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IBM's Five Predictions For the Next Five Years
PolygamousRanchKid writes "In each of the past five years, IBM has come up with a list of five innovations it believes will become popular within five years. In this, the sixth year, IBM has come up with the following technologies it thinks will gain traction: (1) People power will come to life. Advances in technology will allow us to trap the kinetic energy generated (and wasted) from walking, jogging, bicycling, and even from water flowing through pipes. (2) You will never need a password again. Biometrics will finally replace the password and thus redefine the word 'hack.' (3) Mind reading is no longer science fiction. Scientists are working on headsets with sensors that can read brain activity and recognize facial expressions, excitement, and more without needing any physical inputs from the wearer. (4) The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected. (5) Junk mail will become priority mail. "In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem that spam is dead."
...has no vision
Here are their predictions from five years ago (all the wonderful things we are supposed to have today):
We will be able to access health care remotely, from just about anywhere in the world.
Not even close
Real-time speech translation—once a vision only in science fiction—will become the norm.
Some advances have been made, but nope
There will be a 3D Internet.
Nope
Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance.
Wow, not even sure what the fuck that was SUPPOSED to be about. Nanotech maybe??
Our mobile phones will start to read our minds.
God help us.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I don't care how personalized it is: it's still unsolicited and I don't want it in my in-box. Even if the mail is advertising something I'm interested in, unless I'm actually in the market to buy a new one (which is rare), I'll consider it spam.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Biometrics are a terrible idea. They can't be changed. That means that as soon as somebody lifts your fingerprint off that class, you're 0wn3d. Forever. Sorry, but biometrics are to proper security what the TSA is to proper security—a lot of flashy show with no real function—a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Thanks, but no thanks. Maybe as a fairly weak second factor, but not as a replacement for passwords. A more reasonable solution would be a chip-and-pin scheme in which you enter the pin on the (very simple, hard-to-hack) card rather than on the reader, so that the reader is just a dumb device that passes the authentication request through to a backend server and receives an authorization token a la Kerberos.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
1: More ways to power the mandatory GPS trackers governments will require of individuals. Maybe even ways to bring the concept of a remote "kill switch" to a new level not seen outside of Dune and heart plugs.
2: I will never need a password again, but neither would the hackers and phishers who manage to get the unchangeable identification from the biometric device.
3: The thought police will be real. Same with thoughtcrime.
4: The poor will receive something, it will be like a TV with one-to-many broadcasting so they can get the latest propaganda.
5: Subliminal advertising and legal defeats for anti-spam items such as Adblock are just waiting for us. Yippee.
Any unsolicited mail will always be spam no matter how personal and relevant it is.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Our mobile phones will start to read our minds.
God help us.
Yes. Read my mind.
...tells lies.
Thank you. I opened up the comments to ask how their predictions for the last 5 years went. Something I always look for in an article about someone's predictions for the future is how did they do in the past at predicting the future. Unfortunately, most such articles never bother to tell you that the "prophet" they are quoting is not better than random at predictiing the future. If the source they are got one big thing right, they will tout that, but never mention that that one thing was one out of 100 and the other 99 weren't even close.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
There is NO WAY that spam will ever be personalized enough to make it become priority mail. Spam that is that personalized is going to be perceived as CREEPY. Of course, IBM would like that, because IBM will make $$$ selling services to make spam creepy^Wpersonalized.
No passwords in 5 years? Maybe in 15 - 20, but it's not like all the computers that use passwords are suddenly going to disappear in 5 years. Besides, one of the advantages of a password is you can give it to someone else. What good are biometrics if you're sitting in the hospital after losing a hand? Or retinal scans after you've had laser retinal photocoagulation to remove the "distinctive pattern of veins" on your retina? Or if you're going to be away on vacation for a week, and you want someone else to log in for you?
In other words, passwords will always be around. But IBM would like that, because IBM will make $$$ selling services to make it more inconvenient for you to get things done^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wmore convenient most of the time, and then pay big $$$$ for the edge cases.
(5) Junk mail will become priority mail. "In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem that spam is dead."
It'll still be crap that's stuffing my mailbox, I'll still use it as kindling, and it'll still exist only to keep the USPS in business. The only way I'd even bother looking at junk mail would be if it screamed as I threw it into the fire.
Obligatory XKCD. http://xkcd.com/936/
Here's the thing. Just because they're not accurate, doesn't mean there is no benefit to it. It's good to look to the future and it's good to dream. A lack of wonder and creativity leads to stagnation. I don't understand saying that people that try to predict the future have no vision. The whole point of this list is more about getting people to think about the future. To get them to imagine. This is not a bad thing. Yeah, you can probably make safe predictions about the future, but that doesn't get people striving to do something. Getting people thinking is not a bad thing.
Canonical will see a not insignificant number of Ubuntu users migrate over to Mint Linux.
PS4 and the next Xbox will be announced at E3, to be released in 2013.
Facebook will experience its first notable slump in active users.
Summation 2
1) It's enough to drive a wrist watch, but no I don't think so.
2) Not going to happen or you could do "identity theft" from any paper cup..
3) Very limited degree of giving directions with your mind, yes. Anything that actually resembles reading a thought? No.
4) The "poorest of the poor" live on less than a dollar a day. It's a long way to everyone browsing the Internet on their smartphone.
5) Hahahhahhahaha LOL
My prediction is that all these predictions are wrong. That's not to say anything big won't happen, but IBM isn't exactly a Jobs or Zuckerberg. They're good on tech research but I think several of these predictions lack real world grounding.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Biometrics are a terrible idea. They can't be changed. That means that as soon as somebody lifts your fingerprint off that class, you're 0wn3d.
glass, not class.
I can phrase it simpler. If you can measure a biometric using a hardened scanner for years, for less money, I can replicate it for one time use. And most biometric scan technologies are pretty cheap... Hand geometry scanners, owned. fingerprint scanners, LOL. Iris scanners, owned. "face recognition" owned.
Nearly all biometric devices rely intensely on physical security, once you have access to the device and the wire almost all are subject to playback attacks, some as simple as "open circuit this wire" or "close circuit this wire".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'd like to see Number 1 more often, such as the so called self-winding watches that rely on the motions of your arm.
Then again, for those peculiar people who don't swing their arms when they walk (that sorta creeps me out) they won't work so well
I don't see number 2 happening.
Number 5? Never.
Number 3 is the most likely, IMO.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
To parse the words carefully:
4) Within 5 years, it will become popular within the US to say there is no digital divide - there is no such thing a class divide in the first place.
I think reality will look more service caps that limit the average user to software updates, streaming a movie per week, and playing a few hours of a browser game per month.
That's just what my good old grandpa used to say - who needs to develop biometrics and mind reading when you already have RockMelt?
The problem is that many of these things are potentially possible, but they are presented from the pure technology perspective without considering the social and political aspects that at the end are the ones with the real influence.
Think about TCP/IP in general. With the power of todays computers, even cell phones, the world should have evolved into an Internet architecture that was purely P2P based. Everything could have been a real cloud of distributed processing and information sharing. But that would have been disruptive, and any technology that would sufficiently threaten the establishment, and in particular the ones with serious money, will be fought back in the form of regulation or in more subtle ways, such as a slight bending of their direction. ADSL was one of those cases, where by empowering a download speed substantially higher than uploads, it literally steered the way technology developed, from all nodes being equal, to nodes becoming consumers, while other becoming servers.
They are redefining "hack" as is sawing/cutting away your body parts to use for gaining access to your money. Not looking forward for a future like that.
1, 2, and 3, no way. 4 and 5, maybe. But mail spam is going to up in price a lot. I think it will almost totally go away in the next 5 years. People forget that they only things we innovate are things we actually care about. The level on complexity in the average cell phone far out paces the level of technology, even well, in the space program.
Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance.
This one might be considered a wash, considering the new small manufacturing techniques for computer parts that allow less energy to be used to accomplish more.
Duh... the reason Junk Mail is not valued by the recipient is because it is INTRUSIVE. Intrusiveness cannot be overcome by personalisation. More like enhanced. The more personalized the junk, the creepier the intrusion.
I wonder why that person from IBM predicts such a creepy future?
Why does IBM pay someone to publish creepy stuff like that?
1 - cant happen unless they really reduce computer power requirements. People dont have that much power to generate passively.
2 - HAHAHAHAHA Yeah right.
3 - I dont think so. we can barely control a mouse position or even do a reliable on or off.
4 - Not a chance in hell unless Cellphone data costs drop to $0.00
5 - Companies dont get it that people dont read junk mail to the home, when Spam costs nothing, why stop using it?
Did they ask the janitor for these predictions?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I use the second one with a mix of the first one.
Is this the same IBM that predicted that there would only be a need for a handful of personal computers across the globe?
I was thinking the advantage of passwords or physical tokens is that they aren't tied to your body too, but for a different reason. Not so that you share them with friends, but so that nobody chops off your body parts just to access your stuff. People have had their finger chopped off just so that someone can steal their fingerprint-scanning car.
What's more important to you, your finger or your car? Considering replacing the car just requires an insurance claim..
which is totally what she said
The problem is their goal is ridiculous, complicated, stock price increasing, security theater, consumerism oriented junk.
Why not radical simplification instead of dilbertian complication? Other than it wouldn't make IBM as much money so we're not gonna talk about that.
Walled gardens are simpler, although ickier. I predict more.
Pointless invasive security theater is simpler than tech. Whatever would be extremely intrusive and intimidating and embarrassing so the Americans will love doing their part for the war on terror or civil liberties or whatever.
Death of the mouse and keyboard. Onscreen keypad for all except for the modern equivalent of data entry operators. Lowered productivity has never stopped any other UI innovation / simplification.
Goodbye broadcast TV and its 99 layers of resale and advertisement and complication and retransmission and uplinking and re-compression. Find it on "itunes music store" or the producers website, pay for it, watch it. Expect most advertising money to go into product placement.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Actually, I do have a prediction about the future:
Five years from now, somewhere in America, a teenage girl will argue fiercely with her mother over her new boyfriend. Her mother will warn the girl that he is no good. The girl will contend that the mother doesn't appreciate how great he is or how real their love is. Later the girl will complain to both her best friend and the boyfriend in question about how her mother is a bitch who doesn't understand that she and her boyfriend they are meant to be together forever.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Conveniently aimed at technologies in which I'm sure IBM is investing.
I predict that in five years, it'll look at lot like it does now, with perhaps different providers.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Wow, Macbeth quote and everything! Respect.
And here's their predictions from the end of 2007, which have one year left to come true:
Arguably yes in some cases, but not for any of the "smart grid" reasons the explanatory text talks about.
Nope.
Sounds cool, but nope. All I know about my imported fruit is the "grown in Chile" sticker.
Arguably coming close.
Pretty sure this ain't happening.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Past performance is not an indication of future results, is it? Granted that past results will give you the forum to make predictions in the future. In this case, it's IBM. Having been a leader--or at least major player--in technology for the last 100 years, they do and will continue to have a basis for making this predictions.
Maybe NONE of the predictions will come to fruition within 5 years. But at the same time they'll have people talking about them and who knows what will eventually come from them?
>> (4) The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected
Uh huh. Maybe a pre-pay phone with voice minutes but that won't help them connect like a smart phone will. And I don't think data plans OR smart phones are going to be affordable to the upper middle lower class without some huge price cuts that I would LOVE to see but don't think will happen.
Meanwhile, I'm so addicted to mine, that I can't get rid of it. Sigh.
Hack (verb) - to cut off someone's finger or eyeball, in order to use it later for biometrically entering their computer accounts.
Ten years ago few people predicted the huge variety of applications one would be able to do on a pocket-size computer. It was consider dicey at the time for Apple to get into the phone busy at all, even though this seemed be the logical progression of ever smarter iPods. The real innovation came when Apple opened these devices to devices after an initial year of resistance. Something perhaps not even Steve anticipated.
This is just one of several under-expected forecasts in the industry- the surprise racehorse. I've seen many of these in my career.
Thank you. I opened up the comments to ask how their predictions for the last 5 years went. Something I always look for in an article about someone's predictions for the future is how did they do in the past at predicting the future. Unfortunately, most such articles never bother to tell you that the "prophet" they are quoting is not better than random at predictiing the future. If the source they are got one big thing right, they will tout that, but never mention that that one thing was one out of 100 and the other 99 weren't even close.
Maybe opening up the article would have served you better than opening up the comments. From the article...
New predictions aside, IBM’s track record of predictions over the past five years has been somewhat mixed. Let’s take a step back to 2006 and look at its predictions:...
They then go on to assess the prediction that the commenter made above but with a more generous tone than that being applied above. In general they treat them as though they were general business predictions (e.g. smartphones get smart...not that they literally read our thoughts) rather than acting like IBM is claiming to be a group of religious prophets.
I don't know about junk mail, but perhaps in five years Slashdot spam bots will be smart enough to use "geeky stuff" as something desirable on a website with the motto "news for nerds, stuff that matters", rather than as something that should be abandoned.
(1) People power will come to life. Advances in technology will allow us to trap the kinetic energy generated (and wasted) from walking, jogging, bicycling, and even from water flowing through pipes.
Possible, I'd say. Not holding my breath, but this is at least benign.
(2) You will never need a password again. Biometrics will finally replace the password and thus redefine the word 'hack.'
Yes you will. Authentication that relies on a single factor has been proven time and time again to be inadequate. The most viable authentication methods have almost always relied on at least two factors, the rule of thumb being "something you have and something you know" .. the latter being a password, or a PIN, or some other piece of information you memorize. Until we can all do public-key encryption in our heads, passwords or other memory-based authentication factors will be necessary. Even if they take a form like "crimson, eleven, delight, petrichor".
(3) Mind reading is no longer science fiction. Scientists are working on headsets with sensors that can read brain activity and recognize facial expressions, excitement, and more without needing any physical inputs from the wearer.
Only a complete extrovert would find this idea anything other than absolutely horrifying. (Granted, extrovert-chauvinism is endemic to this culture, so it's not surprising this would be seen by major decision-makers as a good thing.) I cannot imagine any future where I would trust any real-world government run by any of the kinds of people who've been running things until now with any knowledge of what's going on in my mind. The moment they think they know what's going on in our heads with any degree of reliability, people start getting preemptively locked up by "precrime" units for crimes the state thinks they were about to commit, either in a genuine (if misguided) effort to protect "the public", or as a pretext for locking up people who disagree with them .. most likely the latter, in my experience. (And I'm not even going to open up the can of worms of whether they really do know what people are thinking. Being convinced they know and being wrong is even worse than actually knowing.)
(4) The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected.
Probably. The continuing value of being "connected" just for its own sake remains to be seen.
(5) Junk mail will become priority mail. "In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem that spam is dead."
I'm almost as disturbed by this as by (3) above. There's a real danger in the cognitive merger of advertising and human interaction that, again, I'm not sure is getting nearly as much critical attention as it deserves because the type of people who promote advertising tend to be extreme extroverts who don't have much of a grasp of the self/other boundary. However, for those of us who value our own internal identities and prefer to draw a clear distinction between interacting with actual human beings on an individual level and the (increasingly intrusive) encroachment of advertising on those interactions, or for me at least if I'm the only one, spam will always be spam, because unsolicited messages designed to persuade the recipient to buy a certain product or have a certain positive emotional reaction to a certain brand will be intrusive whether they're personalized or not. And I for one don't want them personalized and indistinguishable from my interactions with family and friends. I want there to be a clear distinction between the two -- I want advertising to be honest about the fact that it's trying to sell me something.
One of my biggest concerns with blurring that particular boundary is that advertising sells candidates for public offi
The innovations all sound possible to one extent or another, but the "popular" part is another mater.
1. People power. Any time you harvest energy from a system, that energy has to come from somewhere. When you were growing up did you have one of those headlamps on your bicycle that used a generator on the rear tire? It caused a noticeable amount of drag. Given how sedentary the U.S. culture has become I can't see this becoming ubiquitous. It will be an expensive toy that a small fraction of people use. Even the use of water flowing through pipes would cause a slight increase in power draw in the water pumps (except for the case of gravity feed) so the energy is not free or even break-even.
2. Biometrics. Governments and large corporations want biometrics far more than individuals, especially individuals that understand the privacy implications. In the next 5 years there will remain so many glitches in the implementation that many people will swear off using the biometrics after the fifth time they are locked out of their own stuff (car/phone/computer/etc.) because of misbehaving biometric systems. I know a guy with a laptop with a thumbprint reader. He plays with it occasionally and it correctly reads and identifies his thumbprint less than 1 out of every 5 tries. Also, even if biometric access controls do get installed everywhere there will always be other ways to circumvent the systems.
3. Mind reading. Yes, there have been huge advances in this area, but the cost in the next 5 years will remain high enough that only governments will use it (or force its use) to any large scale. You won't be able to "think" at your computer and have it do what you want. Even if you could, I bet only a small fraction of people would be able to think coherently enough and suppress random thoughts (I'm hungry. What am I going to do for lunch?) so that they could get real work done. No, this technology will be used for security, similar to polygraphs but in a preemptive fashion.
4. Digital divide. Have you looked at your cell phone bill lately? The only way the "poorest of the poor" will get properly connected is if the government pays for their service. If the government gives you something, you can bet that soon after they will start controlling how it is used.
5. Junk mail. No mater how personalized unsolicited advertisements become they will still be junk mail. There are thousands and thousands of companies that would like to have me give them my money and I just don't buy things that often. Even if they tell me about a product that I want, if they tell me about it every week when I only buy it once every 6 months then it is all unwanted junk mail.
> Maybe in 15 - 20
Technology that is 20 years away will be 20 years away indefinitely.
It's be easier to predict the future, if you're the one making it happen.
I am John Hurt.
I was surprised that this crap talk about biometrics comes from IBM.
I mean, it's long known that biometrics-only security is a bad choice for single-factor security.
How do you revoke someone's biometrics login if it's stolen?
Besides, considering the cost, and that people have different levels of trust on different locations/websites, the "what you know" factor is actually the most reasonable approach for simple/general security.
People who truly have an accurate vision of the future don't make silly public predictions or videos about where they think technology will be in 5 years. They work in secret in labs at places like Google or Apple making said future actually happen so that in 5 years they can sell it to you.
So IBM is predicting a dystopian future?
access health care remotely - "Not even close" probably doesn't work:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/10/15/us-teleradiology-india-idUSTRE49E01920081015
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2011/11/10/cisco-systems-remote-healthcare-india.html
Real time speech translation - Again, we're getting there. Look at current translation software, speech to text, Siri, etc.
3D Internet - We're finally seeing consumer level 3D TVs. Will it take off? My guess is no, but who can say. I would submit that this is but one step toward the potential of a 3D internet, even if what you and I may envision as a "3D internet" isn't what we would come to see.
Technologies the size of a few atoms addressing areas of environmental importance - okay, you got me here...
Mobile phones reading our minds - we have applications on phones that are location aware, context aware, preference aware...while not actually reading my mind, that's certainly getting pretty close to appear to "read my mind".
There is no technological barrier to remote health care. There is a regulatory and legislative barrier; at least in the US. Look at the massive rules regarding patient privacy (including things like where computers are oriented in the *home* of a doctor doing remote assist) in the HIIPA bills. I routinely talk to my doctors via e-mail and my records are only on paper when they're writing notes in my folder. Everything's electronic and exchanged that way.
SIRI, Google Voice, Dragon Natural Speaking (I know of at least two NYT Best selling SciFi authors who use is extensively).
Again, the tech is there. Look at the vast number of people using MMOs for gaming and socialization. There's no valid reason to force a fully 3D interface onto things that are, in essence, purely text information.
Nanotech. Technologically valid, regulatory (EPA, etc..) nightmare. Give it 10 more years.
Behavior tracking and assist based on your normal usage. Again, possible, but not yet implemented. Don't know why but it's not something I'm too terribly interested in.
We will be able to access health care remotely, from just about anywhere in the world.
Not even close</i>
We can do it. It is just that health care organizations are so pressured to cut costs that they do won't implement unless the government is going to fund them or there is a direct effect to the bottom line. We have technologies and standards to do this ICD-10, SNOMED-CT, CDA/CCD, HL7. Already Radiology results are being shipped across the world to be analysed by radiologist during off hours. We even have vendors trying to push technology for virtual Dr. visits. But right now Insurance companies are not paying for them. We have the technology, the standards. We also have a bunch of political finger pointing at everyone blaming each other why heal care is so expensive.
<i>Real-time speech translation—once a vision only in science fiction—will become the norm.
Some advances have been made, but nope</i>
Some really good advancements. It isn't a Star Trek Universal translator but we are getting there. Once mobile processors get to the right speed it will be more useful.
<i>There will be a 3D Internet.
Nope</i>
What z-index css still doesn't work?
<i>Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance.
Wow, not even sure what the fuck that was SUPPOSED to be about. Nanotech maybe??</i>
Yea Nanotech why not.
<i>Our mobile phones will start to read our minds.
God help us.</i>
There are some kids toys that are doing this right now. I think the smart phone actually doing it is an issue of fashion then technical ability.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There is NO WAY that spam will ever be personalized enough to make it become priority mail
I think it could be. The baselines for creepiness in our interactions with machines is something that continually moves. I know a few older folks who find it creepy that their mobile phone knows when they've arrived at a certain location and can alert them to some reminder. Speaking to an 'assistant' program running on a phone is currently creepy (or just odd) to many people, but I bet in 5 years it will be absolutely normal behavior for 30 year olds.
The more comprehensive personal data collection becomes the better targeted spam will be, it is just a matter of applying some good predictive algorithms.
A friend texted me a bit ago about wanting to go to a certain taco shop for lunch. It may seem random, but I bet if looked hard enough at enough data his cravings for that taco shop are not random and could be modeled. So if he is sitting around one day around 10AM, which is when he normally thinks about where to go for lunch, and his phone showed him an ad for a different taco shop, that would be a nearly perfect time for that shop to advertise to him and he might actually appreciate the suggestion. That might seem creepy right now, maybe even in the next 5, but it isn't all that bug a step from saying "I want a taco" to your phone and getting the same recommendation.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Here's my take:
(1) People power will come to life.
Hmmm, most people who use a PC or tablet (unless they're playing a game) tend to sit quietly at location for hours on end. There's not a lot of opportunity to harness power. Now it might be possible for such harnessing to power cell phones and iPods, but unless cell phones use significantly less power, this is a no-go.
(2) You will never need a password again. Biometrics will.....
Yes, immediately after voice recognition and AI take over. Biometrics might take over for informal use, but it's too flawed (either too many false negatives or false positives) for widespread use. It's much more likely that a personal SKEY-type personal RFID might become available.
(3) Mind reading is no longer science fiction.
It's no longer science fiction today, but even if it is cheap enough, our minds are too scattered to have this as the primary mode of input.
(4) The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make....
May parts of the world live on less than one dollar a year, virtually no infrastructure, and have virtually no need for technology that doesn't directly contribute to the bottom line (i.e. surviving). The digital divide will be around for years to come.
(5) Junk mail will become priority mail.
This might be come true, but it would be priority mail for mail services who want to gain extra income, not users.
Okay, let's assume that all people play by the rules of using this smart feature (and that there's enough gold at the end of the rainbow to end world hunger).
Smart junk mail is the modern equivalent of Microsoft Clippy. Yes Clippy tried to be helpful, and often did provide users with valuable information, but it was still hated precisely because it was unsolicited.
This is not to say that junk mail can't be made valuable. If mail could be pulled into three bands by mail providers, "Regular Mail", "Smart Mail", and "Junk mail". It has to be something that depends on the mail providers, not solely the mail publishers since we can't trust them. For most people, smart mail would be ignored unless you were looking for a deal. You could then call on it as a supplementary knowledge base.
Spam is a free service. It is commercial entities (mostly) sending you unsolicited information.
The problem is that spam very, very rarely hits the mark.
But imagine if the things you wanted, information you would like actually *found you*.
- I'd love it if articles I wanted to read magically found me and brought themselves to my attention.
- I'd love it if books I actually wanted to buy found me.
- If movies I didn't know I would want to see found me.
- If products with a lower price actually found me.
The problem is, this rarely happens. So rarely that I can think of only 2 or 3 times it has occurred.
But if spam hit the mark with a decent "success rate", I would like spam.
Authenticating with biometrics is little better than using social security numbers. They are both unique identifiers, but neither are secrets, making them better suited to user id's. Passwords, on the other hand, are secrets.
-Turkey
In the future, replacing your car will only require chopping off someone else's finger!
I believe analyst said that we always massively overestimate impact of technology in the short run, and massively underestimate the long run. Technically if we were an open society we probably could have accomplished most of these goals. Well 3D internet is just silly, I can't understand the point of that one. Voice recognition, we've got like 5 competing groups that are 60% of the way there. If the teams google and the teams apple bought out, pooled their resources we'd probably have almost perfect voice recognition today. However the goal of technology is how to profit from it first, far more then it is about how to master it.
They are implying on the marketer half of the equation, analytics will advance to the point where you more accurately target your demographic. It will still be unsolicited, but at least volume would go down as the marketer does not waste resources sending mail to people who will never care This may have merit in post, but not email since the former does carry non-trivial cost but the latter doesn't matter. They also explicitly referenced spam filter quality going up on the recipient side.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You do know the difference between Apple and IBM, right? None of your idiotic rant has anything to do with IBM.
"Forever" meaning until the boyfriend hears those two magic words, I'm pregnant.
My prediction is somewhere shortly after five years from now, somewhere in America, a teenage girl will be hearing the phrase "I told you so" from her mother.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
IBM wants to use biometrics because then it's easier to profile and track someone w/o it being obvious. You're collecting their face, their fingerprints, their voice, so now you can sell that info to the people who will bay the biggest $$$ - the government. We're looking at "yes, we can track every phone call of every person of arab descent in real time" $$$.
Besides, one of the advantages of a password is you can give it to someone else.
there are just so many things wrong with that statement...
(4) The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected.
The poorest of the poor don't have enough food to eat, never mind portable phones and dataplans to allow them on the net.
The digital divide also isn't only about accessing the Internet. The limitations of a mobile with regard to screen size, input speed and capacities will keep it from being used in any serious way.
I'm guessing this is more of a list of what IBM hopes to promote the next year or two.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
What I like even less about biometrics replacing passwords is that the emphasis shifts from something you know (and, of course, can change or use selectively) to who you are. Because your biometrics identify you, you're traceable wherever you go, forever.
IBM’s track record of predictions over the past five years has been somewhat mixed
No it hasn't. It's been shit. These predictions are just self-serving wishful thinking on IBM's part. You can summarize them as follows "We think/hope/pray these things will happen because this is what we're currently focusing on as a company."
treat them as though they were general business predictions (e.g. smartphones get smart...not that they literally read our thoughts)
Making a prediction like "smartphones will get smarter" is absolutely worthless. It's like me saying "computers will get faster" or "game consoles will get more powerful." It's a no-shit-Sherlock "prediction" that doesn't help anyone.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
2) Biometrics is not authentication, it's identification. Any system pretending otherwise is ripe for abuse.
"Powers. I have them."
You assume biometrics are fingerprint/iris scanners and the likes. Why couldn't our "mind reading" computer friends tell who you are based on your thought pattern? How about coupled with the scent of pheromones you excrete? Volume of food you tend to have in your stomach? The style of tacky shirt you tend to wear? Obviously, none of these are a solution by themselves, but if you put enough of these patterns together, you should be able to tell who is who.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
A fellow psychic. All these years I thought I was alone.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That's ok. Nobody would've cared anyway.
That sort of behaviour would just p*ss me off. My phone is for *my* convenience - not some spammer. But just in case, I'm going to write (not email - snail mail still gets more respect) my representatives to demand that spam sms messages be specifically prohibited to numbers on the do not call list (they already are by my carriers' ToS for accessing their network, but might as well get those $15,000 fines going :-)
. . . IBM just has to make money off them for the next five years . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If it can be done, it will be done.
Considering how much information people are willing to give about themselves, that outcome is more than realistic.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
True enough, but after about 7 or 8 years hanging around here mostly lurking, it would have been nice
Watch those corners
IBM has a traffic system in Stockholm that is easing congestion.
Just yesterday (I think) there was an article on here about an IBM system for tracking food from source to consumer in China.
IBM's Jeopardy-winning Watson system is now doing medical records processing as mentioned in the last item.
Are all these things in widespread use? No, not yet. They still require money to implement. However, from a technology point of view, they are available.
So, when someone is fired, how do you access their systems if it's biometric-only?
So, when you bring in a machine to get repaired, how do they test it if it's biometric-only?
So, when you're going to be away for a week and you want someone you trust to check your email, how are they going to if it's biometric-only?
There was nothing wrong with my statement. There's something seriously wrong with you thinking that there are *no* reasons for using a shared password.
This is just nuts. You could just use any random "password" given to you by the government. This would be fine. But taking some biometrics of you without really comparing that this given biometrics matches YOU is the scary part. Lose the password and you will lose yourself.
The stronger "authentication tool" you use, the stronger physical verification you need.
No it hasn't. It's been shit. These predictions are just self-serving wishful thinking on IBM's part. You can summarize them as follows "We think/hope/pray these things will happen because this is what we're currently focusing on as a company."
Um ok..you're allowed to agree with the article but your level of vitriol is a bit silly. It's a puff piece and I would argue that for rolled up high level media predictions that is a mixed bag not "complete shit" which is also what the article claims. They've been partially correct on about half of the ones that have now expired (i.e. the 2006 ones). Given the high level nature of them that would be a mixed bag in my opinion given that they are predictions and not prophecy.
Also what predictions actually help people? What were you expecting the predictions to do? End hunger, fix injustice, provide world peace? Predictions by themselves (especially at this high of a level) are by definition pretty worthless. Why be such a jerk about it? It's a game. Chill out.
Yeah... you're pretty much an idiot.
Or there is only a need for 5 or 6 computers on the whole planet.
Let's see: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple. The sixth could be IBM, if they believed that prediction. Everyone else needs only thin clients such as phones, tablets or netbooks.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
My problem with the mind reading piece is if you can take thoughts out what prevents them from putting thoughts into your brain. What about the parts of the brain it reads that your don't know about. Something tells me mind reading technology is not a one way street. Plus you always have to put something in for something to come out. VERY SCARY the thought of controlling something via your brain.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
PATENTS.
unless you have suffered a brain injury where you cant remember things for more than a few minutes, you know that businesses a suing the hell out of anyone that threatens them or just wants a piece of the pie. if it disrupts anyone in business or is too successful, it's going to be swamped by legal trouble. got a great idea? "NO YOU DONT, I PATENTED IT, YOU THIEF!"
so my prediction is that the 1% will continue to war on the 99% and congressmen will continue their war on liberties. if we are lucky, our oppression will come with smaller tech that sucks less power.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You assume biometrics are fingerprint/iris scanners and the likes. Why couldn't our "mind reading" computer friends tell who you are based on your thought pattern? How about coupled with the scent of pheromones you excrete? Volume of food you tend to have in your stomach?
No. He didn't assume anything like that. This is really simple - all the computer really gets to work with is a digital representation of whatever data you're using. If you use something fixed to the person and not changeable then once someone is able to reproduce that digital information you're stuck with it - you have a permanent security breach instead of a fixable one. That's the same whether it's fingerprints or mind scans or anything else.You can cross your fingers and pray for some magical tamper proof system that can only react to a 'genuine' brainscan instead of a copy being fed into it but that's a different technology issue entirely from developing new biometrics. The problem is that using something that is fixed and non-changeable instead of a password/card etc that can be cancelled or suspended is really really stupid. It's a terrible idea.
I read, it's what i do, and i can tell you that IBM is the worst offender when it comes to unrealistic ideas.
hal is a single letter per letter shift to IBM.
from what i see scientists are portrayed as all being greedy and stupid, wanting bad technologies like fusion power, giant space labs etc. yes, fusion is a bad technology, it promotes the loss of one of the most life essential nutrients water. but religious zealots are no better. there is no god, never was, never will be. in my reading it became abundantly clear that people are post peak in their intellectual capabilities that there are people who will manipulate others with science and those that will manipulate people with religion, and that no matter how rarely a person might manipulate others they will eventually manipulate others. and politicians and corporations are where they are because of how good they are at manipulation.
And prediction number 6 is "pigs will fly!".
Gah. I knew I should have read through that more carefully. :-| My brain said one word, my fingers typed another.
And there's no real way to avoid that as long as the device is under someone else's control. At some point in the hardware, the unencrypted data must exist. It's basically the reverse of the DRM problem, and it is unsolvable for precisely the same reason. The only way to avoid the problem in the biometrics case is to deny the bad guy physical access to the hardware, as you said. In effect, this means that you would need to carry your own personal fingerprint scanner around in your pocket.
Short of that, biometrics cannot be made more secure than a (good) password, and in practice, biometrics tend to be much less secure because of how easy it is to obtain them surreptitiously (the old "dust the glass after you leave the restaurant" trick). And as soon as you guard that device as though losing it could mean someone draining your bank account, there's no longer any reason to require the biometric info; it is basically just as secure to authenticate based on whether you have possession of the device... and possibly more so.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
" The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected." The above should read... "They will try to make everyone believe they can't live without a mobile phone, taking as much money as possible from the poorest of the poor."
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Boy, slashdot never disappoints, does it? You can always count on some idiot making this incredibly insightful and informative post in every article about IBM.
Yes, we heard you the first time, now bugger off.
Back on-topic: Not only are fingerprints liftable, but (at least when I tried them out a couple years back) they didn't work for crap anyway. I would have screamed bloody murder if they'd been a requirement rather than an option. Checking Wikipedia, there are other methods like iris scans, as well as basically the equivalent of hashing the same password with different salts; anyone know how viable any of those things actually are lately?
As long as there is a monetary system, you can't have people power, nor biometrics for passwords. With a monetary system live the question arrises, what kind of government would want to listen in on the poorest of the people? No money system = no poor or rich or advertisements for that matter! I can't help but think IBM must assume the rest of us live in a world as dummies to buy that shit.
The immature mind measures.
btw, in "hashing the same password with different salts", "the same password" is precisely the problem on both sides of the analogy. How do you get the same unencrypted password/fingerprint to not pass through whatever the current hash/salt happens to be? If the salt is a PIN, then that's a whole additional factor.
IBM's only real, true, main prediction is that information itself and the analytics of it therein will be one of, if not the most important emerging industry in software/IT/CS world. And quite frankly, I'd say they're right. Attaining data on all people, analyzing it, and using that analysis to predict trends (or, for a more direct example, create perfectly oriented, placed and timed advertisements; a more "helpful" example is creating intelligent streetlight timing systems based off of daily, emergent traffic data) seems like a very smart place to hedge their bets.
Which is probably why they've been purchasing every analytical startup that looks promising over the past few years.
And really, many decades ago, they made a few key predictions that worked out quite dandy for them.
And some that did not so much.
Project a 3d imagine within a clear volume...
and yeah, the adults are completely nuts. Don't grow up, whatever you do.
Wonderous. Then I shall tip my hat into the ring, as these kinds of postings seem to require (post an article about the top 5 predictions by someone, and any number of people feel the urge to weigh in / post theirs).
We'll go with the 5 Virtues and the 5 Vices.
Let's start with the Vices, as they are almost guaranteed to be accurate.
1.) Government intrusion into your personal life / civil liberties through technology will continue to increase in frequency / magnitude. Various mentions in the press of 31337 h@x0r$ / foreign governments will fuel a demand for security. The average person will not understand nor care about the 'wars' springing up between those who built the internet, and those who wish to own / destroy / (laughably) safeguard it.
2.) The courts / policy makers will continue to be behind on both their understanding of technology, as well as their understanding of the effects of their rulings in this area. One or two judges may attempt to learn technology, but the rest will remain afraid / underestimate the importance of its effects on the populace. Several bills, and several precedents may make the government machinery appear even more out of touch with the populace than it already is.
3.) Advertisers will continue to promote more intrusive and convoluted schemes. Older forms of advertisement will appear to be less effective than these newer forms. (Just for fun) -> A careful examination of data will show an actual increase in the number of people buying things through the older text-based ads, as the hipsters, always wanting to be seen as non-conformists, will eschew the newer flash / HTML5 / video ads in favor of the older ones, stating that they sound better on vinyl.
4.) "Social" networking / Web 2.0 will continue to be promoted as the future by every person without an adequate business plan, as these people will believe that schmoozing (and charisma) is more important to success than the underlying technology and a solid understanding of the market they wish to operate in. "It's not what you know, but who you know" will hold sway here, as the product may or may not materialize, but the focus will be on making "friends."
5.) Older / mature technology companies will continue to stagger. This problem will mostly manifest itself in upper management / the boardroom, where, if many a corporation could speak, the question of "Where is my head?" would continuously be asked. Several attempts will be made to fix this problem, including company literature speaking of 'vision' and the appointment of a token tech, chosen by way of popularity, to provide a counter-weight to the several members from marketing.
Now for the Virtues, which are almost guaranteed to be wildly inaccurate.
1.) Those skilled in the art of Learning / Technology will finally find a common language / understanding, with the result of educational software that actually speeds up human learning at a rate of over 1000%. It will be possible for any human to assume any job, with less than two months of training. The result will be the appearance of second-graders with PhDs, which will temporarily increase unemployment.
2.) Physicists will improve their understanding of gravity, such that the movement of subatomic particles (gravity tweezers), or trips to faraway planets will become possible. They will find out that in the aftermath of their discoveries, they have more questions than answers, thus fueling the demand for another several generations of humanity to figure it all out.
3.) Artificial Intelligence will become a reality. A certain amount of unsteadiness will be felt for some time, as AI / human relationships take a meandering path towards an equilibrium. Old wounds, in the form of the institution of slavery, will reappear and questions of sentience will dog AI and human philosophers for generations. A common ground may be found when they both find problems that neither is particularly fond of.
4.) Fusion will finally become economically viable. A careful understanding of humanity's in
I am John Hurt.
errr. 3d image (not imagine)
The trick is that the industry likes one and views it as a form of prosperous godliness, and views the other as the unaffiliated malarkey perpetuated by third world scum.
When, in reality, they are the exact same thing.
I think it would not be so bad if not for the fact that everyone, everywhere is selling the exact same shit I don't want or need at the exact same price.
Advertising is needed because it isn't needed; if there was diversity, advertising would be needed to raise attention to products; since there is no diversity, you get these massive ad/spam engines being constructed because these companies have no real way to distinguish themselves.
Bingo!
It's another data stream to track for a given person. Another set of heuristic data.
A little bit of thought should clearly tell you just what is wrong by trusting biometrics for more than they are worth, which is far less than IBM and other sellers of technology would like you to think. The problems aren't in getting it to work. The problems are very much in what to do when, not if, something --invariably, this is biology and human nature putting spanners in the works-- will go wrong. Currently it's being treated as if it cannot fail --despite the numbers already available-- and so the problems will build momentum until we'll wake up one day and find we've shut ourselves out of our own systems. And that is "systems" in the broadest sense; from digital machinery to government apparatuses. Your passport is a good example of both.
Easily within the next decade, without some major, MAJOR backlash, almost all vendors will be doing some form of mass, directed spam. It'll be personalized far more than before, but will still be spam. Right now we just have the luxury of "unsubscribe" options. Which won't really matter when companies are targeting even those that don't sign up.
Asimov is way too better in predicting future
and we can always count on the slashdot idiots who like to gloss over atrocities aided and abetted by mega-corporations
Tone down the paranoia a bit. They are not talking about connecting electrodes to your head and literally 'reading your mind'. They are talking about analyzing the vast amount of information that people leak about themselves (and others). Take all your Facebook posts, your posts to any forums (such as Slashdot), your spending habits, etc and put them together and you can start to form a pretty good idea of how someone thinks.
And yes, you can use that to 'put things into your brain'. It is called targeted marketing.
I knew you were going to say that
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
1. No free lunch. You can't separate "wasted" energy from "efficient" energy. And you can't get something from nothing.
2. You'd need the hardware for that. I'd be happy if we were allowed unlimited pass phrases, instead of the eight characters (with numbers and symbols to make it strong(?)).
3. Lie detectors++, maybe. But am afraid of the serious misuse potential, especially since I would guess that there will be a certain element of error still. Can see lots of "terrorists" (ahem) getting put away if that went mainstream...
4. Already happening, if not already done deal. Electronics are cheaper than food.
5. Need a better ad block, which might well take the form of random noise generator. Which, IMO, would really be to the determent of the net. Signal to noise ratio is already pretty bad...
Check your premises.
There is NO WAY that spam will ever be personalized enough to make it become priority mail...
Sure it will. It just won't be your priority, but rather theirs.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
What if the biometric device was not simply measuring a static thing (retina, fingerprint, etc) but the result of some action? What if to log on to your phone, it put up a message and said 'Please speak your passphrase, which is: My name is Mike, the bicycle is green, good morning'? Or 'hold the phone to your ear, and think of this image', and then read your brainwaves?
Yes, I am sure there are lots of problems with implementing such a thing, so don't point them out. The point is that there are biometrically measurable things which can be changed as easily as a password. And really, are they any less secure for the average user than a password of 'password', 'letmein', or 'abc123'?
Passwords suck. For them to be good, they must be complex and not guessable. And for most people, complex and not guessable means not memorable either. There has to be a better solution than passwords.
If the computer is taking into account things like pheromones, brain structure, shoe size, teeth cleanliness, etc, then the entry level of someone trying to "hack" the system goes enormously high. If you are a valuable enough target to try and replicate all of such, you need a security team with guns looking at you physically and unlocking the system with synchronous key turns (see nuclear weapon launch).
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
1) People will be transformed into batteries (Matrix, anyone?)
2) Our access to anything will be controlled by those who own our biometric data
3) Not even our innermost mind will be granted a right to privacy
4) We'll be so poor that we will only be able to access the channels imposed to us
5) We will be forced to suffer all the crap they will send us (NB: personalized my ass)
Sounds paranoiac?
Weird... I still have fingerprints on my other hand.
I'd post the "your idea will fail because..." chart, but thats too much work.
You are approaching the problem from the wrong angle: don't make it illegal to sms spam numbers on the do not call list, make it illegal for the carrier to allow sms spam to numbers on the do not call list. The carrier can't move overseas like diameters can.
...make spam creepy^Wpersonalized...
Well played, that looked just like "Weaponized" when I read it quickly.
I appreciate all predictions but the last one about spam.
My spam may be IBM's value added advertisement or someone else's requirement. But for me it stays spam.
Thanks...
What good are biometrics
Theoretically they are unique, so they make a good uid/account name.
But they make lousy replacements for passwords - passwords' primary quality are their secrecy, and neither fingerprints nor retinas nor vocalisms are secret.
IBM is dead wrong on this one. At least for the sake of our security I hope they are.
$10,000 says they are wrong.
People power is hugely difficult and expensive to capture
Biometrics are a) not foolproof b) not secure c) not the answer
Mind reading for basic control works, nothing more ...
Digital divide will still exist, if your village has no electricity, then you won't have a phone ... ...they probably have the last one right Spam will be mostly (mis) directed Adverts ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
They have been a major player for 100 years. They stopped being a leader by the time personal computers come out.
Rethinking email
In five years, there will be no IBM.
phft
That's a scare tactic. Most systems don't work with dead flesh. You know those clip on pulse monitors? Same technology.
The real problem is how do I change my password when the system is compromised?
I find being offended by me offensive.
That took me a second :)
-Turkey
Wait, does that mean I'll get more or less of the penis enlargement emails?
Well, for the sake of IBM, I hope they are not really focusing the company on them:
(1) "People power" may be usefull, but nobody wants to plug cables on theit shoes. If Steve Jobs were still here he could help making it fashionable, but he isn't, and it is not IBM that will do that.
(2) Biometrics won't be widely used. They are worthless unless you have security personel to check the sensor. The new meaning of "hack" will be to collect trash around and impersonate the owners...
(3) Mind reading is waaay of. We will probably get better at it, but won't probably see any use outside of medicine in 5 years.
(4) "The digital divide will cease to exist". The poor may get connected (seems likely), but there will still be a digital divide. It they are betting they'll be able to sell for the poor, they are probably right.
(5) People liking spam? That requires companies to stop advertizing for people that don't want their products in the hope of finding a false negative. No chance.
Rethinking email
I feel like biometrics are the video phones of our generation. Constant predictions that never come true. They've been predicting video phones for the better part of a century and they've only reached the novelty stage.
They're no where near 5 years off for a couple of reasons.
First off is the psychological factor. There are a couple of facets to this one. People are squeamish about biometrics. There are a ton of scare stories about, "What if someone chops my finger off to steal my car?" This won't work but people think it will. More importantly all it takes is for one person to try it. Once the story hits the media biometrics are set back a decade.
The next facet would be trust. People don't trust others with their finger prints. Yes yes it's actually something derived from their finger print not their actual finger print. We understand that but educating enough people for acceptance will be hard.
The other major problem is the failure state. All systems are eventually compromised. How do I change my password once the system is compromised? once someone creates a lens/glove that fools the reader what is the next step? How do you put that cat back in the bag?
I find being offended by me offensive.
For spam to be usefull, not only the targeting must become good, but companies must refrain from sending messages to people that are not their target audience.
The targeting part we can solve with technology. The refrainning part, I wouldn't bet on being solved.
Rethinking email
I think you dislike, and disuse, imagination.
I think you are not a positive person.
These are my observations in the present and of your past comments.
I also think you are pretty accurate.
I wish someone like you could be positive and use imagination - but perhaps being correct requires the absense of these
You insert the serial data into the outgoing sensor cable, like everybody else.
Some snake-oil salesmen like to pretend that biometric info can't be falsified. They are liars.
Rethinking email
I predict you will still be adding such lame comments.
Mine are
1) If you don't use social networking you will be regarded as a pervert.
2) If you still refuse to stop sending emails you will be hailed off to jail for wasting electrons
3) Hollywood will still be trying to sue everyone and his dog for even daring to watch anything the produce.
4) so many people have fallen foul of SOPA that more than one million extra people are in jail
5) Microsoft files for Chapter 11 after disasterous sales of Windows 8, 9 & 10.
there will be some "disaster" (flood, fire, war, etc) in a far (or not-so-far) away place that will have an immediate and/or long term adverse effect on the price of something (or many somethings).
(1) Advances in technology will allow us to trap the kinetic energy generated from walking, jogging, bicycling (making us tired more often) and even from water flowing through pipes (making water pressure seem low).
(2) Biometrics will finally replace the password and thus redefine the word 'hack' into 'hack your hand off.'
(3) Invasion of privacy isn't just external any more.
(4) The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected as long as the poorest of poor have an extra $100/month to pay the phone bill.
(5) Junk mail will become priority mail. "In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem that spam is more intrusive than ever; and now it can read your mind!
Do you want to be the guy trying to explain that to someone who is stupid enough to steal cars and dickish enough to chop off bodyparts? In movies that stuff always works, so why should they believe any different?
which is totally what she said
I've been working around advanced security technologies for the last 15 years, and this is what I always tell people about biometrics: Biometrics have two major use cases. In those contexts they are valuable. Outside of them, not so much.
First, they're great as highly-convenient low-security access controls for stuff that doesn't matter very much. Fingerprint scanner to get into the gym? Great! Face scan to unlock your phone? Great, because the phone's camera is pretty much always going to be pointed at your face when you need to dial a number anyway, so the convenience factor is awesome -- but only as long as it only unlocks relatively unimportant stuff. The really important data on your phone should be protected with a good password.
Second they're great in very high-security contexts where lots of money is spent to make the acquisition and verification secure. Biometrics, done properly, are highly unique and so a good authenticator of the individual as long as they're not spoofed, or replayed. So they can be relied upon in contexts where replay is impossible (because the scanning devices, template storage, comparison engine and paths between them are all well-secured) and where spoofing is impossible (because someone is actively watching you to verify you're not doing anything to fake out the scanners).
So biometrics are good at securing stuff that doesn't matter much at all, and stuff that matters so much that significant investment can be applied to make them actually secure. In between? Nope.
Oh, and most of the 15 years I worked around this stuff was while I was employed by IBM. I gave this mini-lecture to countless IBM execs. I'm not at all surprised to see how little good it did.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If the computer is taking into account things like pheromones, brain structure, shoe size, teeth cleanliness, etc, then the entry level of someone trying to "hack" the system goes enormously high
Why? There are two possibilities here - either the actual authentication is done locally by your computer or by some gizmo you have access to and then your computer or gizmo sends a "yep, it's really him" code, in which case it's actually the presence of your computer or gizmo that's being checked for and that's the item that needs to be 'hacked', or else you're actually sending the relevant data around all over the place. This is replacing passwords, completely, no more passwords is the claim. So everyone has the data. Your employer has it. Your next employer will have it. Your bank has it. Your ISP has it. Slashdot has it. Because you're authenticating with all of them. Nobody has to do some amazing 'hack' - youre giving this data out like candy. And if the means to detect all this stuff, phermomones and what have you, is so damn expensive or hard to get hold of then how come you have all the equipment sat in your home? You have to have the means to gather all this data because you're using it in place of all your passwords so how come you claim that it's so amazingly hard for anyone to capture the exact same info? You sit down at your computer, do some trivial task and all your phereomone, brain structre, shoe size, etc data whizzes off for authentication but somehow it's amazingly hard for anyone else to capure that exact same data? Or are you going for a really limited range of users, like you have to be sat in your workplace where they have all this ultra expensive equipment, but then you can't connect from any offsite location?
You know that happen allegedly happened almost 80 years ago, right? And that no person who was involved is still alive?
Do you also feel it necessary to mention in every article about a person who happens to be Italian that the Italians, via Columbus, were responsible for infecting native Americans with smallpox? Do you mention in every article that mentions a person who happens to be white that the whites used to own slaves? Of course, the entire current population of Germany is responsible for the holocaust.
Jackasses like you are why places like the middle east are so screwed up. Yes, bad stuff happened in the past. It sucks. The people currently alive did not do it, and can not change the past. Constant reminders of long-ago bad deeds do nothing but engender fear and hatred, and make the one doing the reminding look like he has serious problems.
Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected.
Data plans currently cost several times more than home internet (at lest in the US), so unless things drastically fast the poorest of poor have no business splurging on smart phones. Technically yes, business wise no.
The reason I don't want biometrics is what happens when crackers get a hold of your biometric signature? You're boned. It's not like you can change your retina pattern or fingerprints. I agree that biometrics can uniquely identify you but but one 'they' compromise the hashes it's all over. And 'they' will, eventually.
We will be able to access health care remotely, from just about anywhere in the world.
Not even close
Well, the technology is there: a doctor/surgeon can access your medical records and give you treatment remotely. The main obstacle is actually getting the doctors to update your records.
Real-time speech translation—once a vision only in science fiction—will become the norm.
Some advances have been made, but nope
Agreed
There will be a 3D Internet.
Nope
They were a year or two off the mark, but you are right.
Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance.
Wow, not even sure what the fuck that was SUPPOSED to be about. Nanotech maybe??
Heh, I wonder if I'd ever see nanotechnology outside a lab, research papers, or /.
Our mobile phones will start to read our minds.
God help us.
Lol'd. Too broad to be of use. I guess it could refer to efforts like Google prioritizing your e-mail for you and stuff.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
It's not a technology limitation but it will prevent adoption.
It will happen. Then it will set biometrics back a decade when the media picks it up.
I find being offended by me offensive.
If you look at the instructions on how to record a new "voice" for speech synthesis software like Festival, one of the warnings is actually that it may render voice-based biometric security insecure for the person whose voice is being sampled. IIRC there's currently research on synthesizing voices from segments of natural speech. I can't imagine voice working out any better than any other form of biometrics.
of the OFF-switch.
bjd
IBM scientists and execs will be the ones who make some of these predictions come true, even if it takes more than five years. As a world class R&D organization, they need to perform these kinds of exercises to decide where they should be spending their billions of dollars of investments to get the most bang for the buck. This is not just a marketing or PR stunt. It's an effort to set a vision to drive spending within the company.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I am guessing that is more of an IBM wish list than a set of predictions.
I guess that is why, when writing that after 3 minutes of thought, I said I am sure there are problems with it. However, just because you (and all the other 'can't be done crowd) can't imagine it working does not mean there are not some very smart people working on the problem who WILL figure something out. Of course, when they do figure it out and try to patent it, then the 'can't be done' crowd will be screaming about how it is so OBVIOUS and should not be patentable.
last time I checked even a phone, tablet or netbook IS A COMPUTER.
One person's imagination is another person's schizophrenia.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Really that sums it up, IBM make predictions based on stuff they specifically are working on, hoping it will create a little buzz even when there predictions are stupid and sitting at about a million to 1 chance of being globally adopted. I don't think any of there predictions have come particularly true, that includes there traffic system, which many other companies have had and developed over the last few decades too, they are still not in widespread use and even where they are like the proverbial finger in the dike.
Yeah. It seems like a drawback of biometrics is that you can't change them. If someone gets your password, it's easy to change it to a new one. However, finger prints, iris patterns, facial patterns, or whatever, are not very private. So, what happens when someone gets your biometric data? Maybe there's a simple answer to this that I'm unaware of.
But in the same terms, if in 5 years they can grow a finger on you, replacing both will just require an insurance claim.
The down side is that your insurance will go to the roof if you place insurance claims for both.
What z-index css still doesn't work?
Are you serious? That's not what is meant by 3D internet. At all.
Yea Nanotech why not.
And how is this nanotech addressing environmental concerns today?
There are some kids toys that are doing this right now. I think the smart phone actually doing it is an issue of fashion then technical ability.
In a very liberal sense of the word. Not mind-reading according to how most people understand it.
There was nothing wrong with my statement. There's something seriously wrong with you thinking that there are *no* reasons for using a shared password.
i thought with all the phishing schemes going around we were trying to pound it into the users heads that they should NEVER give out their password. you have yet to state any valid reasons why someone would need your password.
So, when someone is fired, how do you access their systems if it's biometric-only?
So, when you bring in a machine to get repaired, how do they test it if it's biometric-only?
you have someone with administrative access to their system do it. no reason you should be giving out your password.
So, when you're going to be away for a week and you want someone you trust to check your email, how are they going to if it's biometric-only?
many email systems such as exchange allow you to either setup delegates which have permissions to read your email. simpler systems typically still allow you to setup forwarding rules to automatically forward your email somewhere else. still no reason to give out your password.
So is a lady doing calculations with pen and paper. Somehow I don't think whoever made that prediction had those in mind.
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The problem is that any solution to such a problem invariably results in an arms race between the people designing the security system and the people trying to fool it. That means that everyone who buys into any biometrics-based security system is going to have to keep buying into it over and over and over in order to stay ahead of the spoofers. Worse, every single user is going to have to keep upgrading his or her biometric profile every time the company upgrades their hardware.
Even in the short term, that's expensive. As a long-term solution, using voice recognition (or any biometric system) for real security is utterly untenable and always will be. If you want a great demonstration of what will happen, just take a look at how long each generation of captcha system has lasted before somebody came up with an algorithm that could defeat it. Or take a look at how long each iOS version has lasted before a new jailbreak came out. Now imagine the same basic set of problems, only with multi-billion-dollar stakes instead of just a few assholes spamming bulletin boards or running pirated iPhone games.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
So, when someone is fired, how do you access their systems if it's biometric-only?
Administrators assign it to an appropriate user? I don't know how you do it, but around here we don't keep the old accounts and give out their passwords so that people can keep pretending to be someone else, we give the data to a person who has a valid account and then delete the former user.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Who told you to say that?!?!!!?!?!?!?!???!!?
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
4. wireless providers are not about to let their cash cow out of their control... the only way that mobile internet providers would somehow span into everyone life, would be for them to be bought by the government and socialized... That'll happen, right about — NEVER!
5. solicitation will continue to be unwelcome, no matter how well you target the audience... in fact, in the case of my kids... you will likely do worse by targeting them more specifically. Stick to fear and tribalism... works great for selling crap. And BTW: Short attention span = easily dismissed information... so, advertising is responsible for its own demise
also...
1.. this will take about 15y to be seen en masse. ("people power")
2.. no, and no... hacking will not be thwarted by biometrics. biometrics will not replace passwords.
3.. we're talking about very coarse measurements compared to the complexity of thought. The idea of 'mind reading' being a useful/common application in the next 5 years is laughable. the 'view' is roughly like standing on the tip of everest, and explaining the activities at sea level, now. in 5 years, we might be standing on the Burj Khalifa.
(And it did feel pretty creepy, but only because they were offering me money off if I bought Strike Witches and Dance in the Vampire Bund together)
I am trolling
And with these two magic words, another American girl's life takes a fork in the road towards being a guest on the Jerry Springer show and living in a trailer with an abusive drug-addicted boyfriend, rather than a productive member of society, and raising yet another generation of unproductive dysfunctional citizens, and the nation takes yet another step at economic collapse and utter ruin.
I am sorry I just can't get Jim Carey and Batman Forever out of my mind. JK
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
robbers and victims agree. it is better to carry around a 'token' than a bloody finger.
1. We're hooked on fossil fuels, we're producing nuclear waste, but hey, at least now while we jog we can listen to a mp3 player which we never have to recharge because that's *such* a hassle in the big scheme of things. The only bit that isn't fucking daft about this is that it's basically stating that people are now equal to water in pipelines: we're approaching something resembling honesty it seems.
2. Oh noes, passwords, what a horrible nuisance! I'd rather be cattle than to have to remember passwords.
3. Good. Use it on politicians. Use it on those who use the technology to more comfortably murder millions of people, IBM. But that would be scary, wouldn't it -- you turds.
4. Connected to what? To facebook and google and doubleplusblackbox? There may be more people on the web, but they are less web literate -- the "big players" couldn't care less, and more gizmos will not help with that either. I'm not saying cheap access isn't great, because at least it's *possible* for people to educate themselves. But educate themselves, they still have to do that, because the "digital divide", the one that actually means shit, consists of wizard screens and the ones who code them. Or in other words, tech monkeys on leashes funneling zombies into shopping carts of advertisers. That is the spineless, worthless new world we're on the verge of.
5. Go fuck yourself. Or actually, go find a wall and put yourself up against it.
And also what would you do if you have a cold and your voice is changed? No phone until you are cured?
I think this is a pretty important point. As soon as someone gets a copy of your fingerprint (either a fake finger with a matching print, or much easier, if dealing with remote systems, a way of "injecting" a copy of the data stream for your fingerprint as if you had used the fingerprint scanner on your PC), then you're screwed. At some point, the biometric data is converted to binary data, and it's trivial to copy it.
Yes, but you'll be watching it in 3D on the latest real-life show on MTV (which by then will have so little music, even the intro tunes to their shows will have gone).
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Also, their trailers will be hovering.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
And the main cause is Apple, Amazon and like content stores... Either you are on the richer side and you can use iPhone and iPad with myriads of their applications...... or you are on the poorer side and you use strange Chinese Android clone on which few application works... Either you are on the richer side and you got Kindle and instantly download any book you need... or you are using strange clone where you need to hunt for content on torrents and have trouble with getting it to work on your device
But...but...security through obscurity isn't security at all!
your iris patterns can be observed anywhere you look.
Yeah. And these days lots of people have a decent amount of publicly visible photos of themselves on Facebook, with their eyes looking right at the camera...
I am not really here right now.
So just chop off someone else's finger and use that for your car door lock. See? - the basic idea is fine.
... IIRC there's currently research on synthesizing voices from segments of natural speech. I can't imagine voice working out any better than any other form of biometrics.
See Roger Ebert for an example of such. Following his mouth/throat surgery They took voice samples from old "At The Movies" shows and created a voice synthesizer that allows him to speak in his normal voice. Maybe they only did this at the word level and not the phonics level, but it's advancement in that direction none the less.
Thus, in the future, giving somebody the finger will be a good thing!
So is a lady doing calculations with pen and paper. Somehow I don't think whoever made that prediction had those in mind.
I believe those are called "calculators"!.
Posting as AC due to mod points.
Digital divide will still exist, if your village has no electricity, then you won't have a phone .
There are plenty of villages in Africa and India without power that have mobile phones.
Phone owners take their phone to the local entrepreneur who charges it from their generator or solar panels, or from large storage batteries that they have charged in another village.
In some other schemes, there is a central solar powered "public phone box" or callers rent a cell phone for the duration of one call.
Your thinking is short sighted and ignorant. Debit transactions take place everyday, without the ability to record your "pin". You wrongly assert that authentication means telling the system, "hey, yeah, I'm me", but it only works that way on some high schoolers ASP project, not in real life. I could go on, but I really don't need to.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
If your talking about a company issued laptop it will accept more than one user logging in even if it is biometric and each user will have different permissions if your talking about your personal laptop you should have already created an elevated account that you don't use normally and a more restricted account that you use daily. As for email I would set an out of office reply and ask if someone had an emergency that they forward the issue to a trusted college that would be filling in for me while I'm on vacation deep in the jungle since that is about the only place on the planet I can't check my email.
You want to log on to this IBM critical webpage? Ok then. Put your fingerprint here, your picture here and you will soon be contacted. Please remain where you are. (remember, if you move we still know where you are...) . Best regards & have a wonderful day.
In five years:
- you'll be fatter than you think
- you're no longer as funny as you think
- You'll have forgotten about this post, and prefer not to be reminded of it.
you'll note that IBM is still around
And how is the guy at the repair shop going to fix it without an administrative password? Duh! Oh - right - just leave it blank!
Didn't exactly work out well for Terry Childs, did it? When you're the person assigning accounts, and your access is cut off, then NOBODY gets in.
Ok, there are vein and iris readers on eBay. What then?
All I know about my imported fruit is the "grown in Chile" sticker
At last something that was not made in China, if you indeed intended to write "Chile" and not misspelled it.
Ok, i guess i was thinking mostly of how it would work in a IT shop in a business. the person fixing your computer would likely already have administrative access to your machine.
if you are talking about home users, i would imagine the tech boots it into safe mode and then has the user scan in to authorize the tech's biometrics. if the computer is too hosed to do that, then it should also be possible to develop a secure method of using your own biometrics to to authorize someone else and store this on a usb thumbdrive, it would work sort of like setting up an ssh key.
i would never trust anyone else to fix my computer anyway.
no they just are not a player in the consumer computer or mobile market they are still big in other markets, they for example make all of the processors for all three major gaming consoles, they also build servers, workstation, mainframes which while they are not the growth market they are still selling.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
no, they were called computers because some times their calculations involved some form of propositional logic. It's written somewhere on the Internet.
-- no sig today
Only if you can keep it afterwards
-- no sig today
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer
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Bruce Schneier said it better than I can.
Authenticating with biometrics is little better than using social security numbers. They are both unique identifiers, but neither are secrets, making them better suited to user id's. Passwords, on the other hand, are secrets.
Quite true, but I can see biometrics becoming user-names rather then passwords. But I cant see that happening in the near future, definitely not in 5 years, hell we've had fingerprint scanners in laptops for most of the last 5, most people still type in their name and passwd.
The one bit of ID theft that scares me the most is the only bit of ID I have biometric data on... My passport. An Aussie passport is something quite sought after these days yet its only defences are a picture of me, a biometric chip (which an over-zealous Filipino immi officer put a stamp right on, on the page that says clearly "do not stamp this page") so I now have a valid Aussie passport with no biometric chip.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It's worse than that:
You can't change them. They're not secret. Anyone can copy them. But at the same time it's not convenient to share them when you do want to share them. (people let other people borrow their keys and/or know their passwords all the time, for all sorts of reasons)
The point of (1) isn't to plug a cable into your shoe to harvest power. The point is to let low-power-devices run for longer, perhaps indefinitely without needing recharging. A mobile phone or music-player or whatever that can run forever without needing to be charged by collecting energy from for example the shaking it gets as you move, would be a hit.
I already have 2 square-inches of solarcells on my backpack, which provides enough of a charge to let me use my GPS indefinitely while in the bush in summer without needing to replace batteries. (I don't keep it on all the time, I just turn it on for a few minutes now and then as needed)
As for the digital divide, it depends on which poor you're talking of. Most people in the bottom-quarter of Norways or USAs population, will be able to afford some kind of internet-connection, but the same will not be true for the poor in a global perspective. There's millions of people who live on less than a dollar a day, facing hunger and lacking even the most basic stuff, it's not plausible that all of these will have internet-connectivity. (and even if they somehow did, there'd still be a divide between "I used the internet-cafe for an hour last monday, it's got 8 machines and a ISDN-line" and "I've got a dozen internet-connected machines in my home, we're hooked up by 1Gbps fibre-optical link."
I'm not going to be the first to explain to a criminal that chopping off my body parts won't work. Admittedly here in the UK that's not very likely compared to some countries.
Of course after a few big news stories about it, it will become fairly common knowledge that you need living body parts for it to work. I guess then we'll see a small boost in kidnapping as well as grand theft auto.
which is totally what she said
Not only that, but using biometrics kind of implies, "One Password to Rule Them All." There's only one you.
I admit I re-use passwords here and there, but I have tiers of passwords, depending on the security required.
I don't even use the same web browser for surfing and online banking. Will I have to use the same fingerprint/retina/voice for all my accounts?
I'm not sure how Childs factors into this. For one thing, there weren't any biometrics involved. For another, he was the exiting employee, so the proper procedure would have been to have another qualified administrator able to take over and assign Terry's data to a new account. Finally, he was a big news item precisely because of the kind of train wreck that was caused -- standard procedure for most companies around the world doesn't go anything like that.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
So, how do you propose keeping your personal stuff secure when you have a single biometric password that opens up everything, not just your work stuff.
Only idiots use biometrics, in part because they fail so often. We had one, it could never read my fingerprint from one day to the next, and I'd always have to over-ride it after a half-dozen attempts. Eventually someone punched it out - literally. Me, I was just going to hack into the network connection and bypass it completely to feed the data into the computer, but in the end their solution was simpler, and undoubtedly much more satisfying.
BTW - the FBI has refused FIO requests for all cases where more than one person is matched to a fingerprint - fingerprint data is NOT as unique as you think.
...so they have power - I did not say mains cabled to the house, just power
there are plenty of villages with no access to power (outside Africa too...)
Communication and especially the internet is the least of most very poor peoples worries ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
1) People power might provide enough energy to allow us to be rid of batteries for portable devices... if device makers ever decide to take it down on packing more power into them.
2)Hacking a biometric identification system will still involve typing and exploiting unforeseen user and system behaviors.
3) Mind reading will still require the physical input of your skull contacting the mind reading device... for now....
4) We will see the evolution and entrenchment of a digital ghetto just as the digital divide begins to close. We'll replace physical moats with psychological ones even in the digital realm.
5) Junk mail is junk mail. You can't personalize something I don't want and direct advertising will remain an annoyance.
I was yeah, right, sure, all the way through but when reading number five I burst out laughing. It kind of fits all the others together.
I'm sorry but they can keep their spyware. I'll stick with scriptless browsing.
There's nothing wrong if some will believe in this, anyway, I myself is excited to see all of this predictions happen for real! Ever since, IBM always provide us great stuffs and this year's installment of “Five in Five,” the series of five predictions made by IBM for tech trends in the next 5 years, has just come out. Mind-reading computer systems and smarter spam emails are among this year's crop of prognostications. I am excited for this and I want to experience the things I usually see in movies. Article resource: Mind reading computers among IBM Five in Five predictions