct control over the game's contents. I'm not saying it's impossible to make a game that way, just that you're not going to see the equivalent of an A-list commercial title without a similarly centralized development process.

Re:Shared game content

[JWhitlock]

One thing the gameing industry needs is a shared content license similar to how open source is set up. If someone spends 6 months makeing a detailed land scape for level 14 of a game and it turns out the everyone blows through level 14 in just a couple of minutes is level 14 worth those 6 months?

Still designing levels in 2034? Can't the games make their own levels on the fly yet? Boy, NetHack still has 'em beat...

Re:Shared game content

[ArsonSmith]

Yes, but nethack has allways done what I suggest. The graphics are all open and can be used by anyone at any point in time. They can consentrate on game content, story and drive engine for things like random level generators.

Re:Shared game content

[ArsonSmith]

It would still of course be possible for a game to be made in its consistent ideal, but once someone draws a detailed 3d model of the ship, U.S.S Constitution, other games could use that model, even if just the wire frame and build apon it to fit their game. Plus putting their contributions back into the pile of U.S.S Constitution graphics and resources. Eventually you would have a 100% accurate 3d replication of it, usable by anyone that would need it.

Just need a sourceforge setup for 3d models and graphics that are transportable to other formats.

Jacob Nielsen ??

[$ayjax]

I am suprised his view of the future isn't big yellow screens and large type...

My Prediction for the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that, in that time, shall the third one...

The future today

[SageMadHatter]

Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today

Ya, they are called MMORPGs

Re:The future today

[stanmann]

Hopefully by 2034, we'll have immersive MMORPGs.

So..

[thebra]

Certainly, our personal computer will remember anything we've ever seen or done online. A complete HDTV record of every waking hour of your life will consume 2 percent of your hard disk.

Doesn't it already do this, its called history. I see that he is saying it will screen capture all of it, but why? This article doesn't really predict anything but just states the obvious. Yes, we will have faster processors and more hard drive space, bigger screens, higher resolutions, amazing predictions! But I want to know when my computer will talk to my car and refrigerator and let me know when I'm driving to the grocery store that my son (future son) just drank the last of the milk.

Re:So..

[Anubis350]

actually, he was trying to explain what you would do with the massive hard disk you would have. Therefore, he was stating that the history would take up 2 percent of it, as part of its consumption

Re:So..

[thakadu]

I predict that within the next 5 years your computer will talk to your car and fridge. It is even theoretically possible today.

Computer games

[oliverthered]

What computer games, everything you do on a computer will be like a game.

and Bill Gates Jr. II...

[Anonymous Coward]

...presents... Microsoft Linux '34.

DUKE Nukem

[tonywestonuk]

Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today.

So, I guess this will be when Duke Nukem Forever is completed then....

uh....

[Thud457]

You overlooked the crucial part of the quote:

"Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today "

Even some of today's primitive games have most movies beat... (watching Hollywood eat it's young at a prodigious rate, I sometimes think "Tetris" is more complex, multifaceted and emotional storytelling.)

One prediction - fewer/more programmers

[Ars-Fartsica]

In thirty years there will be fewer people making a living from programming computers, but there will be far more programmers. My prediction is that everyday folks will provide general statements to a deductive build system of sorts that will generate the software they need (within reason). Example - "hey, make me some code for figuring out the future payments on the mortgage we just downloaded"..."lets build a new level for this game with more dragons".

Consistent with this prediction - the only major piece of code people will buy will be their deductive build system (their "code builder").

Re:One prediction - fewer/more programmers

[Have Blue]

You're probably right, but why load down the interface with technical terms? The user shouldn't even need to know what "code" is, nor should he have been required to manage the files and data needed to define the mortgage, he should be able to just tell the computer "figure out the future payments on this mortgage" and let the system deal with it.

Re:One prediction - fewer/more programmers

[pyrotic]

This implies that either 1) language has no ambiguities, or 2) artificial intelligence is possible. Rewind 30 years ago, and see how far AI has come. Not very. But in 30 years we've learnt a lot on language, and it's very ambiguous. Which is why no one wants to program in Engligh, when they can use Perl or C or some other abstraction. Will AI be possible? Your assumption is that it will. I'm not so sure.

The Unix Clock will Overflow

[lildogie]

Airplanes will crash, nuclear weapons will detonate, and NBC will air a hokey movie about it all.

I'm just glad I live in a later timezone. Oh, wait....

Re:The Unix Clock will Overflow

[darth_MALL]

Sorry to be anal...I think it's 2038

Re:The Unix Clock will Overflow

[stanmann]

DOn't you mean sub-orbital spacecraft will crash?

Re:The Unix Clock will Overflow

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Impossible. All nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of the world detonated on Y2K. Humanity is extinct. You're death. Learn to live with it.

Re:The Unix Clock will Overflow

[filmsmith]

I'm just glad I live in a later timezone. Oh, wait....

What? You don't live in a later time zone? I don't get it.

fs

Re:The Unix Clock will Overflow

[ObjetDart]

I don't get it.

The joke is that the unix clock value is the same in all time zones.

Re:The Unix Clock will Overflow

[filmsmith]

Interesting. Thanks!

fs

Control versus centralization

[14erCleaner]

This quote from the article struck a nerve for me: People who started using computers after the PC revolution have no idea about the miserable user experience that centralised computers imposed. Even the worst PC designs today feel positively liberating by comparison.

I started using computers about the same time Neilsen did (only 28 years ago for me :). One of the trends that keeps rearing its ugly head is the return to centralized computers. Nowadays they call them "Application Service Providers", or similar euphemisms, but every time I hear another story about how Oracle or IBM or some company like that is going to "simplify application management" by running some big application from a central server with remote PC clients, I cringe; I flash back to mainframes with green-screen CRT's and wonder why anybody would ever willingly go back to that sort of model. Individual PCs may be harder to deal with for non-technical users, but those with the skills to do their own software installation will always be better off when they don't have to rely on the Man Behind The Curtain to keep things working.

Re:Control versus centralization

[mschuyler]

Why do you cringe? I'm replacing 150 public computers with $300 thin clients coming off a terminal server (well, a cluster of them), just exactly what you are talking about. Right now, if I need to change anything, I have to visit 150 computers individually, even for the tiniest tweak of a config file. Plus I have to lock these things down tight because John Q. is either stupid and wrecks stuff unintentionally, or he's trying to show me how clever he is by sabotaging the machines and attempting to hack my system. So that means stuff like Centurion Guard, Fortres, keys, and all kinds of crap that wastes my time.

With thin clients, I make the same change on the server and it's all done. It IS a return to the mainframe model, and it's one I'm extremely happy about because it will make my life so much simpler. Once I get these 150 done I'm going after 150 staff computers. Most people simply do not need real PCs, and half of them couldn't see a difference anyway. As long as they get a login screen and a desktop they couldn't care less if the files they create are stored on a server or locally, or whether they have a hard drive somewhere under their desks. Sure, there are a few folks who are going to need local storage for various reasons, so they can keep their PCs. But the vast majority simply don't need it. I'm also saving money. Even when you amortize the servers over the number of thin clients they can support, my capital cost is half what it would be for PCs.

I surely would not advocate that approach for any of us, perish the thought. But in the real world in a production environment, which slashdot certainly is not, it's a viable solution.

Re:Control versus centralization

[timeOday]

Nobdy said centralized services weren't easier to administer, they said centralized services have horrible usability.

I notice you didn't mention anything about users, except what a pain in the butt they are.

Really?

[Flamesplash]

"'Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today.'"

Entertainment in 20 years will be more entertaining than entertainment today? go figure, never saw that coming.

so true....

[KrisCowboy]

People who started using computers after the PC revolution have no idea about the miserable user experience that centralised computers imposed. Even the worst PC designs today feel positively liberating by comparison./
That would be me. The first computer I ever used seriously has 64MB RAM and it's a 600MHz Celeron and that was just 5 years ago, keeping in mind the delayed PC revolution in India. I'm still using the same computer, though, with an extra 128MB RAM added. I still remember those days when having a computer at home was a "prestige-symbol". Anyone who had a computer was considered to be rich. Now, multiple computers per home's becoming a necessity rather than a luxary. I don't want to make predictions about the future 'cos i'll be very much alive :-)

Erm...

[jpellino]

Given the current state of privacy and such, not to mention plain old need and common sense, exactly who did he talk to who's asking for a feature that records every moment of your waking life?

Dick Cheney?
John Ashcroft?
Donald Rumsfeld?
The girl in "50 First Dates"?

This is basically a 'flying cars' article.

Re:Erm...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Perhaps he read 3001 by ACC...I seem to remember in that everybody wearing small cameras and microphones attached to their petabyte-storage PDAs...and ACC's prediction was that we'd stop at a petabyte of storage "because that's enough to record everything you experience for a lifetime".

Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[AmericanInKiev]

I think we can agree that computers - or technology in general replaces workers.

I remember Arnold B Scrivener - the story of a scrivener (hand copier) left useless by the invention of the typewritter.

So robotics are edging out industrial line mechanics.

I suggest that good software will soon be edging out intellecual translators - the people who speak in professional languages because the "rest of us don't understand" like Lawyers for example.

even doctors - essentially translate a list of complaints into a latin based "syndrome" and cross referance the necessary chemistry.

Politicians are necessary in order to facilitate "groupthink" - but computers could enable large groups to communicate and express agraggated (sic) opinion without the need for an intermediary.

So the issue of shape and size is pedantic - the question is how will technology change the balance of power between segment of society with variant skill sets?

AIK

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[Have Blue]

A computer could easily replace the DSM and probably has already done so in many places, but if you really think that's all that doctors do and is the only skill required to practice medicine then I'd really hate to end up in your operating theater.

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[dylan_-]

even doctors - essentially translate a list of complaints into a latin based "syndrome" and cross referance the necessary chemistry.

Whoa! Consider tech support. There are two types. The kind where you have someone who knows a great deal about computers, your OS, the various common faults and how to figure out the more complicated ones, or at least when to hand you off to someone more specialist.

The second type is the person reading from a script who haven't the faintest idea themselves what anything they're saying means.

At the moment there is only one type of doctor: the first type. They know roughly how your body works, what common diseases there are and are going around, and they can refer you to a specialist if need be.

Do you really want to introduce the second type? Have you ever had to deal with one of those helplines?! I won't trust my body to one of those till we've got perfect AI.

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[pipingguy]

I think we can agree that computers - or technology in general replaces workers.

I think this should be a discussion topic itself. It always annoys me when the buggy whip analogy is used because now, knowledge and information processing is mostly being done by machines.

Where do humans work (and get paid to support themselves/family) when that which was once unique to the species is farmed out to computers? Will we all become burger flippers, garbage men and rock stars?

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[AmericanInKiev]

The Morality of Bartleby Scivener is absent.

It is unlikely that more people as a percent of population will end up flipping burgers as a result of technical advances - in fact the opposite is much more likely to be true - as McDonalds is already emplementing automated drink machines, and I think a machine has been made that cooks and dispenses decent fries.

The real question is what excatly happens when we resolve the major cost centers in our current economic state.

I suggested that major cost centers include lawyering and doctoring - not in their entirety, but as a good place to start looking.

ironically garbage collection is quite cheap - as automating manual labor is not half so valuable as automating dangerous or expensive labour.

Police robots are an obvious exammple as are UAVs

But what happens when people agree to resolve their differeances by submitting their complaint in the form of an Ask Slashdot question, and being bound by the conclusion of the highest ranking opinion? (we would have to release the 5 cap)

What happens when we take the raw data from double blind studies and then allow patients to enter their own experiences as factors into the OLAP dimensions and output the quantitative answer - asprin - reduce risk by 20% - cost 5cents.

Midolanilin - reduce symptoms in 46% of patients - cost $45 bucks.

Hyprobarbicane - reduce symtom in 35% of patients.

Etc

AIK

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[AmericanInKiev]

And if you think that all it takes to assemble a car is welding and painting - I wouldn't want to drive your chevy.

Nonetheless, many autombile workers have been replaced by robots.

Much of what doctors do - fails to justify the high cost of medicine. - Not all of it - but a great deal could be done with less cost by good data analysis, and self interaction with the raw data (navigating an OLAP cube is remarkably intuative - if it were appropriately expressed in a familiar metaphor - I think people could input their own description of problems and come awfully close to the remedy - even with google - one can get in the neighborhood - and I would suggest that Google's next frontier will be to deliver intelligence from its datapools - when that happens - the oracles of high cost knowledge will be equaliized in the marketplace.

And that I suggest is the most important thing to happen in computing in the next 30 years.

AIK

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[AmericanInKiev]

Most modern medicone involves testing chemical, therapudic, or invasive procedures on a specified range of complaints - submitting the results to the FDA and then "Practicing" the application of proven remedies on patients which fit the indicated profile.

Sure the inventive side of this is unniquely human.

But the Practice side of medicine is largely bedside manners and statistical cross referancing.

Your'e question regarding help should be answered like this - would I rather gget on the phone and talk to someone about my computer problems - or take my chances with Google?

I'd google in a heartbeat. Most problems have been experienced before - and a good many have been committed to the web. As such the Web is a better source of information than any randomly selected person - and most experts.

AIK

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[dylan_-]

Probably too late to matter...(ahh, the transient nature of the web)...but...yeah, I'd rather google. That's cos I know what to google. I wouldn't trust a blind scipt (or, to maintain the metaphor, an ignorant person) to google for me.

It's like reading a man page. It's very useful if you know what it means (Catch22 style).

Re:Computer will replace certain kinds of workers

[AmericanInKiev]

Almost Too Late.

In about 1995 - I developed (not claiming to be first) an algorithm which served the purpose of auto classification.

The idea was to filter a series of - say word docs - for words which are neither common or unique.

Unique words are useless for classification - as are common words.

For any set of key-value pairs there is one key which is the most (uncommon AND not unique).

For each set defined by that key - the same is true etc.

The result of this algorithm is that any known set of key-data pairs can be dynamically categorized for most effecient access (least number of questions)

Which means I could take all the know diseases and their respective symptom profiles - and dynamically generate a dynamic list of the most effecient next question.

In so doing - I can divide and conquor my way to the answer.

AIK

The Turing Point...

[solarlux]

What I'd like to know is when... computers will have the same level of consciousness as we do.

At that point, they will be empowered to invent and innovate creatively without the biological encumbrances we have. Imagine a human-like mind that can, while thinking, remember every fact with equal clarity. And imagine the scope of that knowledge base to include all discovered facts. Every theoretical mathematical conjecture could be instantly evaluated and computed (no more tedious sessions working with Mathematica). Sci-fi writer Vernor Vinge has stated that this point in history will be so revolutionary that we are entirely incapable of seeing what lies after it -- a horizon "singularity".

Re:The Turing Point...

[AviLazar]

To get to that point I believe the computer would need a consciousness, and once you get to that point we have created a "life" form that is superior to us (our intelligence, without our physical/mental limitations). This could be good (Bi-Centennial Man, AI, Data) or this could be bad (Terminator, Matrix, Borg). No we cannot see the future, nor can we accurately predict it - but we can make pretty decent guesses (just like past "visionaries"). I wouldn't necessarily categorize it as some great mystery and then call it a "horizon 'singularity'".

Re:The Turing Point...

[thakadu]

I am willing to bet that this will NEVER happen with the current von Neuman design of computers which is basically what Nielsen thinks will still be the norm in 2034. You need a differnt design to get consciusness (whatever that is).

Re:The Turing Point...

[solarlux]

How about mapping every neuron and conduit in the human brain and then translating it to some silicon-based format?

If you could have this done to you, would you want it? The "computer" would think it's you. This relates back to the old sci-fi question of, when someone teleports, has the "old person" been destroyed and transparently replaced with a "new person" who thinks he/she is the old person?

Re:The Turing Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every theoretical mathematical conjecture could be instantly evaluated and computed (no more tedious sessions working with Mathematica).

This is the kind of statement that can only be made by a non-mathematician (and that, to be honest, would never be made by a mathematician even if it were true). Theoretical mathematical conjectures aren't, most of the time, just a matter of computation, nor, except in the most broadly defined sense, of evaluation. Mathematica can provide an enormous help with these tasks, but it can't prove anything but the most trivial * computational statements.

* Defined as `what Mathematica can prove'.

Re:The Turing Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a human-like mind that can, while thinking, remember every fact with equal clarity. ... no more tedious sessions working with Mathematica ...

What happens when the computers decide they don't want to solve our problems?

Re:The Turing Point...

[eyepeepackets]

Two points.

"...computers will have the same level of consciousness..."

Depending on the definition, they already do. Remember that the solution to any problem is defined in part by the definition of the problem.

"At that point...."

You are mixing up two different things in your post: consciousness and cognition are not the same.

Human attempts at A.I. to date have been crippled by poor definitions and excessive anthropomorphism, the latter being extremely arrogant since we have yet to understand the human processes but yet insist upon making our models based upon our poor understanding.

A.I. to date could be described as a thick base of hubris, three quarts of myopia, two pints of ignorance, and twenty bushels of exceptionally bad definitions. Mix until the results resemble something completely silly and all participants fall over in a daze, declaring it can't ever be done.

Re:The Turing Point...

[cr0sh]

Imagine a human-like mind that can, while thinking, remember every fact with equal clarity.

The more we learn about brain functions, the more we realize how much the brain "fabricates" information from what it already "knows" - to the point where those fabrications are as real to it as an actual experience.

There have been numerous forms of experiments tried showing this, from simple "swap" type experiments (while the subject under test is distracted, sometimes), to experiments of "suggestion", leading the subject to believed they liked or disliked something in their past, when in fact they likely had not contact with the item in question at all! But they believe differently!

Some researchers theorize that the brain does this to fill in "holes" in knowledge, or to make sense out of otherwise non-sensical knowledge gained from a variety of sources. I don't know if it is a theory or not (it probably is somewhere), but if the neural-net model of the brain is taken as fact, then these "false memories" might actually be because of the network of neurons stimulating overlapping paths of information "stored" in the neural map. Some of this reasoning can explain why and how we dream.

I have also heard that the brain may do all of this because it needs to do it - ie, it has to "forget" or "re-integrate" knowledge, otherwise some form of "madness" or other psychological issue would quickly set in...

In other words, before our computers will become "self-aware" or otherwise "intelligent", they may *need* less-than-perfect memory in order for this to happen (and if this is true, and Lenat's Cyc becomes "self-aware" at a later date, will it turn psychotic?)...

Re:The Turing Point...

[Crizp]

Not to start a flamewar on religion and all, but I seriously don't think we'll ever create a computer which works like a human brain nor has a "soul" (or "ghost", I kinda like that term).

I don't believe (and note the words "I" and "believe") the soul is a concept we as humans can fathom. Ever. Again, that's me, you may think differently of course.

Funny thing (though I won't bother googling for it right now - fact check yourselces. Debunk if I'm wrong), some scientists have tried figuring out where our soul is, if it exists. They figured it had to be a place in the brain where all the information (sight, sound etc) is combined and processed - one intersection of neurons where everything connects - but there is none. Information from our senses, it seems, is processed by our brains completely independent of each other and that no single area of the brain is/contains a "master cluster controller". OT, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless.

Disclaimer: I do not follow any religion or belief system. I believe what I believe. You believe what you will.

Re:The Turing Point...

[thakadu]

If you use von Neuman architecture to do this mapping you still will not get consciousness. Thats because there is something else going on in the brain, possibly to do with quantum effects, that todays computers just cannot emulate no matter how powerful. As I said previously, I think you need a complete new design.

Internet guru

[Anonymous Coward]

or internet poo-poo?

In 30 years...

[Anonymous Coward]

SOVIET RUSSIA WILL HAVE YOU!

Circular Logic

[beatleadam]

I knew that it could feel good to use computers, and I wanted to recapture that sense of empowerment and put humans back in control of the machines.

While I applaud anyone who is willing to attempt to predict "30 years in computing" and like everyone, can not say he or she is wrong (after all, it has not happened) I have to say that this is a useless article from Mr. Nielsen. In the same couple of paragraphs that he is talking about his dislike of the mainframe and his pleaant experience with the desktop machine, he tells us his *feelings* on why the computer has to feel "good" to use. Not only is this a non-empirical argument but it is Circular/pretzel logic as well.

Re:Circular Logic

[asreal]

Something non-empirical doesn't necessarily equate with useless. People's feelings are important to qualitative research and can sometimes get at things that quantitative/empirical studies cannot.

finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

computers will be able to replace my grandma about the time she is expected to expire!

screens, screens, screens

[oliverthered]

What's all this about screens, why the hell isn't he expecting projection onto the back of the retina.

Hmm..

[CFBMoo1]

I like this from the article..

Certainly, our personal computer will remember anything we've ever seen or done online. A complete HDTV record of every waking hour of your life will consume 2 percent of your hard disk.

This gets me to think that if my entire life is on 2 percent of my hard drive, think of the sitcom potential. Also if for whatever reason say the media giants of 30 years from now decide that they have the rights to use that two percent of your life for whatever services you get for this super computer. I wonder what protections would be in place for the little guy? If this were to happen, your life could be the next late night sitcom.

Another thing that has me wondering is the prediction about whole worlds for video games. I'm guessing online worlds like There, Activeworlds, Lineage 2? Or will these be "Worlds In a Box" type worlds that you install on your own PC or both? I hope they come up with good AI's cause it'd be a pain to come up with a dialog for an entire world population. I won't even begin to guess the cost of buying one of those games.

Diamond Age

[Glog]

Nielsen's Law of Internet bandwidth? Puh-lease... Anyone quoting themselves in anything but a scientific paper sounds rather pompous and pretentious.

Nielsen may be a fine usability expert but as a futurist and visionary he is lacking in the imagination department. I strongly recommend the Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson for an inspired read of what computing may be like many years from now.

Thirty years in Computing

[Timesprout]

Sounds like someone needs bigger iron or to turn off the SETI client.

A two line quote straight from TFA is insightful?

[sean.peters]

And not, of course, even attributed. Moderators, even if no one ever reads the article, you should.

Sean

Half an exabyte of hard disk equivalent storage

[mst76]

can hold every movie and sound track ever published.

Re:Half an exabyte of hard disk equivalent storage

[Anubis350]

ah, but by the time we have it more movies and sountracks will be published, in higher quality that take up more space.

Re:Half an exabyte of hard disk equivalent storage

[Have Blue]

Sure, but what are all the P2P addicts going to do afterwards?

Re:Half an exabyte of hard disk equivalent storage

[meese]

Sure, but that's a perfect business opportunity: every computer could come preloaded with every movie and album you'd ever possibly want, encrypted. To play, you'd need to buy the key.

Thanks, I like my passives very much.

[RoufTop]

People have been expecting these interactive movie worlds to tell us non-linear stories for at least a decade. There are several problems with this line of thinking: it's far more expensive to tell a non-linear story than a linear one, moviemakers are much better at telling stories than audiences, and people LIKE linear stories.

Alternate endings to movies on DVD's and open-ended worlds in games like GTA are good examples of the kinds of things we'll be doing for a while. But a story told from a million angles? Forget it. Even with technology to create those worlds, you still need to think about, well, everything, and all the consequences of every action. It's not gonna happen.

What we like about linear stories is their flow from conflict to resolution. And we see movies because the people that make them are good at what they do. The original storytellers around a fire could have sat there waiting for their "users" to interact with them ("storyteller, put the mail on the duffel bag" :-), but instead they were valued for their imagination and timing.

rouftop

Re:Thanks, I like my passives very much.

[punxking]

I agree, it seems like it would require something approaching true AI to create and keep up as the user made decisions. Tracking the action/reaction chain of possibilities and outcomes would require something close to human creativity to cover ideas and events the original storytellers/programmers might not have thought about.

one thing that won't change in 30 years

[KrisCowboy]

Windows sucks...and outlook will be still doing the great job of spreading viruses all over the world. M$ would still be campaigning against open-source, not that anyone will care about it then. RMS and ESR would be long dead. I'd still be reading Slashdot everyday.

Too far in the future...

[dylan_-]

I think it's crazy trying to predict 30 years in the future unless as a sci-fi scenario.

I mean, if you'd asked me in 1974 what things would be like in 2004 I simply couldn't have guessed what we'd have now. Actually, I'd probably just have replied "Goo! Gah gah gah! Whaaaah!" but that's besides the point...

Re:Too far in the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

asked me in 1974... Actually, I'd probably just have replied "Goo! Gah gah gah! Whaaaah!"

Yeah, me too.

The sad part is I was born in 1961.

My prediction for future games...

[mekkab]

In the future games will be totally portable and totally sidetalkin'!

Re:A two line quote straight from TFA is insightfu

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, watcha gonna do about it, tough guy?

Scott Adams figured this out a while ago

[JoeBuck]

Dogbert: I can predict the future by assuming that money and male hormones are the driving forces for new technology. Therefore when virtual reality gets cheaper than dating, society is doomed.

Woman (to Dogbert): Is Dilbert available?

Dogbert: He's been in the holodeck since March.

Does he get paid for this?

[Illserve]

'Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today.'

I could spew meaningless crap like that all day for a fiver.

Re:Does he get paid for this?

[Xacac]

Fortunatly regardless of Jacob Neilson's almost godlike status in the realms of IT, I have heard very little praise for him from the Computing side of matters. My only conclusion is that to most real engineers (ie those that dont need to take a 3 week training course in Word) his ideas are plain common sense and therefore he himself is almost completely unremarkable

30 years eh?

[VAXGeek]

They must be talking about Duke Nukem Forever!

Computing Power Prediction

[Marxist Hacker 42]

From the article: If I keep up my exercise schedule, I stand a good chance of experiencing computers 30 years from now. According to Moore's Law, computer power doubles every 18 months, meaning that computers will be a million times more powerful by 2034. According to Nielsen's Law of Internet bandwidth, connectivity to the home grows by 50 percent per year; by 2034, we'll have 200,000 times more bandwidth. That same year, I'll own a computer that runs at 3PHz CPU speed, has a petabyte (a thousand terabytes) of memory, half an exabyte (a billion gigabytes) of hard disk-equivalent storage and connects to the Internet with a bandwidth of a quarter terabit (a trillion binary digits) per second.

And if you still need to run Microsoft Windows, you'll need every ounce of that power. And it will *feel* slower than an 8088 running DOS.

Games in 2034?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares.

What *I* want to know is about the pr0n. If they finally perfect virtual chicks, the first accurate 3d dataset of Natalie Portman (with particle-effect grits) will bring the geek nation to a standstill.

Re:Games in 2034?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Who's Natalie Portman? And what are grits? What are you talking about?

Re:Games in 2034?

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn in your geek card, sir. You obviously don't belong here. Can we interest you in a glass of warm milk? Just take this pill and everything'll be as right as rain.

This so-called usablility guru

[Anonymous Coward]

has a website that looks like shit.

You mean "if"...

[sean.peters]

Since it's by no means a sure thing that computers will EVER attain consciousness.

I also have heartburn with the term "singularity" as applied to the growth in computer capability. "Singularity" is a mathematical term with a precise definition: it's a point on the curve representing some function at which the slope of the curve is infinite - think of the limit of f(x)=1/(x-1) as x approaches 1. But "Moore's Law" is an exponential function - its slope is finite everywhere on the curve.

While I understand what people mean when they discuss a computer "singularity", it's really not a very accurate way to use the word.

Sean

Re:You mean "if"...

[mikey504]

I think the use of the term is accurate. Consider a graph of "AI vs. time." Once the singularity occurs, we will no longer be responsible for advancing the state of computing-- computers will advance themselve. Since they aren't bound by the constraints we are (sleep, usually one great idea per lifetime, etc) I would expect the slope of that "AI vs time" graph to have a discontinuity.

While Moore's law is related in that more computing power will allow us to do the things we already know how to do faster, I don't think it applies directly when it comes to AI. Better algorithms will make the big leaps forward for us, not necessarily more complex hardware.

The author...

[Wizzy Wig]

uses the same logic as those who predict that, based on statistical trends, the mile will someday be run in under 4 uSeconds.

My computing prediction.

[Sunken Kursk]

Given the way it seems DRM and such have been going recently, I have a different view of where home computers will be in the future...

In the past, Internet Terminals were heralded as the wave of the future. This was because of their convenience, ease of use, etc. I see them now as the wave of the future because they don't store content. They are simply a gateway into someone else's content. Once the RIAA and MPAA have finished their buyout of the legislative and legal system, new regulations will require that computers not store any information. That way the big guys don't have to worry about the little guy sharing music or downloading the latest episode of Law & Order - Pothole Repair Crew for free. To listen to music, plug in your credit-card and connect to their services. Only $5.99 for an hour's worth of music. Want to play the latest game? Only $2.99 to plug into the Doom 5 server and play.

This can even extend to the workplace. Microsoft Office Services. For $15,000 per year, you can get a 10 connection license to allow your employees to work on presentations, software requirements, etc. Then for only $150,000 per year, two of your developers can connect to Microsoft Development Studio Services and work on that software you need written. Then for the low-low price of $200,000 per year, Microsoft will go ahead and host the software you wrote. Imagine, you don't have to worry about backups, and you'll never need to worry about the BSA pounding down your door.

All that needs to happen is widespread acceptance and availability of broadband. This is sure to have happened in 30 years.

Think this can't happen? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Moore's law is misunderstood

[xutopia]

Double transistors doesn't equate with double speed like Nielsen makes it to believe. This is a big error for someone of his stature. I respect the guy as far as usability is concerned but he talks out of his ass in this article.

What's the benefit?

[CycleMan]

Okay, petabytes and exabytes sound interesting from a "Wow - technology" perspective, but why do I care? Will they improve how we live our lives, increase the amount of face time we spend with each other, decrease hunger and poverty, elevate the human spirit or cure race relations?

That amount of computer storage probably won't be enough to help men understand women. =)

I'm growing in favour of technology being just a little more clunky and difficult so that people will move their heads away from the monitor once in a while - and not just to make new PC mods.

In Thirty Years I predict....

[platypibri]

1. Finally!!!! Computers will wreck a nice beach... er recognize speech.
2. EUI. Emersive User Interface, perhaps something like Minority Report or The Matix. I mean manipulating virtual object in real space, not jacking in.
3. Cyrrano Virus proof of concept hits on your girlfriend (or mom, in the case of hopeless nerds)
4. Indian Tech Giant "Bollysoft" is investigated for anti-competative practices, cuts cost by farming out tech support to the up and coming Afganistan tech industry.
5. Computers finally translate dolphin speech. Turns out it's mostly fart jokes and machismo pick up lines. And, they are very interested in our culture's "beer" and "ESPN"
6. PentiumXI prosessor requires a 220 volt electric connection, liquid oxygen cooling. Intel investigates opening small wormholes between processors and surface of Jupiter moon Europa for joint processor cooling/planet heating terraforming project.
7. That's right, virtual 3D holographic blue screen of death.

Re:In Thirty Years I predict....

[Anonymous Coward]

2. EUI. Emersive User Interface, perhaps something like Minority Report or The Matix. I mean manipulating virtual object in real space, not jacking in.

Computers today already offers a wide range of software to aid you in jacking... oh, oops. I though you were talking about something else. Sorry. Time to pull out the mental floss

You want really hightech computers...

[kabocox]

I don't want to ever have to see another computer again. Period. I want a watch, eye and ear improvements. I want my eye improvement to be able to give me 20/20 vision. I want it to record everything that I've ever experienced and beable to display anything to the same level. The ear implants should be able to record both ears worth of audio in the full human hearing range and store it. It should be able to reproduce almost any sound that the human ear can perceive. The watch should be where everything is stored, the CPU where everything is processed, and is easily removable and replacable when we figure out how to make smaller, faster, and cheaper watches. Oh, the watch should tell time and GPS as well.

The next big thing will be the touch interface.

Re:You want really hightech computers...

[stanmann]

YOu only want to see and hear at normal levels?? what about some level of enhancement?

Re:You want really hightech computers...

[kabocox]

YOu only want to see and hear at normal levels?? what about some level of enhancement?

That's what shades would be for. I like the style of my glasses. I would like to have "normal" vision without them. If I wanted special tools, I'd want it easily removable. I don't want it stuck forever. I wouldn't mind some small enhancements, but I'd be happy with "normal and to get rid of allergy's. I really aim high. ;)

Re:You want really hightech computers...

[Idarubicin]

I want my eye improvement to be able to give me 20/20 vision. I want it to record everything that I've ever experienced and beable to display anything to the same level.

And you want to forfeit the opportunity to ever keep anything private...

In legal proceedings, your eyeball record will be subject to subpoena. Do you think that law enforcement will be able to mind their own damn business and not flip through the rest of the movies?

Will parents demand that their children show them where they were last night?

Oh, and do you think you'll ever have sex again, once your girlfriend finds out you're recording everything and might decide to put it on your website?

Be careful what you wish for.

I/O is where it's at

[Anonymous Coward]

The most amazing advances will be in the input and output devices we'll be using. We'll probably be wet wired where we'll be diving into VR worlds. For those technophobic fanatics who view their body as a temple, they'll all have those cool glasses with the HUD built in. We'll have a glove that reads our finger movements as typing on any surface. Voice command will be perfect for manipulating all computers including your ubiquitous home computer. No one will be using monitors as much as projected 3D holograms as seen in Minority Report.

The claims this guy makes are just blah. Who cares if we have that much memory, cpu power, or resolution on an LCD. I want to interact with the computer in better ways. Immersion is the key to great games and experiences, and we need better I/O to really grab the user and take them for a ride.

It's the Matrix!!!

[mieyazo]

Computer games in 2034 are likely to offer simulated worlds and interactive storytelling that's more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today

It's the Matrix, Don't go in!!!

Hickdot.org

[Adriax]

Hicksville, TN 2034:
"Billy Joe, did yall upgrade mah spacial auditory sub-processor like ah told yew too?"
"Not yet paw, Hickdot ran an thang on yer model, says here yew can git anuther ten percent performance outa it by applyin this here filter program."

Futurama - All My Circuits The Movie

[CHaN_316]

"If you'd like Calculon to double-check his tedious paperwork, press 2." *BEEP*, (fry presses 1) you have selected option 2. No I didn't! I'm 99% sure you did.

Ah....interactive movies.

Think Outside of the Box

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers may be obsolete. The distant future may not involve computers. There may be a new tool used to perform the tasks we perform today with computers.

The Star Trek Holodeck

[Kyosuke77]

I always thought the holodeck represented what they thought would be the ultimate in video game technology 400 years into the future. However there was a well known problem with it, which in later series' acquired the name 'holoadditcion'. Basically, it created completely immersive worlds that were completely real to all the senses, down to the finesse of actual replicated matter for some elements. It was something so powerful it made Evercrack addiction look like the equivalent of a jones for skittles versus heroin. Nevertheless, I'd say that a prediction that video games evolving into, or at least approaching, something that involves complete immersion in a photo-realistic, randomly interactive environment is actually nothing new. If you look at the present, we have video cards that can render 'cinematic' quality graphics in real time at resolutions of several megapixels. To put it mildly, we've come a long way from Pong.

Re:The Star Trek Holodeck

[cmpalmer]

I think Scott Adams said that the holodeck would be the last human invention -- after that everyone would dissapear into them and never come out again.

Sounds Like Holodecks

[MBCook]

Sounds like Holodecks to me. Can anyone tell me when they were invented (according to Star Trek)?

Got to admit, for many things it's hard to think of a more perfect interface than a holodeck simulation.

Re:Sounds Like Holodecks

[tuffy]

Sounds like Holodecks to me. Can anyone tell me when they were invented (according to Star Trek)?

Considering they were first shown in the first episode of ST:TNG, one can assume they were invented between the 23rd and 24th century.

Ad-hoc network infrastucture

[Steve Embalmer]

I can imagine a not-too-distant future where wireless computing will be on non-uniform peer-to-peer networks: un-hitched from those hefty telco backbones. Wi-Fi is already giving birth to this concept.

Can you envision a system based on something like spread-slotted ALOHA that moving vehicles (or individuals for that matter) could provide access to each others' "bandwidth slots"?

To me, it's an amazing possibility, and will transform our current idea of computing.

Gamers! Hate 'Eye Candy'? Demand Retrogaming!

[iamcf13]

The last (most recent) arcade game I played was Galaga (1981), a 22+ year old arcade game!

Back then, arcade game graphics were OK (if that) but those old games had one thing most modern games today don't have:

PLAYABILITY!

The high resoulution graphics didn't seduce people to play games like Pong (1972), Pac-Man (1980), or Galaga because (in retrospect) there weren't any!

Classic videogames offered enough diversity of play to overcome stone-age graphics. The best example of this would be TRON (1982). This game is 'pattern-driven' like Pac-Man but the minigames and the random order you play them offered enough diversity to assure the game eminent playability.

As for the graphics rant, the last 'Eye Candy' game I played a lot was Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000), one of a handfull of such games I played regularly. The others were other playable fighting games put out by CAPCOM or SNK with their Samurai Showdown series (1993 - 1997)

The thing to do is to get emulated retrogaming out of the legal gray zone and back into the arcades where it belongs....

Whatever the power of those computers are,

[Per Wigren]

I probably still will be using Dosbox, UAE, MESS and MAME to play some 80s games every now and then. :)

An interesting theory, but...

[TheHonestTruth]

Granted, I have no idea the amount of numbering crunching a computer will be able to do 30 years from now, but doctors and lawyers do a little more than "translate." Both of them "invent" in their respective fields. For example: say a law is enacted in 1990 saying "no vehicles in the park." Is a bicycle a vehicle? Well no, not really, so it should be a allowed. What about a car? Definitely a vehicle, so it should not. Flash forward to 2004. The law is intact, as it was passed. Now, what about a Segway? If this were ever brought to trial, both sides would present reasons why their side should win. Barring specific legislation enacted to address this, the judge then "invents" the law in accordance with the changing times. Either side may win depending on why the law was originally enacted, what the population's feelings on the Segway are, or even how well the judge's lunch is agreeing with his stomach that day.

The same goes for doctors. "It hurts when I do this" is hardly translatable into "you have some new disease that no one has seen before." An example is asbestosis, a disease that results from the expsosure to asbestos. Before asbestos existed, obviously no one contracted asbestosis. A doctor somewhere, after running some tests, deduced that the odd fibers in the patient's lungs were asbestos and the patients resulting malady was a result of his exposure. Years later when the patient comes down with mesothelioma, the doctor again has to make the causal connection between the two. This is a little more than translation.

Though aspects of both are reducable to programs e.g., I'm in one state, the defendant is in another, does a Federal Court have subject matter jurisdiction? *bleep* *bloop* *bloop* *bleep* "Yes under USC 1332", but I truly wonder if machines will replace either given some of the more inventive aspects of the occupations.

-truth

Re:An interesting theory, but...

[AmericanInKiev]

Though aspects of both are reducable to programs e.g.,

I'm not implying that statistical analysis would replace trained professions per se.

I am suggesting however that GROUPS of people properly vetted by a turing test and linked by an algorithmic paradigm (not completely unlike slashdot) could resolve complex questions less expensively and faster with as or more consistent results.

In the end - a lot of law boils down to a selfselected panel of 12 unemployed morons.

As for medicine - sure a great deal of medicine - as a great deal of car manufacturing is outside the scope of automation - but a goodly portion is susceptible to the cost advantages and direct feedback of a statistical engine.

I would hope that in reducing a great deal of "the Practice" to automation - we could afford more experimentation, invention and so on.

Its interesting that a lot of medical experimentation is done by Undoctors - Dean Kamen - not to belabour the point = but I think her made his money inventing a medical device - and is not a doctor.

My philosophy suggests that "trained professionals" artificiallly inflate the cost of living for "untrained professionals" and that this effect is always ripe for the arbitrage of automation.

(or outsourcing - or -legislation - or)

AIK

Heres what Video Games will be like

[mackermacker]

Large collaborative multi-user video games will still be kicking around with better graphics and resolution, normal progression from the old school days of Amiga.

The biggest leap will be in a new catagory tied into videogames, but on the educational side. The industry of edutainment will explode in the coming years, as educators realize that to make people learn, you make them interested. When I left University of Illinois in Urbana in 2000, a cool guy by the name of Sridaar Iyer was already working on a vrml multi-user videogame (in the traditional sense) that teaches High school kids about chemistry. His website is WhoolaIt challenged kids in groups to compete and learn. Yes, there has been issues with VRML and whatnot, but there are other alternatives. The point is kids love it, and get value from it.

At the University of Washington, my fiance is in a Masters program that teaches about Edutainment (cognitive studies). Talented engineers and artists are making great strides in this field. I think it will be one of those fields such as video game programming. Years ago, you didnt see specific programes JUST for video games. Now there everywhere (as are network security degrees and such). You will see these programs break off into seperate educationl only programs for games tied to teaching.

Multi-user online environments will also be suppliments to Lectures for courses. I use to do multi-user ADL (advanced distant learning) courses and testbed studies. We found that not only do people like collaborating like that, but physically challened people also greatly enjoy it, as they can still participate in the community and course, without fear of being judged due to a dissability. At the time the biggest problem was sending textures over the wires, but with pre-loaded disks with the textures already on them and stored locally, the only bandwith issues are avatar movement (UDP) and the live chat (TCP). It has a lot of potential.

As for home gaming, as computing needs become cheaper, you will see more CAVE VR environments. Paul Rajlick, formerly of the NCSA, is already working ona home version of the CAVE (using true VR/shutter glasses, wand, etc). You play CAVE quake and its unlike anything console system.

Overall, the market for games/edutainment will rival Hollywood. And the best part is, the field doesnt revolve around a bunch of conceited pricks :)

Jakob's Clueless re:Pre-PC Centralized Computing

[theodp]

People who started using computers after the PC revolution have no idea about the miserable user experience that centralised computers imposed.

Check out Plato. Pre-1975 bitmapped graphics, audio and photographic quality images, instant messaging, near zero latency multiplayer network gaming, distance learning, groupware, newsgroups, online newspapers, animated email, network delivery of music, client/server computing, touch screen interfaces, flat-panel displays, and multimedia that were delivered across a worldwide educational network with satellite and cable communications using CDC mainframes.

linear story telling

[hak1du]

No matter how you author or present a story, people will still experience it in some linear order. Authors spend a lot of time worrying that the order a reader actually gets is interesting and makes sense; that's what a big part of good writing is all about. Linearity is something that is an added value for a story, not a restriction.

Many games may well be "non-linear" (i.e., have many different paths), but that's not to make them more engaging, it's to make them more replayable. And there will also continue to be many highly linear games that present a single, well-designed storyline as part of the game, although hopefully authors will find ways of making the interaction with the storyline more natural than "you must find switch A and trigger it to continue".

Don't forget Legal advancements

[freeze128]

The computers of 2034 will be impressive indeed! They will have many functions that will be illegal for you to perform.

Re:Don't forget Legal advancements

[eraserewind]

This programmer has performed an illegal operation and will now be terminated.

Ray Kurzweil anyone?

[ritRadical]

Anyone read Ray Kurzweil's book Age of Spiritual Machines? That seems like a better picture of the future than Neilsen. There won't be anything called a 'computer' in the literal sense, your 'TV' could function as a 'phone' or as a 'word processor'. Hell, why would you want to use a screen when you can jack in like the Matrix using nanotechnology that stimulates your brain in all the right places? Kurzweil even predicts that 'humans' like we are today will no longer exist, everything will be digital. Either way, it should prove to be interesting.

Flying cars? Huh?

[Shoten]

Honestly, now. Did anyone make any set of predictions in 1974 that had any accuracy whatsoever with regard to computer technology? I can't think of anyone. Why do we bother with them today? The only thing I can genuinely believe likely is that 30 years from now will be far cooler than anything we can imagine right now. And I think history supports the likelihood of such a prediction.

Where's the Beef?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst... predictions... ever!

My guess

[Pendersempai]

Processing and storage will be recentralized.

Imagine: a couple hundred corporations around the united states each have dedicated facilities to process and/or store information. Other companies network these commodities to cohere the aspects of computing. These companies could specialize in redundancy/dependability, power, or affordability. You subscribe to one of these companies' services, and they give you a username and password. Now, you can use any compatible I/O device, log in, and you're at your (virtual) computer.

These I/O devices could be anything from a current monitor/keyboard/mouse desk setup to a wireless touchscreen you carry around with you (assuming pervasive WiFi). Even if it's a palmtop, it'll have all the processing power and storage of your desktop setup. So a gameboy would be just as powerful as a desktop system, and a no-moving-parts $10 MP3 player could access your entire hard drive. The virtual computer recognizes which device you're using to access it, and adopts its interface accordingly.

But the I/O devices could start posing as appliances: your kitchen telephone AND your cell phone are just computer terminals. Your coffee maker takes commands from the virtual computer: once you've set your alarm clock (another computer I/O device), your coffee maker knows when to start preparing a morning pot of coffee.

I don't even care to speculate what this model would do to our legal battles over IP and DRM; I think 30 years is far enough in the future that the technology will remake the legality beyond recognition.

The barriers to this model of computing are bandwidth and (to a lesser extent) wireless permittivity. Many of the gains could be recognized even with only wired technology -- it's just that the alarm clock, coffee maker, and mp3 player would have to jack in to a wall port somewhere.

Non-linear games

[gunnk]

My favorite two games are Civilization 3 and The Sims. Civ is pretty darn linear, but The Sims is definitely non-linear. Yes, you can play it linearly, but only if you CHOOSE to do so. Sims 2 comes out this fall and looks incredible compared to the original.

Since we already have non-linear games (not even counting MMORPHs) -- and they're already more engaging than most movies -- I'd say that there is no stretch in predicting that in 30 years we'll be playing games that are non-linear and more engaging than most movies... That prediction would have been a bit more timely 30 years ago than it is today.

Energy problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this long term prediction is that there may not be enough energy to sustain technological growth.
Given a rapidly diminishing and increasingly expensive fossil fuel supply with no widespread cheap alternative yet, in thirty years we may be in a new "dark age".

miserly 2048 pixels by 1536 pixels???

[Anonymous Coward]

"as opposed to the miserly 2048 pixels by 1536 pixels on my current monitor" - sheesh i never had THAT big a screen, this guy is totally jaded.

Mad wack.

[six11]

I just have to point this out:

"So in conclusion, Jakob Nielsen's latest AlertBox has no scientific validity whatsoever. (ok-cancel.com)

Re:Mad wack.

[C. E. Sum]

Oh yeah. :-)

cf. http://mcnp.caseyporn.com/

in 30 years...

[hak1du]

I don't need Nielsen to tell me that computers will be faster and displays will be bigger (although it is likely that Moore's law will have fallen by then).

Nielssen seems to be saying that computers will be used largely the same way they are being used today, with some obvious tweaks. While computers have gotten faster, fundamentally, we have made little progress in how we interact with them over the last 30 years (Smalltalk and the Alto were being developed in the 1970s and contained most of the paradigms that the most advanced commercial desktops are using today), and Nielssen is basically saying that not much will change over the next 30 years either. That may excite him, since it allows him to continue to peddle his user interface incrementalism, but, frankly, I find it depressing.

One thing is certain: in 30 years, we will still have self-appointed "gurus" that make a name and a business for themselves by repeating populist techno-babble and buzzwords, but without having any real insight or vision. That has nothing to do with computers, it is just human nature, and that won't change.

Does anybody...

[bearinboots]

still listen to Nielsen?

Master of the Mainframe

[lgbarker]

From the article:
Although the bigger, newer mainframe had an actual CRT (cathode ray tube) screen, it also had obscure commands and horrible usability. Worst of all, it was highly alienating, because you had no idea what was going on. You'd issue commands, and some time later, you might get the desired result. There was no feeling of mastery of the machine. You were basically a supplicant to a magic oracle functioning beyond the ken of humankind.

25 years ago you could master the mainframe. Online systems were more rare so a fortune 500 company's system was often idle early on Sunday mornings. System programmer time. I can still remember walking into the dark "glass house", powering up rooms full of drives, printers and the mainframe, listening to it come to life. Then sitting at the console and having it all to yourself. Of course the programmers weren't allowed access to that experience :)

Morrowind

[queenofthe1ring]

Actually, I completed the Imperial Legion quests, and am now Knight of the Imperial Dragon. In Mournhold (Tribunal Expansion Pack) I met a guy who as I ran past him hailed me as KotID. He gave me lots of secret information that my brother can't get, as he did not complete the quests. The guy in question, isn't actually a part of the legions, nor does he give any of said quests.

Re:Morrowind

[Steeltoe]

That's a scripted event though.

You can even say it's part of the Imperial Legion Quest, just a post-finale.

The more stuff like that is coded though, the more fun. However, it's not like the persons in the game made a decision themselves (which is needed for more interactivity - and a HELL of balancing it all ;).

Re:Morrowind

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "Non-scripted events (like mass thievery or murder) have little or no effect on gameplay".

You replied "No, because I completed a scripted quest and it had an effect".

Think before you speak.

Re:Morrowind

[queenofthe1ring]

Sorry, guess I didn't read it the way it was intended. My apologies. Besides, why didn't you bother to be logged in when you said this, correcting mistakes isn't that big a deal that you needed to hide.

Re:Morrowind

[DrCode]

If persons (NPC's) in the game actually start making decisions for themselves that were not scripted, then computer science will, indeed, have advanced quite a bit.

Re:In 30 years time...

[wondafucka]

"The internet will be clogged with niggers, islamics and other scum.

No, wait. It's like that today!

FIST SPORT!"

Or more importantly, the internet will be clogged with narrow minded jerks with big mouths...which I think the above post is saying (either ironically, or by example).

Actually, I think that there will be less anonymity. There will be so many distractions, it will be a cinch to pass national, if not global, identification tags. Of course one might pay for "anonimity." In any case, the world will still be filled with jerks. The user interface will vary.

As in Soviet Russia...

[trenobus]

In 30 years your computer(s) will initiate physical interaction with you, instead of you interacting with a passive box. We're talking robots of various sorts, some of which have been imagined, and some not. Software complexity will be about 2 to 4 times what it is today, which will put much of it beyond the understanding of a single human mind.

The central issue for users will be trust. How much do you trust the capabilities and responses of the various robotic devices, particularly in novel or extreme situations? And consider the potential for malware with robots...

Actually...

[fiannaFailMan]

more engaging than linear presentations such as those in most movies today

I disagree with this statement too, but for a different reason.

I wouldn't underestimate the engaging nature of the narrative. Storytelling is as old as mankind and it's not likely to disappear just because we can suddenly take control of the story. In fact I would argue that if you could control the story, what's the point of readin/watching/taking part in it? The point of storytelling is to engage the reader and make him feel an emotion. It's a lot easier to do that if the story throws him a curveball that he didn't see coming, or if the story has a load of story arcs that end up being resolved in the most unexpected of ways.

I remember reading a series of childrens' books called 'choose your own adventure.' I seem to remember feeling a bit short-changed with these books. Sure, the writing quality was pretty good, but the use of the second person narrative just felt downright wierd, a book telling me what was happening to me. Maybe if they were written in the third person it would have been better. I digress. What was missing was the plot resolution. I was left wondering, 'what is this story about?' Is it about me solving the mystery (as happened when I read it on one occasion) or is it about me dying a painful death along with all my friends (as happened when I read it a different time)?

There is just something about a third person narrative that no interactive game can beat.

Re:Actually...

[danila]

In my opinion, the best direction for interactive movies (stories/games) to follow is to provide interactivity inside the narrative. If there is a compelling story, let the author tell it, but let the viewer interact with the world, watch the story unfold as he likes it, etc. Imagine reliving Romeo & Juliette through the eyes of all main and some secondary characters. You will probably not need to move the story along by yourself (unless you really want to - the ability to do it would benefit replayability though), but to actively watch it.

The Future!

[C.Batt]

As I always say: The future looks just like today, only better!

(I probably ripped that off of someone famous, I just don't know who.)

Exactly!

[fiannaFailMan]

I never could figure out the point of the 'holonovel' in Star Trek. Why go to the trouble of taking part in the story of Wuthering Heights if you first have to read the story, learn your lines, and go through the motions of the character? I mean, supposing you're playing Cathy and you decide to marry Heathecliffe. Well then you all live happily ever after and the story is no longer Wuthering Heights.

2034?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be too realistic, but I highly doubt any of us will be around in 2034 to enjoy these new fangled computer games.

But that's just me.

It had to be linked:

[gestalt_boy]

The jakob nielsen drinking game

In 2034

[Anonymous Coward]

The computers play YOU!

...and the other half...

[cr0sh]

...will hold every pr0n movie, image, and soundtrack (yes, there are a few) ever published...w00t!!!

And more...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! 10000x20000 resolution p0rn!

"How could anyone use petabytes of memory..."

[potus98]

"How could anyone use petabytes of memory and terabits of bandwidth for personal needs?"

C'mon, that's easy: Install Windows FU-Pro 2034.

Or, the (hopefully released by then) FPS "Duke Nukem Forever".

I prefer Professor Frink's prediction:

[ZZane]

Frink: Well, sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive, don't touch it, but I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.
Apu: Could it be used for dating?
Frink: Well, theoretically, yes. But the computer matches would be so perfect as to eliminate the thrill of romantic conquest. Mw-hurgn-whey.

thinking inside The BOX

[EvilBudMan]

Computers will become much like homes. They will consist of small boxes inside bigger boxes that is in turn inside the greater box.

Simulated worlds...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late... I've been playing characters in simulated (text-based) worlds since the early 90's: they're called MUSHes.

Just once....

[Morris Thorpe]

I'd like to hear:

Interviewer: what will the future be like?
Guru: I have no clue.

Of course, honesty does not garner interviews - or attention or contracts. Touting does.

I mean, 30 years? Who the hell knows?

Part of the problem with these predictions is that there is no accountability when they're wrong.

Nielsen really has no more insight into the future than most of us.

How many interviews have we seen/read in which the "expert" tells us exactly what will happen in an election?
Or how a certain event will affect a leader or nation?

And when they're completely wrong? Too late! They're already making new predictions.

Atari Value Pack 2034

[Psymunn]

In 2034 we'll all own consoles powerful enough to calculate nuclear bomb simulations or global weather systems. And what will we use our Playstation 17s or nintendo Funstations for?
Why, those quircky atari retro games of course.
Afterall nostalgia growth is linearly proportional to technological advancment

Direct Retina displays

[imnoteddy]

The article states: "By 2034, we'll finally get decent computer displays, with a resolution of about 20,000 pixels by 10,000 pixels (as opposed to the miserly 2048 pixels by 1536 pixels on my current monitor). Although welcomed, my predicted improvement factor of 200 here is relatively small; history shows that display technology has the most dismal improvement curve of any computer technology, except possibly batteries." He may be wrong on this one. By writing directly on the retina (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2004/0 411/cover.html has a non technical intro, you'll find terms to Google in the article) we may be using up to the entire field of vision.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's hoping the command line still exists!

Pray for the Singularity

[fstat(pipe)]

The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era Vernor Vinge

Or not.

from the hackers dictionary...

[axiome]

vannevar /van'*-var/ /n./ A bogus technological prediction or a foredoomed engineering concept, esp. one that fails by implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly, incrementally, and in isolation from one another when in fact the learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are common, and competition is the rule. The prototype was Vannevar Bush's prediction of 'electronic brains' the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for their tubes and relays, a prediction made at a time when the semiconductor effect had already been demonstrated. Other famous vannevars have included magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines, videotex, and a paper from the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal density for ICs that was in fact less than the routine densities of 5 years later.

And this is why future predictions are nearly almost wrong. Think about it. What would someone from the 20s think life is like today only 65 years from then?

Instantaneous communication all over the world? Yes, that has happened (more or less) but not the way they predicted it. Its not through some star trek phone but rather using machines *completely* unthinkable in interface and design. General computation machines on our desktop? Nope. Flying cars? Nope but would they of predicted hybrid electrics? Nanotech wasnt even an idea yet but we're approaching slowly going that way. GPS system? Quantum physics? The list goes on and on...

They EXIST!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...we would store ALL our music on a disc the size of a dime that we'd be able to carry around with us everywhere..."

What about the memory sticks or whatever you call them in modern digital cameras? 1cm*1cm*1mm. I think they even come in size as large as 1GB. Give it 5 or 10 years and they WILL hold all your music.

The stumbling block to the music vision isn't storage space. It is copyright.

Re:They EXIST!

[Dun Malg]

"...we would store ALL our music on a disc the size of a dime that we'd be able to carry around with us everywhere..."

What about the memory sticks or whatever you call them in modern digital cameras? 1cm*1cm*1mm. I think they even come in size as large as 1GB.

Are you talking about SmartMedia cards? They're 4.5cm x 3.7 cm; quite a bit larger than a dime. Or are you talking about those stupid little "Secure Digital" cards that nobody uses because they're too small? Give it 5 or 10 years and they WILL hold all your music.

Not really the point, there. Even if one could put all of one's music on a Secure Digital card, why would you? Nobody's going to store their one and only copy of a song on a small, easily lost thumbnail-sized card. The prediction is a further failure in that it totally misses the whole internet thing. This futurist has people walking into stores to have a copy of an album put on their personal dime-sized music disc. It's as stupid a prediction as saying, in 1950, that everything from automobiles to barbecues will be "atomic powered" by 1980.

Re:IN 30 years,,,,backwards.

[gadget junkie]

I recall reading about a Robert Heinlein short story, "columbus was a dope", that confronted your very argument with a queasy fact: since people take for granted their PRESENT technological level, they always say "Enough!". it is difficult, and up to a point futile, to explain to my young son that my first personal computer had less power than his Gameboy.

Nielsen's Law of Internet bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

"According to Nielsen's Law of Internet bandwidth, connectivity to the home grows by 50 percent per year"

hahahahahaha
I think nielsen should stick with usability and steer clear of promoting self-made laws that aren't holding true.

The UNIX clock will overflow on my birthday!

[DeadVulcan]

By coincidence, the UNIX clock will overflow on my birthday. In fact, it will almost overflow in my birth-hour. How cool is that?!

You're right, it's not cool, it's just geeky and lame. But I wrote about it on my website.

How lame is that?

30 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

I always think these sorts of things are cool, but of course they are never right (and the forward looking people who do this sort of thing are always the first to admit that).

As an interesting thought exercise, take computer technology and extrapolate it *backwards*. This is a similar (easier) task, but you'll still find that it will be wrong in comparison with history (notably, there are technologies now that aren't there in the past, and the development of entirely new technologies is hard to predict).

The conclusion is that in 1974 a lot of people had some very slow machines, tiny hard drives, optical drive capacity was at an all time low, and filesharing over 100 baud connections took up a whole lot of time. All of this added up to a very poor user experience for people running Windows 1970 and Linux kernel version -3.2.

HURD is about where it is now, though. ;)

Future Game Graphics

[Reapy]

Will look just like final fantasy: spirits within, or finding nemo, or whatever the latest and greatest cgi film is out. With enough time, processors will be renderings tuff like that in real time, and I'm sure they'll have figured out a whole bunch of new tricks to make everything stop looking strangly perfect.

Scripted events suck!

[Gldm]

You could rob all the great houses blind while the guards watched, you could kill entire towns, you could reach the rank of guild master in any of several guilds. But nothing changed. No one reacted diferently to you regardless of what you did (unless you where wanted for murder or something, then you had to pay a small fine. And keep in mind that you realy could kill entire towns without getting a price put on your head). One would hope that in the future there will be Morrowind like games with real interaction rather then scripted events.

I hear someone is working on this problem.

So the logical extension of this...

[Gldm]

...is that blockbuster movies will be "intelligent" computer-generated renderings of professional gamers's playthroughs of the latest games? =)

Can it really be worse than some of the halfassed scripts coming out now?

What about programming ?

[master_p]

The important question is: what about programming ? will we ever get beyond imperative languages ? (I don't think functional languages allow for every type of application to be programmed). Will we find new ways to program these machines ? or developers will have to go to even bigger hell that it is now ?

Instant search? Try 1998!

[AntigonusPiglet]

Nielsen says, "We'll use half the storage space to index all our information so that we can search it instantly. Good riddance, snoozy Outlook search." This is his prediction for the future? Uh, where has he been for the past few years? Instantaneous indexed search of local content has been available to the mass market since Apple's Find-by-Content feature of Sherlock in 1998, and in many lesser-known products earlier. And there have been plenty of mail clients that do full-text indexed search, again starting in the 90s and continuing with Bloomba today.

Incidentally, it doesn't take anything like half the storage space to do this.

Look at the right things

[Brandybuck]

When predicting the future, the present is a good guide. However, one must examine the correct components of the present. Extrapolating from the wrong stuff will make you seem like a loony thirty years from now. The list of right things to look at invariably places people at the top of the list, with technology a few places lower down.

Sure we'll have faster processors and larger hard drives. But so what? That has nothing to do with what the future will be like.

Sure we'll have the capability to integrate computers, telephones, televisions, game consoles, refrigerators and kitchen sinks into one small pocket sized device. But who the hell would want one? Extrapolating from the "featuritus" of the present is fraught with error.

Instead, you have to look at the people. People don't change. What are people (not corporations) excited about? What are they standing in line to buy? Stay away from the expos, pundits and technophiles. Look at what common everyday people are doing.

Don't listen to Jakob Nielsen, and here's why:

[bourne]

I've long held a personal opinion that Jakob Nielsen is the real world equivalent of G.E.B. Kivistik. Finally, someone noted the emporer's lack of clothes, and did it with style and panache.

Compare Nielsen's page to a more effective design. Which one would you rather read? If it's the second, then why are you taking style advice from this man?

Hmm... writers name.....

[Xacac]

Is it a coincidence???
Im assuming yes as in my experience he seems to crave recognition...... unfortunatly people give him it.
Before anyone has a go at me, I know he is at very least reasonably intelligent, but in my opinion he does not deserve the level of admiration he recieves

Games in 2034

[psetzer]

I can mainly see games in 2034 being much much bigger. Make some MMRPG that's the size of a decent country, give people the ability to do all sorts of stuff, and you'll get better storylines than any author could, since everyone can be their own hero. Increased processing power allows for all sorts of new things that have been limited by a lack of oomph in game systems. Physics engines can start having more nonrigid objects in the game world. One central thing I see happening is emergent behavior. We design things in games to act like they normally do, and their interactions eventually begin to appear spookily lifelike. Take a sheet of paper, and have it act like you'd expect in a physics engine. Stack a whole bunch of sheets together and put a rigid endcap on one side, and you have a book. Generated terrain is also going to be a big thing. Yeah, it's easy to make a race track in a reasonable amount of time, but the Paris-Dakar rally is a completely different story. Game programmers will describe the fundamental rules of a system, and the computer will fill in the details. Any other opinions?

Trying to be Jules Verne

[otisg]

It seems like nowadays everyone is trying so hard to be the next Jules Verne in their domain. How annoying. Why do people do this?

Microsoft will Succeed

[Un pobre guey]

Microsoft will succeed at the same thing it succeeds at now: gulling the innocent out of their precious cash in exchange for the same old shit in a nicer wrapper.

I bet in 30 years ...

[cmcginty]

I bet in 30 years PORN will be awesome !! ;)

PC2034 Specification

[wintermute1974]

I'll own a computer that runs at 3PHz CPU speed, has a petabyte (a thousand terabytes) of memory, half an exabyte (a billion gigabytes) of hard disk-equivalent storage and connects to the Internet with a bandwidth of a quarter terabit (a trillion binary digits) per second.

That's great. I guess we'll all have enough hardware to be able to use Windows Longhorn after all.

Computers, Internet, Education, and Me

[solprovider]

20 years ago, I decided the internet needed to be invented. I had spent my early years learning tons of interesting and useless facts (such as still taught by our "education" system) when I realized that the ability to handle concepts (called "thinking") was more important than knowing the data, since the data could be looked up, but the ability to do something with the data could not be external.

My first company was information publishing. I hoped to grow it into a combination AOL/Amazon/encyclopedia. It would serve as the place anybody could look up anything. This was 1989; the internet was barely public, and I knew nothing about it. The business was successful enough that my partner kicked me out and destroyed it. (I was the vision and most of the labor.)

Then the internet revolution happened. The world got closer to my vision. We could search for almost any data and have the answer in moments, except...

I must go to my computer to look it up.

Since then, we have various experiments to allow that functionality to be done from anywhere. Wirelessly connected devices are getting better. Another decade or two will make them people-friendly.

The article's vision is what will happen to the home computer. But by 2034, the home computer will simply be your personal datastore that is accessible from anywhere. Hopefully by then you will be able to access your server and the rest of the internet by subvocalizing and listening to an ear plug. You will also be able to call anybody the same way (and you will always get voicemail unless they really want to talk to you. Phone tag will be so fast that you will not notice after people stop using greetings.)

Learning facts will become useless when all information is in your ear whenever you need it. Then we can take the next step and start teaching people to THINK.

Jakob's Laws

[Slur]

No matter how powerful computers of the future become, your hyperlinks should still be blue and underlined.

No matter how many hours you spend adding detail and nuance to your A.I. avatars users will still only skim them looking for blue underlined links.

Hey, those same clowns promised us...

[buckminsterinsd]

that in the 21st century we'd have flying cars, AI in every product, vacations on Mars and robot butlers. Real "Space Age" looking stuff with great big ol' fins, styled after 1950's jet aircraft. We'd all be wearing stupid looking jumpsuits with bizarre shoes made out of plastic instead of leather. The total George Jetson lifestyle.

So what did we really get?

Just the bizarre rubber shoes and those damn things cost more money than my first automobile.

Dudes, we got ripped off, big time.....

Pervert :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm gonna be in my rocking chair playing final fantasy XX i'm sure.

I really don't care if you play Final Fantasy XXX or not, but if you do, please spare me the details of how you're "rocking in your chair".

The next fifty years (twenty years ago)

[Jlunix]

Edsger W. Dijkstra wrote an article about the next fifty years in computer sciences (twenty years ago).

So, I think this apply to this thread ;)

http://www.smaldone.com.ar/documentos/ewd/EWD1243a _pretty.html

WOW

[essreenim]

I predict people will still be playing World of Warcraft in 30 years!!