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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.).

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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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.

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...

[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.

Computer games in 2034?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

DNF due in March.

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?

[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?

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.

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.)

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....

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".

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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: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: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.

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.

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.

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.

Pray for the Singularity

[fstat(pipe)]

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

Or not.