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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
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.
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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.
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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.
Where's the year of the linux desktop?
"It looks like you're trying to make love! Do you need help?"
FUCK OFF CLIPPY