Slashdot Mirror
Talking Web, Memory Aids, and Solar Phones In 5 Years
jbrodkin writes "A talking Web, solar technology embedded in windows and cell phones, and the end of forgetting will all come in the next five years, IBM predicts in its third annual Next Five in Five list, detailing innovations that could change our lives in the next half-decade. The other predictions: We will all have digital shopping assistants and, separately, 'crystal balls' to predict our future health.
If IBM is right, in five years we'll forget about keyboards and use our voices to surf the Web on solar-powered laptops. DNA profiles will predict our personal health risks, and we'll get automatic reminders to perform daily tasks, generated by digital recording and analysis of our conversations."
I'm pretty pumped about that.
Totally going to happen.
Wait..
Where am I?
I don't want Crystal Balls! I like mine just the way they are, thank you very much.
John
Remembering all the little things you forget will become easier because everyday details will be recorded, analyzed and "provided at the appropriate time and place by both portable and stationary smart appliances."
That's not "the end of forgetting" - that sounds like a more annoying version of clippy.
'talking' to the Web is leapfrogging all other interfaces, and the mobile phone is outpacing the PC
That's using voice recognition on devices with substandard interfaces. Keyboards aren't going anywhere.
You will talk to the Web
I can't be positive, but I am pretty sure that I can type faster than a speech-recognition algorithm (currently) can convert my speech into text. I am also not sure that surfing the web using speech is such a great idea anyway. I like to think about things. Talking to my computer means (for me) that my thoughts would be less in depth (I think). Also, it might give "not safe for work" a whole new meaning, not to mention the "not safe for home". Anyway, what advantage would web browsing using speech bring us (aside from the obvious tremendous benefits to those who're impared and cannot type)? How would links work? How would firefox's awesome bar work? I am not suggesting that these problems are unsolvable. I am suggesting that it would be like trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Typing works fine. I don't need to talk to my monitor--I talk to myself too much as it is.
...every time we get one of these "we will have X in Y years" is the track record of whoever is making these predictions. Did they guess correctly in 50% of their past predictions? More? Less? Should I care, then?
(I realize IBM has 2 more years to go before this applies to the "next 5", but I'd bet they were making public predictions, by another name, long ago - just like everybody else)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I like my keyboard, you insensitive clod!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I doubt any of these are going to happen in the next 5 years, if at all. Here are my thoughts on each of their predictions.
1. Solar power
This sounds a lot like the 50s and 60s sci-fi where every little gadget is nuclear powered. Not going to happen. I can imagine more and more portable devices switching to solar, but I think it will be closer to 10-15 years before it becomes widespread.
2. DNA testing
Could happen, but I don't think it will be a common practice in 5 years time.
3. Voice input
Speech to text is still pretty bad. Some examples of problems it still struggles with are handling different accents, background noise. I think instead of voice input we will see a lot more touch-screen interfaces similar to the Nintendo DS and iPhone. Keyboard + mouse will still rule the desktop.
4. Robot shop assistants
Sounds far too annoying and expensive for the retailers to catch on. Also what's the point of having a robot if a human then has to go and get the item(s) suggested by it? Why not have the human make the suggestions as is currently done?
5. Memory aids
I doubt people's behavior will change so much in 5 years that everything we do will be recorded. I think we are heading that way, but I'd allow longer than 5 years for it to become mainstream. I'd also suggest that a lot of work still needs to be done with how data is stored, organized, searched etc. for this to become useful. There's no point in having everything recorded if you aren't able to find the information you need at a later date.
seriously, every list of things that we can expect to see "real soon now" involves speech recognition.
and all i can say is... why?
who wants to work in an office full of cubes of people talking to their computers?
do you really want to read that confidential memo out loud?
besides, i can't imagine how awful it would be if everyone started speaking their memos and blog posts and comments &c. you think e-mail looks sloppy now... just wait until folks start yakking at their computers and pressing (or, i guess, saying?) "send".
sheesh. the last thing i want to do is "talk" to the web.
This space intentionally left blank
Though most of these advances are tantalizingly close to realization, 5 years is still pretty ambitious.
In the past 15 years, speech recognition has certainly not gotten to the point where you can navigate hands-free except for rudimentary commands like ALT-LEFT or PAGEDOWN. You still need to train speech recognition parsers to your pronunciation, and they still get it wrong some of the time. Like everyone else, I would love for this technology to be perfected but I'm not holding my breath (so to speak). Maybe the author was taking the Iron Man movie a bit too seriously.
As for "perfect memory" I think in fact the opposite has occurred (see the recent Slashdot article on improving one's memory). People's attention spans and short term memory are deteriorating because of the information blitz. Although, the damage from passive web surfing is mediated by active participation in forums etc. Carrying around a PDA has been a mixed blessing; you get to the point where you don't bother to memorize anything because it's all in your device. That's OK as far as it goes, but you still need to exercise your memory or risk letting it decline, and PDAs do nothing to alleviate this problem.
Paint-on solar power--that's a great technology that has barely made it out of the lab. If it's implemented in the next 5 years, wonderful, but somehow it seems like a major infrastructure shift is needed to truly take advantage. I'd love to see every new house and commercial building outfitted with solar power, but it's not happening today even in fast-growing and sunny places like southern Arizona so this paint-on thing is probably even farther off. But, who knows what the next five years will bring. Obama may try to push through a mandate and then suddenly we'll see solar everywhere.
Realistically, in five years I would expect to see much smarter phones, like the iPhone 4.0 and gPhone 3.0 running on various networks including wi-fi and wimax as well as traditional cellular grids. Memory will be bigger and cheaper, and these gadgets will essentially be as smart as a present-day laptop. Laptops will be slimmer and smarter, too, and with longer lasting power supplies. Probably cars will be slightly smarter, with built-in GPS screens a common option (Toyota will probably be the first to make GPS a standard feature in all models) and traffic jam avoidance systems increasingly common. Eventually we'll doubtless have buried beacons in the roads that will alert motorists with properly equipped cars to impending collisions or congestion. But this kind of infrastructure will take years if not decades to install.
Socially we'll see more people looking for community online while ignoring their physical neighbors. This will be disruptive to physical neighborhoods as the world becomes increasingly virtual and distances are lessened.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
I predict that in 5 years, IBM will finish moving all of its datacenter support to India, will exit the CPU business in the face of withering competition from Intel, and sell its mainframe business from some yet to be identified Chinese company.
This is my sig.
Does anyone type to the web now? It seems to me most people use this thing called a mouse. Replacing a keyboard with voice recognition sucks. Replacing a mouse with voice recognition... let's just say I'm pretty sure that's one of the punishments featured in one of the lower circles of hell.
"DNA profiles will predict our personal health risks..."
You will suffer the risk of constant blows to the head from your annoying personality. Have a nice day.
"...and we'll get automatic reminders to perform daily tasks, generated by digital recording and analysis of our conversations."
We have that already. I call mine, Mom!
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I hate when they do this stuff. People tend to make predictions from the wrong angle. Half of the things they say have everything to do with innovation and nothing to do with adoption. Unfortunately, as these are all technological maturities, they only truly exist as beneficial when they acquire a thershhold-degree of ubiquity.
If something is completely unused today, I promise that it won't be anywhere near widely adopted in five years.
I give less credibility to these predictions than I do to Nostradamus, and that means almost none.
We already have some of these things (the talking web for example... even though it's abysmally expensive to do it right), and others of them we probably don't even want.
For example: solar cells on sidewalks will not become commond anytime soon. Why? Not because of solar cell efficiency, which has (finally) been increasing significantly. No, the problems there are interconnection and durability! Interconnection is problematic and expensive, and the thin-film cells are nowhere near durable enough for this kind of application... unless you embedded them in epoxy or something, which is a whole different can of worms.
Solar cells will not be embedded in cell phones! Why? Because even though solar cell efficiency is increasing, cell phones use a LOT of power (which is why they have lithium cells), and they keep getting smaller and smaller, with less room for solar cells. Further, nobody wants to clip their cell phone to their hat so that it absorbs enough sun.
I could go on, but I think I have made my point. IBM should be ashamed of this set of predictions. It was poorly thought out.
I can see google researching text-to-speech technology so they can then remotely turn on mobile phones and listen in on everyone.
If they manage to work out the current difficulties, they'll even say its so they can remind people to do stuff.
Solar tech? Seriously? For something that sits in my pocket??? And women tend to keep in handbags. Oh I can imagine it now....a conversation with my wife when I get home will begin with "Sorry honey, I forgot to put my mobile on the window sill at work and it ran out of charge. Actually our area is moving in a couple of years and there won't be as much natural light so even that won't be an option.
I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April fools.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
not likely so
By the way it looks like human civilization will have dark age for another half of a millennia until this thing gets fixed.
That'll make google ads so much more fun. And just think about when they do a revival of the Vagina Monologues. Fun times ahead!
[+5 sarcasm]
Quote /Quote
For example: solar cells on sidewalks will not become commond anytime soon.
Strange this. Just this week, a Solar powered traffic sign was installed on the pavement(uk speak for sidewalk) right outside my house.
Here and in France (from my observations earlier this week) large number of roadside and even railway side equipment are spouting solar panels these days.
It is a pity that the large scale panels needed for domestic use are so expensive.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Memory AIDS? I better start wearing my brain condom
That was absolutely magical.
But you do have to consider that speech-to-text's strength is transcription, not punctuation. For an engine that's probably had next to no training on the user's voice, it did at least a half-decent job getting the correct word. Given that most perl scripters are too busy fighting over vi and emacs, it's probably OK for the Vista team to ignore this one masochist.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
The robotic assistants will be able to offer color-coordination and body-type advice at least. And then if you're female you'll find pictures of you all over the internet.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Just wait until you get on a plane full of bow-heads, all *talking* to their laptops. You think cell phones in public were bad? Those were "just the fireflies before the storm" (Lou Gerstner)
Well, if this comes true, the world of the future will definitely be noisier.
In other news, IBM patents new advance ear plug technology.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
thank you, sir, for giving us a good reason why the web should NOT talk to us.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Flying cars owned by private citizens will soon be available as well.....
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
We will all have digital shopping assistants and, separately, 'crystal balls' to predict our future health. If IBM is right, in five years we'll forget about keyboards and use our voices to surf the Web on solar-powered laptops
I keep reading that word, "we". Who is we?
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Who wants to remember this past year! Across the board, shit-show of the century!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Where's the year of the linux desktop?
No need to go shopping with the Mrs any more! Woo hoo!
Here let me give you head start on the code:
onShopperTalk(text) {
if (text == "Does my bum look big in this?") {
output("No, it looks fine");
sleep(2000);
output("What do you mean I wasn't looking? - of course I was");
}
}
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
oh well at least it sounds more promising than whatever this was supposed to achieve:
http://www.research.ibm.com/BurrPuzzles/
However, I agree about cell phones. Most people do not bring them out in sunshine, where they don't work very well, and they don't like heat anyway.
Interesting (to me anyway) the talking web was forecast in the 1960s in a book, published in the UK, called "Metatopia". I think it sold hardly any copies and I only know about it because the author lived in our road. Metatopia was a kind of rebuff to Brave New World, and it proposed a future that most North Americans would absolutely hate - a combination of socialism and libertarianism (hence the "meta" - Greek for "in the middle) but his talking Internet had e-commerce, a kind of Wikipedia, and the delivery of audio content free on demand.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
And then if you're female you'll find pictures of you all over the internet.
You've made me use up an hour "doing research" on the net, you inconsiderate clod!
We will talk to the web
Considering the contents of most forums, this advancement will be a huge step forward in making flamewars move on to a whole new level. "NO U" indeed.
DNA profiles will predict our personal health risks
Anyone else looking forward to being denied a job or insurance today because your DNA profile shows a 40% lung cancer profile 20 years in your future?
We will have Linux on the desktop for everyone in five years. Everybody knows that.
-- Cheers!
1. Solar power: Noone wants to carry around their mobile devices out in the open oriented to catch the most Sun. Solar panels on houses and cars I can understand, but they will never be anything more than a marketing gimmick on mobile devices.
Nah. Hats with really big brims, often worn at an angle when sitting outside, come back into fashion. The thin power cords are sewn into the chin straps. Some models contain a microphone in the bolo slider of the chin strap, for those few who prefer an audible pickup to the necklace subvocalizers. Styles tend to sort out by latitude, with narrow brimmed hats like baseball caps with oversized bills being favored in equatorial desert climes, while broad sombreros are more common closer to the poles, and in regions that are frequently cloudy.
Faux turtleneck collars, feather boas, ascot ties, elizabethan collars, and similar neckwear become common fashion accessories that also serve wiring harness or cable control functions.
Someday soon you will surf the Internet using just your voice, a development that will make the Web more widely accessible worldwide, particularly for those who cannot read or write.
We'd better teach them to read and write. Writing is a highly efficient way of presenting information, several times faster than oral speech in terms of perception. Although today's input methods are a bit clumsy. Instead of a keyboard one could think of some sensor that you put on wrist to scan some subtle movements of fingers. I mean, in sci-fi future there's a lot to be done, but leave writing alone.
3. Voice input: My first exposure to this was a demo from IBM in the mid 1990's. PCs have increased in power a lot since then and the quality of voice recognition has hardly changed, so I think it's going to take a major new discovery to make significant advances in the next five years.
I agree, wrt things like composing email, or data entry to a spreadsheet. But...
A choke collar lying flat against the throat, with appropriate sensors on the underside, a middle layer of computer chips, and an outer layer of bling (possibly doubling as radiators for the heat sink) picks up the user's subvocalized commands. The command set is a very distinct spatial jargon for controlling a mouse pointer: "Computer: main menu second column, click... third item, click... bottom item, click... over right twenty-five percent down 40 percent, rightclick... item one." The commands are subvocalized; the computer ignores anything that is actually spoken, so the user appears to be silently talking to himself. A roomful of busy office workers would be very quiet.
This is done while looking at an unrolled scroll of digital display paper which is the visual part of the interface. When not in use the display is stored in a small brassy tubular scabbard attached to a red shoulder sash, that in turn is held in place by one of the epaulettes (the other epaulette holds the gloves with the embedded stress sensor nets that are used to manipulate the virtual keyboard).
Audio is through earbuds that attach to the choke collar computer. Power is from the solar hat.
Picture a thousand people waiting on the platform for the commuter train, all quiet, some bopping to earbud music; others holding their scrolls like they were issuing Some Important Proclamation, reading the news or watching a video, a few with lips moving silently while they concentrated on some internet surfing activity.
Five years is enough time to get from where we are to that place. Except maybe for the digitizing gloves. We'll probably all be using fold up keyboards, since the gloves probably won't be ready for ten years.
4. Robot Shop Assistants: Marketing gimmick, might appear in a few sushi restaurants, but when people go shopping in brick and mortar stores, they want to deal with people not machines, otherwise they'd just do their shopping online.
An android shopping assistant doesn't make much sense to me. But...
Smart shopping carts that use Bluetooth to interface with your PDA or choke collar computer. You can download your shopping list to them, and they can display a map of the aisles with an optimal route from item to item. They can also display comparative shopping information on all the brands of widgets, and of course all the in-store special sales. Also, a running total of the cost of your purchases, adjusted for the coupons you've sent through its scanner, the 5% discount you get for being recognized as a "Loyal Customer", and the 3% additional discount you get for having shopped at this store two other times in the last seven days, etc, etc.
Stop at one of the sampler stations and try the taste of the highlighted cheese of the day... and the cart receives the signal that you have done so and that you now qualify for the Special of the Day price on the Imported Brie. Notice that the pork loin roasts are at a good price and ask the cart whether it knows of any recipes that would get the meat from refrigerator to table in under an hour... and what spices and whatnot are recommended?
All done with the grocery list? Ask the cart if anyone on your social network "friends" list is currently in the mall. The cart says that SuzyQ is... have the cart text message her cart: Wanna meet at the espresso bar?
When done with the shopping, roll the cart directly to the door, bypassing the check-out counters, and swipe your credit card through the cart's reader to pay your bill.
There are no unsolved technical problems here. This will happen as soon as it becomes cost effective for stores to implement this kind of thing. Which is very likely to start happening in the next five years.
You having to say out loud "Google, find me a woman screwing a donkey".
'Nuff said.
I think Clippy may have misinterpreted the situation...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
We have solar traffic lights in my area too. But those are panels in the air, not solar cells IN asphalt, as the article predicted. That was what I was referring to.
The article specifically described solar cells being implanted IN the "asphalt" of sidewalks. Not in separate panels attached to poles.
We have solar traffic lights, etc. in my area too. But that was not the topic of discussion.
"I think there is a world market for about five computers."
IBM: Known for great predictions.
It detects the persons identity, your location and based off there attitude toward you provides a rating for that person and shares a part of it with your location....part of my project. looking for people soon..
I *want* memory aids. I want them with a passion. But the article is blowing smoke and calling it a fireplace. There's nothing there.
Not to say that memory aids couldn't exist. We could have them right now. All I want is a device where I can press a button and create alarms and reminders via voice. The word domain is small, and it doesn't have to be realtime (a processing time of 5-15 seconds is just fine). Existing mobile devices like phones already have enough processing power for this task, but I still haven't seen anything.
Makes me sad.
Full 'record your life and recall it when needed', something I would definitely use, won't occur until we have strong AI. That ain't happening for 20 years in my opinion.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
1 femtosecond after I hear any Web page start talking, I will rip out my speaker cords. Because that shit is intrusive and annoying. Your website will offer me a selection of information and activities that I can peruse AT MY MOTHERFUCKING LEISURE. I will NOT have my thoughts directed by some talkie marketing garbage. WWW: STFU!