Classy's future technology watchlist

OK, so here's some things I think will be really important for the next 10 years in IT, well for me anyway...

• New languages for new applications. The OS with std GUI is dead as an interesting platform - which does not mean software is over. It's just this model that's over. Anything interesting in software will come from paradigm shifts in CS, new languages, totally new application models. Plain old OO with patterns is *not* going to cut it. What is new (or really old, depending on your view of things) is the depth of change that will happen. No dominant platform. No dominant player, but tons of new languages. I'm not thinking DSL's here - which is basically OO people saying "OO isn't enough we need more of the language to change than just the objects", but deeper change in how language is programming. Interesting languages are springing up at an increasing pace.

• Ubiquity. We've been waiting for that talking fridge for ages - for more realistic ubiquity, the cell phone is going to do so much more than phone and snap photos. (We're making this happen at Imity by the way).

• Ambient devices. A particular extremely interesting subspecies of the ubiquitous devices are the ambient devices. Data that works on our senses on a totally new way, but not really demanding attention but just being around. Indicator lights are so old school. We can do much better now. Lots of spime will be ambient.

• Haptics. Another subspecies of the ubiquitous device is the new sensory interface. Completely new mind blowing uses of our bodily presence to interact with information systems is currently springing up all over the place. These new interfaces will also inform the desktop interface with a ton of new interactions.

• Data density. This is the Google lesson. Data is enough. We don't need smarts. Data is smarts. The semantic web is never going to happen but the data web is just about to explode and do all the semantic web promised to do.

• Remix density. The way data gets used is not through fancy automated reasoning. There's plenty of biological reasoning to go around. Indeed, as the data worlds explode so will the remixes. This constant reinterpretation of data will provide all the intelligence we were hoping the semantic web would.
  

There's an underlying trend which is simply physicality. Our information interfaces will be much better embedded in our pre-existing understanding of the physical world. And our access to this physicality will be through totally new languages. A new level of data density will provide a lot of the constraints that make this feasible.

Posted by Claus at June 23, 2006 01:13 AM | TrackBack (0)