Some predictions for the tensies
// January 1st, 2010 // Futurology
First off, I really hope someone comes up with a better term than “tensies”. I don’t think I’ll be able to bear it for a decade. Secondly a small plug for the site twentynot2000.com. I have to agree, anything other than “twenty ten” is dumb. Now onto my somewhat random predictions.
Artificial Intelligence
The sophistication of weak AI will continue to increase, and will be adopted in future web startups. I envisage this being used more in the area of online entertainment than anything else, for example in interfaces, information filtering for media, etc. I reckon strong AI will be with us by the end of the decade if progress continues at such a rapid rate. Not only will this be the biggest technological revolution of all time, it will change our lives in ways which have been dreamt of since the industrial revolution, and in ways which I have yet to imagine. It will signify the effective pinnacle of human development, and the start of a new age of immortality and human obsolescence.
Interfacing & Communicating
It’s come on vast amounts in the last decade, with the rise of the mobile internet, the iPhone, the cloud and social networks. But there is so much that is happening now and in the coming months and years. Properly utilising touchscreens, 3D TV, and gesture based interaction are all maturing now, with so much more still to come.
Payments
This decade will see the fall of cash, and the redundancy of cards. In our mission for convenience, payments will come to our phones, along with everything else, and. Once one of the more innovative internet behemoths – Google or eBay – embraces the technology, banks will suddenly all follow suit to adopt what will be an overdue and welcome simplification to our lives.
The coming together of technology
We have already seen so much come to our phones – cameras, the internet, and soon, payments – and this trend is only going to continue. But as well as our pockets getting emptier as more and more is packed into our phones, the web will become more centralised too. We’ll see a rise in collaborative information filtering – the technology that powers personalised recommendations – and, as we are already witnessing with Twitter, the rise of the stream. Google Wave will never replace email, but eventually some other incarnation of the stream will.
Privacy
Our attitudes towards privacy have certainly evolved over the last few years, and they will continue to evolve as privacy becomes opt-in and making everything public is the default. As more of our friends join us on the internet, we become less concerned about who can see what, only with publishing as much as possible. But maybe by the end of the decade we’ll see a resurgence in privacy as social networking evolves.
The fall of Facebook, and rise of Riva
How could I post my predictions without some shameless self-promotion? Facebook’s desire to be more than your social network – to be your online ID – I don’t think will work out without some major changes to the core functionality of the service, which won’t happen any time soon. The coming of “streams” will be will alter the way we communicate, and will form “Web 3.0″. A standardised, semantic and personalised web, where the content you like is streamed straight to you. This is one of my aims with Riva, as now is the time a site will get it right and end up being people’s ID and home in the internet.
But whether it’s Riva or not, the next decade’s gonna be awesome.
