More Technology Forecasts for 2010

I just can't help but share more technology forecasts for 2010, as it is January 1, 2010. Dan Grabham and the team from TechRadar put together some quality thoughts and I've included some of those and others below.

First, let's address mobile phones during 2010. "It's the beginning of the end for the featurephone, those pretty but less functional handsets," says mobile phone specialist Gareth Beavis. "It's not that the segment is dying, rather that it's re-inventing itself as part of the smartphone revolution, meaning more applications for everyone."

"Samsung's pledge to use Bada, which brings smartphone capabilities to cheaper handsets, on its lower end range shows that the soon-to-be world's biggest phone manufacturer wants to see smartphones in the hands of many more people, with the rest of the industry set to follow suit too." Think "Fortune At the Bottom of the Pyramid" , where the largest emerging markets are generating great opportunities.

Windows Mobile - Will It Get Better ?

We'll also see one of the internet's worst kept secrets confirmed: "Windows Mobile 7 will arrive during Mobile World Congress in February," says TechRadar's Editor (Reviews and Features) Paul Douglas.

"Microsoft will back down on internal marketing plans to tout it as 'the funnest phone ever' and instead advertise it with a line like 'your phone connects you to the people and programs you love', or 'your phone, simplified'. It won't feature an ad campaign that says 'I'm a phone and Windows Mobile 7 was my idea' because the idea of many Windows Mobile 6 users was to defect to Android or iPhone."

• Windows Mobile 7: all you need to know

"Leaked mock-ups suggest Microsoft has got it right, though Android 2.0 and a new iPhone in 2010 will raise the bar still higher," believes Paul. "I own a Windows Mobile phone and I've joked to my smug iPhone-toting friends that I'm holding out for Windows Mobile 9 – Android handsets are looking really compelling at the moment and I'm so starting to worry about doing just that."

Perhaps 2010 should also include the eradication of the term "phone" with respect to mobile devices, given what these devices actually do.

Google WILL have a BIG Year

While 2010 still won't be the year when Google's mobile OS ends up on handsets left, right and centre, 2010 is certain to be a huge year for Google. And not just in mobiles - Google OS will truly set the cat among the pigeons.

"We'll see a bunch of Google OS netbooks arrive in the second half of 2010 and the tech press will gasp and complain because they don't retail at a Google-We're-Not-Evil price point (ie 50 pence each)," says TechRadar's Deputy Editor Dan Grabham.

"Questions will be raised about netbooks that can't run desktop apps such as Outlook and Photoshop and there will be stories about people returning Google OS netbooks to the stores because they thought they had bought a 'real computer' and ended up with a big, bulky Twitter status updater."

Gareth believes Google OS will present "a great opportunity for cross platform functionality with a big dollop of cloud computing to boot."

But unlike Linux netbooks, which didn't exactly set the world on fire, by 2015 we'll probably all own a netbook that runs Google OS. And maybe, just maybe, we'll have found a use for Google Wave on them by then.

3D? Yes its coming, but not much of it in 2010

2010 will not see an explosion of 3D in the home according to TechRadar's Reviews Editor James Rivington. "I'm sure that many people are predicting 2010 to be a massive year for 3D. But I'd forecast the exact opposite," he explains. "I think 2010 is much more likely to be yet another year when 3D completely fails to capture the public imagination."

"Sure, 3D is starting to do well in theatres. And yes, Sky has said it will launch 3D TV for the UK as has DirecTV. But if we see even a 0.1 per cent market penetration for 3D in the HDTV market I'll be amazed. Do you really want to be wearing 3D glasses when watching TV in the evenings? I know I don't. There will be small range of 3D-ready sets to come out from the likes of LG, and a new batch of laptops with 3D screens, but we're talking about tiny quantities in the scheme of things."

• Behind the scenes with Sky 3D TV

But not everyone agrees. Although he feels like he's been saying it every year, Patrick Goss, TechRadar's Editor (News) feels like 2010 will still be a big year for 3D. "Not only will we be able to take stock of how this year's Avatar performed at the box office, says Patrick, but we can also expect a raft of 3D-capable televisions at CES and, of course, the promise of a 3D channel from Sky."

• The making of Avatar

"The broadcaster has already been busy learning how to film live sporting events (and ballet too) and we'll hopefully soon see the fruits of its labour on our TVs – and whether they can convince the public to fork out for the technology."

HD and wireless

So if not 3D, what does James think will happen in 2010 for TVs? "I think the big change for television in 2010 is much more likely to be the prevalence of HD," believes James. "There are millions of HD TVs out there now, and with the imminent launch of Freeview HD and the unprecedented success of Freesat, 2010 will definitely be the year that HD content is properly embraced by the British public. And that can only mean good things for Blu-ray, too." Maybe we'll also see some OLED sets appear too?

• 10 things you need to know about OLED

Could next year see wireless high definition coming to the fore? "2010 is going to be the year when cables become that little bit more redundant," says News Writer Marc Chacksfield. "We will see more and more TVs and other gadgets come sans wires, with Full HD images piped wirelessly through the home thanks to a recent announcement by the LLC over its wireless home standard."

"And when it comes to getting on to the web, TVs and the like are quickly doing away with unsightly Ethernet cables of yore and snapping up Wi-Fi like nobody's business," says Marc.

"Couple this with the popularity of gadgets like the Powermat, which do away the need of tethering your devices like a bad-mannered mutt, and what we'll have is a future where our gadgets go all Pinocchio on us."

Technology Predictions for 2010

Its that time of year again, so I am sharing some thoughts about what 2010 should entail for technology. Here are some leading technology experts who share their valuable insights.

Richard MacManus, Founder & CEO, @rww

1. There will be a breakthrough consumer application for Internet of Things - involving the iPhone, RFID tags and a major consumer product such as books or groceries. In general, Internet of Things will ramp up in 2010, with thousands more everyday objects becoming connected to the Internet.

2. Google will acquire PostRank and promptly consign it to the same graveyard Feedburner went to.

3. Microsoft will acquire Wolfram|Alpha and Bing will continue to make small gains in the search market. Google will be distracted by increasing consumer complaints about content farms polluting Google search results.

4. A price war will erupt in the e-book market and Amazon.com will offer the lowest prices, leading to it gaining a dominant position in the market with its Kindle E-book Reader.

5. Google will partner with a large PC manufacturer from Asia, which will launch an inexpensive netbook powered by Chrome OS in the U.S. market. It will become a hot consumer item among school kids and university students.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Lead Writer & VP of Content Development, @marshallk

1. Google Wave will win some respect back as people discover valuable uses for it and get used to the user experience.

2. Facebook will open aggregate-user-profile and social-graph data for outside analysis.

3. Some serious user interface innovations will blow our minds.

4. Data portability will become more real, standard, expected and viable.

5. A new social network will rise to join the big ones. It may offer the privacy that Facebook is moving away from; it may be mobile and location-centric; it may focus on personal content recommendations.

Sarah Perez, Feature Writer, @sarahintampa

1. MySpace doesn't quite make a comeback, but gets a fresh start of sorts with its music and entertainment offerings. The Gen Y/Gen Z demographic sees growth on the site but the network's overall numbers continue to decline.

2. Twitter launches ads.

3. TweetDeck finally launches a web version and becomes the number one Twitter client other than Twitter.com.

4. Cloud computing heats up. AWS, Google, Microsoft and others begin price wars to compete for customers.

5. The iPhone still rules and grabs more mobile market share than ever before.

6. Meanwhile, Android becomes the number two mobile platform by year-end.

7. iPhone app backlash begins. There are too many worthless apps and no decent way to find the good ones. Then Apple surprises us with a brand-new feature that improves greatly upon their "genius" offering to help us find new and useful apps via iTunes.

8. iTunes announces a web service, thanks to the Lala acquisition.

9. Spotify finally gets the green light in U.S. and people go nuts for it.

10. The netbook craze dies down. People start buying new "in-between" devices that are slightly larger and more powerful than today's netbooks, but smaller, more lightweight and cheaper than regular notebooks. Features like better processors, separate GPUs and SSD HD options set these new "ultra portable" devices apart from the traditional netbook, but they're still often called "netbooks" because of their size. Market confusion ensues.

Jolie O'Dell, Writer & Community Manager, @jolieodell

1. MySpace relaunches as a content network, leveraging the bands and filmmakers they already have on board and dropping the emphasis on social networking.

2. Twitter will find a monetization model and launch things like ads and pro features.

3. Facebook will become the Borg. Its number of users will continue to climb until the network is as ubiquitous as Google and lay people confuse Facebook with "the Internet." They'll make more money and control more data than ever before.

4. iPhone's exclusivity with AT&T will come to a breaking point and we'll see network-agnostic iPhones.

5. On the bright side, 2010 will signal the death of the login. Third-party authentications will become the norm, and user data will be entrusted to a discrete handful of online properties. Users will pitch a hissyfit if ever they're asked to create a username and password and upload an avatar. After all, doesn't the Internet know they have a Facebook?

6. File-sharing will continue to be shut down around the world; by 2011, we'll all be downloading via Tor and the U.S. will have instituted a lame three-strikes-no-Internet policy.

7. Cybercrime will be more of an issue than ever. Expect to see a major governmental security breach in 2010, as the government continues to adopt 2.0 tech without strong and permanent infosec personnel and procedures in place.

Dana Oshiro, ReadWriteStart Writer, @SuzyPerplexus

1. AR: Geo-locational games and AR will come together in 2010. We're going to see strange behavior from those playing zombie shooter games on their commutes.

2. Agree with Sarah: Netbooks and gadgets like the PsiXpda are going to gain ground.

3. Mobile Music: Offline music caching will be expected of all streaming music apps.

4. The browser really will be the new OS.

5. Payment Systems: Between Square, PayPal X and advances in Internet TV, we're going to see payment options integrated in unlikely places.

Alex Williams, ReadWriteEnterprise Writer, @podcasthotel

1. Cloud computing will go through a shake out. There are just too many companies out there for the market to sustain. The big players will go on a buying spree. The consolidation will deeply affect users. Some companies will fold overnight. Users will lose access to their data, leading to a whole new wave of skepticism about cloud computing. But it won't be enough to slow down the move to cloud computing. More companies will consider the security risks as less of a factor, compared to the cost benefits and potential for innovation. Cloud computing technology will become more of a commodity. The business applications for cloud computing will take center stage.

2. The big players will come back strong. IBM, SAP and Microsoft will innovate just enough to show big gains with customers.

3. Consumer-based social networks will make big efforts to gain wider access to the enterprise, as more companies seek to open up to the social Web. The information architecture of social networks will change to accommodate the greater degrees of control that the enterprise requires. This will bring on the rise of "social middleware" - services that act as a layer between social networks and the enterprise.

4. A new breed of social networks will emerge that act as one-stop shops for applications and services. These will look more like marketplaces than social hubs for conversations around the proverbial virtual water cooler. SaaS leaders will face off for this growing market.

5. iPhone, Android or the Blackberry? I expect the Android to be the talk of the enterprise, especially if the Google Phone does make it to market. Such a phone would eliminate carrier costs and break down walled gardens that have limited application development.

Sean Ammirati, COO, @SeanAmmirati

1. Facebook will go public and the IPO will be a huge financial success.

2. Hyperlocal advertising will heat up, delivering another nail in the traditional newspaper industry's coffin. (Very similar to one of my 2008 predictions, but this time focused on the advertising aspects.) Specifically, it will be more common for a local establishment to pay marketing dollars to Yelp or FourSquare, for example, then their local newspaper.

3. Apple will release an "iTablet" and the world will be a better place for it. OK, more accurately we'll all think the world is a better place for it.

4. Agree with Jolie regarding "the death of the login." I'm hoping for open distributed alternatives along with Facebook and a handful of others.

5. Between Boxee's continued development and a new AppleTV (hopefully synched with their iTablet), it will become much more common to enjoy the Internet on a TV.

Elyssa Pallai, Marketing & Experience Manager, @boulderservices

1. Skype becomes increasingly pervasive, as the younger generations force their parents to get online, and consumers find new and interesting ways to cut costs and save money.

2. Software as service becomes ever more popular, as businesses and governments choose to focus on their core business and realize the benefits of lightweight technologies in the cloud - including rapid deployment and the low cost of switching.

3. The online user experience has a renaissance, as web browsers and hardware become more sophisticated and designers and developers take advantage of that.

4. The growth of Internet of Things continues, RFID tags in everything. The initial bugs will make funny things happen all around us.

5. iPhones and other smartphones become the purchasing tool of choice.

6. Consumers bypass carriers and create open wifi networks for all (which is already happening but not en mass).

Jared Smith, Webmaster, @jaredwsmith

1. Backlash against the App Store causes more and more developers to defect to Android and competing platforms.

2. Google Chrome's market share increases at Firefox's expense. Internet Explorer continues to lose ground as more rich, HTML5-aware Web apps spring up on the scene.

3. Opera begins to struggle, as WebKit becomes the rendering engine of choice on mobile devices.

4. Social analytics features explode onto the scene in 2010. Twitter opens Pro accounts, including analytics and an API to access them. Google strikes a deal to integrate Twitter analytics with its Google Analytics product.

Visual Search - Merging the Physical & Digital

The merging of the physical and digital worlds continues and Google Goggles is but another example of how the surge in mobile devices, GPS, Internet ubiquity, and more powerful search technologies are coming together to deliver new experiences and new business opportunities.

The implications are profound and can be humorously reflected upon by taking some time to watch this demo from Pattie Maes' MIT lab, which got a lot of buzz at TED a few years ago. Imagine "Minority Report" and then some.....

As Harmut Neven, the project manager of the product explains:

Imagine you’re a tourist and you arrive at this place and you want to know more about it. All you will have to do is take a picture of the sign. We send the information up to the server and we recognize this as the Santa Monica pier. The idea is you see something that interests you, you whip out your camera phone, take a picture of the object of interest, and this will trigger a Google search.

As the Android Guys among others, recently noted, Google is working on an incredible technology called “visual search” by tying the cameras in handsets to Google’s search engine. Imagine being able to take a picture of something and getting instant results back on your phone. See the Google explanation in the video below.

A recent  “Inside the Mind of Google” special, aired on CNBC, showed aspects of the development process. Before Goggles can hit the market, it will go through Google's testing process; requiring roughly 20,000 employees to “dog-food” the service and put it through the paces.

Below is an interesting video demonstration of Google Visual Search. Fascinating.....

Computing and Tablet Technology

PC World's Ian Paul recent article asked, "2010: The Year of the Tablet Computer ?" . That is a good question Ian. RobiNZ CAD Blog asked in 2007 if 2008 was the year of the Tablet as well.  The theoretical applications of technologies as opposed to their practical adoption is something we all have witnessed. Given the increasing level of news and rumors around tablets, with dozens of new tablet devices planning to launch, one would wonder if the movement to wide spread adoption of tablets is here and why ?

Enter MIT's Press Journal's Designs Issues article "A Bitter Pill to Swallow: The Rise and Fall of the Tablet Computer", wherein Paul Atkison, who oversses 3D design for the School of Art and Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield, UK, correctly identifies how the anticipated adoption of tablet computing beginning as early as the 1980's. It was widely reported in 1991 that, "Nearly every major maker of computers has some type of pen-based machine in the works." Paul's article shares great insight into how factors can impede the adoption of technologies.

As Jasper's recent article "Why Tablet PC's Have Failed and Will Fail" attests that Atkison's work "presents an insightful, amusing and at times depressing analysis of the rise and fall of the tablet computer, from the early pen computing of the RAND tablet, via the Momenta Pentop, to the inevitable Apple Newton Messagepad." Jasper's right; its worth a read.

Contrary to Jasper's view its a new day, as technologies around tablets have advanced considerably during the past decade. The reason these new devices may become accepted and successful over the years relates to a few key drivers: High speed Internet ubiquity, consumer mobility adoption, and indeed as Paul has observed - functional design. If price can be market relevant there is a real opportunity for this product category to catch fire. Watch how new tablet technologies like Microsoft's rumored "Courier", which are going to be unveiled in the coming months ahead, can be relevant to your life. Another good reason to get excited about this emerging technology.

Technology Adoption & the Age Myth

As I evangelize around the upcoming surge in innovation driven by technology and globalism one topic that is often raised is the issue of how older people are unable or unwilling to adapt to the change brought on by technologies. Hence, the rapid states of change I predict are unlikely because of this "age" phenomenon.

Focus on the 50 and over crowd regarding technology was explored in a recent marketing research project sponsored by AARP and Microsoft. 60 people in total gathered for dinner and after-dinner discussions about their attitudes toward, use of and expectations for technology. The focus group sessions were in four cities: San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago and New York. Participants ranged in age from 50 to 60. See the video recap below.

The conversations have been consolidated and published in a report  “Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation.” The project was directed by Michael Rogers, formerly the vice president for the Washington Post Company's new media division. Innovation and technological advacements are coming and in ways and in places that aren't about the young. They will meet real needs of an aging population as the video explains.

Mr. Rogers had some interesting findings, as disclosed in a recent NYT's article on the rearch. It included the following excerpt (please note the emphasis on medical records and health care):

“It surprised me how much boomer technology habits are still in flux.” In the past, he said, studies have shown that as people reach 60, “technology adoption falls off a cliff.” Not so with the boomers. They grew up with technology, he noted — they were in their teens to early 30s when the first Apple computers and IBM PCs appeared.

The dinner conversations, he said, suggested enthusiasm for cutting-edge gadgets with practical uses like microprojectors (also known as pico projectors) — pocket-sized devices that can take video and play it on any surface, turning a wall into a 50-inch screen.

Boomers, Mr. Rogers predicted, are also going to be the driving force behind the use of information technology in health care. The dinner attendees who had access to electronic health records, he said, were “just ecstatic” about the benefits of setting up appointments online, e-mailing doctors and reviewing their records over the Web. As they age themselves, the incentive for using technology tools to manage health and wellness programs grows as well.

The boomer's won't be an impediment to technology adoption. They'll be the significant drivers, as this research reflects. Innovation: bring it on. Us old folks are truly ready.