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What to Watch for in 2007
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek picks its '5 Disruptive Technologies To Watch In 2007.' The list, which is based on the idea that these are areas which will move into the mainstream this year, includes RFID, graphics processing engines, server virtualization, Web services, and mobile security." What made your list?
Disruptive technologies? Anything that makes us more efficient tomorrow is disruptive to what fell short yesterday.
1. CRITEO, the collaborative filter. They're moving forward with their API (it's free to register) and they're easy to integrate with from blogs and sites of all sorts. I'm a huge fan of collaborative filtering -- I think it's the next step beyond tagging.
2. HSDPA - High Speed Download Packet Access. T-Mobile should finally roll out some 3G services, allowing video phone calls, faster connections from the road, and a wider coverage of high speed access other than WiFi. I'm interested in WiMax, but I don't have as much faith in the technology due to our ridiculously tyrannical FCC regulations. HSDPA will seriously work to replace my car radio, Skype over GPRS, and other dead media.
3. More IP to POTS interaction. I'm really sick of the area code-phone number designations -- I use Skype for about 30% of my phone calls and 100% of my international phone calls, and I love it, but it isn't there yet. I can't wait for better ways to communicate vocally. My HTC Trinity P3600 phone supports WiFi, EDGE, GPRS and HSDPA -- hopefully soon we will see a move to an integrated POTS/WIFI(VOIP)/etc system where vocal communications can translate from one topology to another.
4. More bandwidth. I was one of the first testers of xDSL in Illinois before it was a catchphrase. I had a 128k/128k SDSL that I used for "free" for 6 months and then paid $200 a month for at the end of the trial period. It changed my world. Now we're rocking crazy speeds, but they're still not enough. I'm still blown away at what I pay for Comcast's 8mbps connection (2mbps realistic). The next jump won't quite be an order of magnitude, but everything helps, especially when running remote desktops, desktop collaboration, and high-bandwidth SQL requests.
5. Lower latency. I don't know if this will really happen, but I'm looking forward to even less lag. High bandwidth != low latency, and if anything I have seen worse latency lately than every before. My customers have been working harder to introduce faster websites, faster SQL responses and faster connections to their VPNs -- all to reduce latency. For me, latency is in the top 5 list of inefficiencies that slow me down. Reducing that inefficiency can likely double my producivity in many tasks.
Top 5 list of non-issues but seem to be important to others:
1. Mobile webpages. I run Firefox on my laptop tethered to my cell phone on the go. I also run Opera. Mobile websites sound great for the common phone, but the #1 reason why that is required is because cell phone companies lock out the ability to run better mobile web clients. Competition will hopefully knock this out -- releasing web designers from having to maintain a second mobile site (or a CSS that gives mobile sites better rendering).
2. RFID. This is a non-issue for me because it just isn't secure. While it is easy to fake a barcode (for example, to barcode a costly item with a less costly barcode and trick the check-out clerk), I'm not sure how RFID will really change my life. If anything, that form of automation will make my life more inefficient in having to deal with the "human check" follow through to verify that the RFID information is correct.
3. Credit Card security systems. I'm not concerned with credit card fraud. I hate Citibank -- they block my card about twice a week because I travel to a new city or country every week. If someone steals my card, I am not liable -- neither is Citibank. The retailer is. Security should be at the retail end. I do a chargeback, the merchant account provider charges back the merchant. End of story. I hate security on credit, it is ridiculous and limits me all the time.
4. Web 2.0. I'm getting sick of Web 2.0 interfaces, even though they look slick and they seem to work well for some websites. More than anything, they make my life difficult because they're not alw
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
Lives, Careers, Friends all disrupted.
Disruptive technologies to watch for, huh? I'm surprised they didn't mention even more advanced british cameras watching their citizens. People better watch for em cuz they'll sure be watching for people. With the latest loudspeaker and aggressive tone upgrades in 06, I bet some "disruptive" stuff is on the way this year. I'd bet any buck Britian will lead the way in AI camera technology in no time in the next year.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Would someone please tell me how server virtualization or graphics processing engines are disruptive. (Innovative, yes, but disruptive?)
Philosophy.
is when you they decide not to work properly (if at all).
I find articles written by starry eyed techno-prognosticators are quite possibly more disruptive than anything that has come out in the past 4 years, (possibly withthe exception of DRM: a truly disruptive technology).
You are where you are at the time you are there.
#2. Web Services -
Yeah, "new" as in
#3. Server Virtualization (for free)! - I've been using VMWare since the close of the last century. It's "disruptive" now that it will be "free"? Whatever.
#4. Advanced Graphics Processing - Right. I'm sure everyone will find that typing their documents in 3d is so
#5. Mobile Security -
The "perimeter" needs to be re-established and re-evaluated as "defense in depth" with multiple levels of stateful firewalls and intrusion detection.
The stupid "scan the computer before you let it on the network" approach is too brittle. All it will take is the first virus / trojan / worm that can "reply" to that scan with faked credentials for the apps that are supposed to be scanned and you have an infected box on your network. Particularly with the new advances in rootkits for Windows.
CSS is fine. CSS3 is even better. The problems you're encountering are just half-assed implementations of the standard, most likely in IE and Gecko (though webkit/khtml and Opera have known issues as well). The worst problems come from IE6 and IE7 where rendering bugs, improper implementation, and non-implementation of standards cause poor results with things that work just fine in all the other major browsers. Once you start applying (admittedly dodgy) workarounds, which are done by either restructuring your XHTML or adding goofy hacks to your CSS, or both...then you start to to degrade your design in the competition's browsers.
As far tin-foil hattage is concerned, I firmly believe that this is intentional on the part of Microsoft.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
Amen. DRM is going to be waaaay more disruptive than virtualization or, uh, shiny graphics.
Do you use a computer? Are you in any way involved in the consumer computer industry? How about the creation of digital media content? Do you like music, movies or pictures? If you said yes to any of these, DRM is going to be a major pain in YOUR ass.
Last I checked it is disruptive now. One 4p server hosting 20VMs. Saving power, saving space, etc.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
The driverless car is coming.
Never, ever will happen for legal reasons. Car companies themselves stated this in the early 90s after some of the first tries at driverless cars were made.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
- The first U.S. Passport RFID virus.
- The first virus to successfully attack the passport reader at an airport.
- A marketing gadget that enables Mobile-spam phone calls via automatic IMI look-up.
- Binary or Trinary component virii that adapt by downloading components off the web based on the environment they execute in.
- Hardware Update viruses that embed themselves into the Flash-ROM of your devices and cannot be removed.
- Botnets on cellphones.
- "Spam servelet" applications that do something actually useful (contact management, phonebook, etc) in order to disguise their primary function as open-relays.
- IT wages to continue to decline as PHB's start believing "Network Management for Dummies" sales-droids.
- Singapore becomes the next IT Out-sourcing capital of the world after American companies realize that 'pore labor is even cheaper and better educated than Indian, and a 'porean speaks better English.
- 'Firmware-By-Software-Driver' companies panic after a buffer-overflow exploit cripples Vista.
- Microsoft tries to buy more bloggers, and fails miserably, again.
- Some middle-eastern country becomes the first nation to be suborned into a single bot-net.
- 'Dumbing Down' of American Television continues. The number of people who cannot find Canada on the map sky-rockets.
- A 'Family First' politician resigns over a sex-scandal with a neighbor.
- A 'Ethics First' politician commits suicide over a sex-for-influence scandal.
- Hollywood releases the first movie in 30 years that is worth paying full ticket price to see again.
- The RIAA sues someone who doesn't even know what a computer is for downloading music illegally.
Fukuoka, Japan. Has fiber-to-the-house. Has had it for years. Pays less for it than you'd pay for xDSL or cablemodem here, and the bandwidth is incredible.
In Japan there are many more high-population density areas where people have a reasonably high average income, and as a result, there are many more companies competing to provide the same service: in one place, even in the suburbs, you'll get the telephone company, the cable company, and the electric company all building high-speed networks, including the final segment to individual homes/apartments. Any company that has any kind of pipes or conduit that might be used for optical fibers (the electric company strings them alongside the power lines) is putting them in, and they know they can't overcharge for long without getting destroyed by the competition in this environment.
I dunno if the U.S. has the kind of density in many places to support that, or whether the utility companies have the competitive instinct to go for it even where it does make sense....
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Credit Card security has to be done by the banks otherwise it'll take too long per transaction for the retailers to do it. I don't want to wait longer in line for some store to run thru whatever authorization system they may have come up with. Plus there's a lot less banks then there are retailers out there which means there would be an order of magnitude more systems to choose from if retailers handled it. It would be chaos. And for what gain? The small number of people who travel as often as you do? Besides, banks are the only ones with your complete transaction history. How is a retailer going to have access to that? Its not even their right to have access to that information.
As for government failing....I didn't realize our government had failed. Is someone flying another flag over DC? Government isn't meant to do everything but what it does do it happens to do very well because no one else can do it better (or even as good.) The occasional bone-headed administration can't be helped however.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Yes. And after we catch the Exeter rapist we can use that same RFID system to identify people protesting the government, people associating with known or suspected criminals, people buying things that are disturbing, and people who are different from other people.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.