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2012 and the Technology Blahs
Velcroman1 writes "Generally, at the end of the year, predictions stream forth as to how this or that new technology will transform the world in the next 12 months. Just before Christmas, IBM announced computerized mind reading was just around the corner — sometime after 2017, that is. But on the whole, experts and analysts don't see a whole lot of innovation coming out of the U.S. anytime soon. Instead, they see sluggishness. 'We'll have to wait for consumer spending to go up before the 'flying surfboard' arrives,' said Chris Stephenson, co-founder of Seattle consulting firm ARRYVE. 'Bigger innovation labs and companies are holding back on numerous innovations until they can properly monetize them.'"
Apart from making the whole web more interconnected between different websites, web browsers starting to look and behave more like iPad, complete with push notifications and geolocation, and HTML5 ads replacing majority of flash based ads, the article also predicts that browser makers will start to introduce App Stores within their browsers. In fact, Chrome already has one.Facebook will also get a lot more seamlessly integrated with your desktop, including file system access, photo syncing and widgets on your screen. There will also be an increasing amount of HTML5 based social games and online cloud based apps that replace every functionality you needed desktop apps for. All of these changes and features will start to blur the line between desktop and browser and will also bring your social graph more closely into contact with your traditional desktop experience.
From the Apple TV due out next year.
Good use of my time machine.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Invent a flying surfboard.
The depressing part is that this is not only true but the status quo.
With our headstrong exponential growth of scientific/technological progress, I guess *not* revolutionizing the world within 12 months is sluggish. But we have nothing to be ashamed of, our .6 GTPY (Global Transformations per Year) is perfectly good. :P
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
What if consumer spending never goes back up, adjusted for inflation? .edu, medical, car/transportation, energy, food, and housing costs have recently been exploding.
I know that adjusted for inflation the median has had less income every year for something like 40 years.
Also
Then add in "new" expenses. Very few people were spending $150/month on smartphone bills more than a couple years ago.
Leaving less money for consumer spending every year.
so... those companies who wait, might be waiting a very long time indeed, like until they go out of business.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Never mind the mind reading. When the mind writing starts being used more (at the moment I can't remember when that will be) by forces up to no good, those aspiring for truth and justice will often find themselves in interesting and infuriating trouble.
(Or did I dream it?)
What happens when consumer spending DOESN'T rebound?
"Consumer spending has to go up so that we can stop selling you the same old stuff." You have got to be kidding.
I am really starting to hate the word 'monetize'. Let every utterance of it be a reminder why government funded scientific research is important. I know this article is referring to more consumer oriented things, but much of our current technological wonder (internet, rocketry, about a million other things) is a long byproduct of government research. Now before I get called a pink-commie-bastard and the like, let me just say I am all for capitalism and its benefits. However, the frequency of this concept of 'monetization' as a stimulus for development seems almost foolhardy. Call me an idealist, but I like the idea of scientific and technological advancement for the principal of advancement, not just for the sake of making more money. Again, idealist viewpoint. I know.
And yes I know that a demand for XYZ creates incentives for business to develop/produce/be competitive. But the trend is going towards areas of research that have a high-risk / low-reward ration being foregone if everything is free-market, and technologies that can't possibly be implemented without 20+ years of research will rarely have private/corporate money sunk into them, even though in the long term they could have a dramatic positive impact on the quality of life for the human population.
Or is it all about the money these days? Any hard-liner Adam Smith's here? Money solves all woes, right? Right?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
People that try to innovate get sued, or stopped by widely broad patents/copyrights, promising new technologies never see the light (remember sixthsense?) because "something" gets in the middle.
A few recent examples just in the Android field were that android device makers have to pay Microsoft because using/suporting the fat filesystem, Oracle suing Google for using Java, Samsung get their tablets out of the market because their dimensions looks a bit like the ipad ones. Not saying that it was the example of innovation and new ideas in computing, but the kind of unbreakable barriers our current civilization built to stop any try to build a future.
The risk of being sued for patent infringement is sufficiently high to prevent me from bothering. I wonder how unique I am in this regard.
Religion can bring out the extremes in people; from the incredibly generous and compassionate - to suicide bombers and people starting unnecessary wars. I don't know weather this is good or bad.
What does the weather have to do with this? I'm not sure whether or not I get the connection.
'Bigger innovation labs and companies are holding back on numerous innovations until they can properly monetize them.'
And citizens are holding on to their money until they see something worth buying. Innovate, dammit!
I don't think enough variants of the same system have been regurgitated since they broke from the G1. Who wanted a cross-carrier device when we can enjoy buying another over-priced, locked device? Consider and enjoy the long, fruitful relationship we get when we're locked in to a 2 year bonded friendship with yours and my newest BFF.....
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
I imagine even the non-radicals adhere to it. You don't have to be extreme to love your religion and want it to be respected.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
Who wants to develop cool stuff when the world is about to end?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
'Bigger innovation labs and companies are holding back on numerous innovations until they can properly monetize them.'
lol conspiracy. There is no innovation because military and entertainment, the only two areas where any innovation was done recently in US (and mostly in the world) are already completely saturated with awful ideas being implemented at ridiculously high cost.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Despite what consumer spending numbers might tell you, it is also quite obvious that huge numbers of US consumers are willing and apparently have the means to spend many $1000's/yr on iPhones, iPads, pricey wireless contracts, expensive cable TV services and many other "luxury" items. All that stuff adds up quickly to many $1000's/yr... so there *is* plenty of spending and disposable income around...
Consumer spending will recover, but it will not make up as large a share of the US economy as it once did. That ship has sailed. Best not lie about waiting for it to return to port.
Not sure about you, but while gathering my shopping for the Holiday season I saw or rather heard "Christ" everywhere.
There was a time when that were true, but with stores pushing gifts rather than the reason, whether you believe or not (which I do not, it's a pagan holiday after all). What I do believe is the message. It shouldn't be limited to one day/week/month a year either.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I'm not surprised that someone would have this view of Adam Smith, and it made me think of this article http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare02.htm
Here's one relevant part of it, but I can recommend reading the entire thing.
The version of him that's given today is just ridiculous. But I didn't have to any research to find this out. All you have to do is read. If you're literate, you'll find it out. I did do a little research in the way it's treated, and that's interesting. For example, the University of Chicago, the great bastion of free market economics, etc., etc., published a bicentennial edition of the hero, a scholarly edition with all the footnotes and the introduction by a Nobel Prize winner, George Stigler, a huge index, a real scholarly edition. That's the one I used. It's the best edition. The scholarly framework was very interesting, including Stigler's introduction. It's likely he never opened The Wealth of Nations. Just about everything he said about the book was completely false. I went through a bunch of examples in writing about it, in Year 501 and elsewhere.
But even more interesting in some ways was the index. Adam Smith is very well known for his advocacy of division of labor. Take a look at "division of labor" in the index and there are lots and lots of things listed. But there's one missing, namely his denunciation of division of labor, the one I just cited. That's somehow missing from the index. It goes on like this. I wouldn't call this research because it's ten minutes' work, but if you look at the scholarship, then it's interesting.
I want to be clear about this. There is good Smith scholarship. If you look at the serious Smith scholarship, nothing I'm saying is any surprise to anyone. How could it be? You open the book and you read it and it's staring you right in the face. On the other hand if you look at the myth of Adam Smith, which is the only one we get, the discrepancy between that and the reality is enormous.
This is true of classical liberalism in general. The founders of classical liberalism, people like Adam Smith and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who is one of the great exponents of classical liberalism, and who inspired John Stuart Mill -- they were what we would call libertarian socialists, at least that ïs the way I read them.
Because we all know that innovation stems primarily from the "bigger innovation labs", right?
Innovation comes from grass-roots endeavors, and always has. The paradigm is for an individual (or small group of individuals) to start a small business, build it up big, and take market share away from the big companies.
Big companies become clogged by process and moribund. They become "risk averse", preferring to sit on their laurels and collect rent from existing product.
The problem is that the paradigm no longer applies. We've successfully locked out any hope of innovation by the "little guy".
Try to compete against GE, that pays no taxes. Try to invent something that's not covered by an ambiguous patent that *might* or might not refer to your product. Calculate the out-of-pocket expenses for suing someone (or being sued), then the appeal, then the appeal to the supreme court. See if you can predict whether a government agency will shut you down.
We've made it nigh impossible for the small business to succeed nowadays. The only businesses we allow are copies of existing ones - pizza parlors, hair salons, upscale gift boutiques, and so on.
There's a lot of innovation going on nowadays, but it's largely open source. People are fed up with the system, so they throw their ideas and projects open to the world to use. Check out Instructables, Make Magazine, or Hackerspaces.org some time.
Hackerspaces are cropping up all over the world, and a fair number are in the US. All the innovation that would normally drive the economy is being distributed for free, because despite the barriers people *still* want to innovate.
We just don't do it by starting companies any more.
Surfboards won't fly, skateboards fly. Hello?? McFly??
Did anyone else catch the part about "hackers will target mobile phones", wow that's news. So from the whole article about the only innovation we can look forward to is from hackers attacking our phones.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
'Bigger innovation labs and companies are holding back on numerous innovations until they can properly monetize them.'"
The longer they wait, the less time they will have to "properly monetize them" as the patents will run out. So, what dark clouds do we see building on the horizon?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
If you think it's somehow Christian and necessary to "meet and defeat" all other nations, then you I think you should seek help because the whole idea has seriously whooshed over your head.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I think everyone but me missed on the big red flag in the troll parent: WTF should we defeat every other nation?! How can that be anyone's goal?? What kind of a fucked up ideology is that? If that guy/gal seriously thinks that and claims themselves to be Christian, they need to take a long view in the mirror because they are really, truly fucked up, no other word for that. Christian my ass. Sigh.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Just sell some dot com shares. Or Shares in Flying Surfboards Inc.
Take the investor money and pay yourself and your hoodlum posse a fat salary. The trick is to stay in business a couple of years to make it look like a failed venture, rather than outright investment fraud.
Another good scam is to sell financial paper you engineered to crash, and then short your own paper.
Still too much work?
Print Trillions of QEx dollars and hand them out to your friends.
When that stops working, try to hold the world financial system hostage.
We'll have to wait for consumer spending to go up before the 'flying surfboard' arrives
How dumb is a quote like that? Well in France they actually HAVE a flying surfboard, RIGHT NOW. Way for your first "prediction" to be completely wrong. I won't bother to point out the "news" source that would publish this kind of hyper-pessimist attitude, you can fill in the blank yourselves.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Water-Powered-Jetpack-Boots-Rocket,news-13444.html
I actaully think its going to be some sort of technical innovation that leads the economy out of the blahs. Something like the late 90's with the internet or a century ago with the automobile etc...
the premise of the article is pure bullshit. if someone had a flying surfboard they most certainly wouldn't sit on it so that they could monetize it - they would be monetizing it already. if you look at money poured at research, I'll bet you'll find it's more than ever before. it's just harder to come up with something people need which makes sense, is practical and what people would actually want and would help people(and not just essentially be a toy, like a new way of toggling a switch).
personally, I'd like electricity be 1/100th of the price it is now compared to for example wheat. so that I could run greenhouses in finland in the winter for next to no cost, have a beach volleyball field kept warm with IR and so forth. and there's no "technology" that just takes 20 years of research and that's it then. fusion power is one example how it just doesn't work that way.
however there's probably quite a few assholes who SAY they have a flying surfboard if they could only get 20 millions to perfect the flux capacitor..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Why of course the only way to true godliness is the complete and utter annihilation of every country by one country and one ruler. Then, you will know righteousness.
Oh yeah, if you don't believe in what your told, wrath will be released upon you. After all, any loving person invokes wrath upon their child for not believing what they're told.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
"partner and co-founder at Seattle-based strategy consulting firm ARRYVE, told FoxNews.com. "Bigger innovation labs and companies are holding back on numerous innovations until they can properly monetize them."
can't be any more bullshit than that! it's got seattle(let's all move to seattle and use slow modems), foxnews, douchebagly named consulting business and "they got secrrett techh in dem government caves!" all in one.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Do not participate in the secularization of America. We are, have been, and need to continue to be a Christian nation. Through God we will meet and defeat all other nations.
Forgive me for feeding such an obvious troll, but maybe this is a good time to call attention to the fact that there *isn't* any war on Christmas.
What's actually happening is that the social leaders who cry "war on Christmas" are waging a war on diversity and an inclusive society. Their message is: if you don't subscribe to my religion and celebrate the same holidays I do, you don't count, and companies that take account of your diverse views ought to be punished with boycotts.
BTW, even the Pope is waging a war on Christmas, by decrying its crass commercialization. Not exactly a timely message, but at least some religious leaders realize that there's nothing sacred about the way Christmas is celebrated by lots of people.
As for "meet and defeat all other nations", for most of the battles ever fought, both sides prayed to the same god(s) for victory.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The McFly (C) belongs to a hamburger chain, and is available in food like products.
No brain, no pain.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Through God we will meet and defeat all other nations.
I say that to myself when firing up a Civilization game, too.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I call bullshit on the lack of buyers for flying surfboards! They get a working flying surfboard and every 50 year-old and younger out there will pawn every Apple device immediately to afford a Norrin Radd fantasy.
Isn't Knights Corner 60 core CPU supposed to be released in 2012? Wouldn't this require a fundamental rewrite of operating systems to maximize utilization of this new processing power, as well as a paradigm shift in programming methodology?
At this point the issue is less innovation limited then litigation limited.
Combine the U.S. patent system with digital rights management and things grind to a halt.
Nations with less limiting laws have an advantage much larger than
we are inclined to believe. Combine with financial pressures and
what ya see is what ya get.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Back to the 1830s when news took weeks to cross the globe. Most food and products were local. A man with a horse was rich.