… It is unpredictable.
Making predictions about anything is a tricky business. It is often fraught with problems and is compounded by two factors: too many variables and too many people.
Making predictions in the world of technology is as difficult as possible. You see a trend, a fad or a new fad, jump on it, extrapolate, and then do it all totally wrong.
As an example, in the early 20th century, it was predicted that passenger hot air balloon rides, initiated by the likes of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, would become commercialized and become the preeminent means of mass transit. In fact, it would be so popular that in the 1980s people would have their own personal air balloon as their primary method of transportation.
Obviously, this look to the future did not take into account the plane, which killed that pearl of foresight.
The main problem with looking ahead is that people do it in such painfully straight lines, as the example above demonstrates. The telephone is another useful example; Who could have predicted mobile phones at the time when Alexander Graham Bell was entertaining himself with the technological equivalent of paper cups and wet thread?
No one could have done it. Also, how could anyone have predicted that these mobile phones would one day have built-in cameras? Or that you could send written messages about them? You just have to go back 10 years, and those ideas would be ridiculed as nonsense.
The future is complicated, and in the wonderful world of information technology, the driving force behind much of the confusion is convergence.
Now there is a buzzword if I ever heard one. And this becomes the next big problem with predicting future trends in technology: Let’s get two really cool gadgets and merge them; People will love it!
Err no! What drives desire is anyone’s guess. What drives need is utility: two very different parts of the brain are being exercised, here, one more than the other!
If something does not serve a practical purpose, then it is neither use nor ornament.
This thing of predicting the future is even more difficult these days, but somehow even the most outlandish theory could have its day. Things are changing so rapidly that new technologies are literally emerging overnight. And since people’s needs are also changing, evolving and emerging, who knows?
Going back even further, the desire, the need, call it what you want, has a common source. The very engine of change are people, society, lifestyle and a requirement to manage, redirect and / or, if necessary, delegate all this data and information.
The Apple Newton was ahead of its time. A group of smart guys and girls sat in a room and made a remarkable prediction about how people would “consume” data and information, and they got the money right, the only problem is they were over 10 years ahead!
Now, people are on the move. People work on the go, have long-distance relationships, work with colleagues in different time zones, and manage bank accounts at a café while sipping a cup of chai.
The only certainty is the same one that has been pontificated since time immemorial: things change. Things often come together in intriguing, mysterious, and eminently useful ways.
So here’s my prediction: things will never be small enough, big enough, fast enough, cool enough, or cheap enough! I’m wrong?
