Moving Electrons is Cheap

Due to the nature of free markets, and the laws of nature, it isn’t hard to forecast what is going to happen to certain markets in the future, barring any sort of major disruption.  See, moving electrons is cheap, and moving physical items is not.

When one creates something digital, a special thing happens.  Something not at all in keeping with the rest of the physical world as we know it.  Your creation can be copied for almost nothing.  Your creation can be distributed for almost nothing.

In terms of software or music, this means you only make something once, but millions of people can enjoy it for next to nothing, thanks to computers and the internet.  Contrast this with a chair, where you must make the chair for each person who wants to enjoy it, and you must get it to them.

However, and this is a big however, even the building of a chair can be reduced to little more than digital data, through the use of CAD and CAM programs, and I think the future will see much more of this sort of thing.

A designer in Ohio will create a chair using a CAD program and post it online.  Someone in China will see the design, download it, and use a local (or in-home) 3D printer to create it.  Money may or may not be exchanged along the line.  Undoubtedly, downloading furniture will not only be normal, but free in some places (it already is).

While this sort of thing is already possible through services like Ponoko, there is much room for growth in computer-aided manufacturing.  Point being, it’s out there, and the impacts may be great.  In a world with increasing energy prices and environmental concerns, it’s something that will be driven by more than just money.  Consider the ability to easily customize data – a downloaded chair design could be altered to have five legs rather than three, with little extra effort.  Consider, also, the implications for the ‘buy local’ movement.

Filed under: informal, predictions, cad, cam, cnc, ponoko

High Level Languages

I think in the future we’ll laugh at what we call ‘high level languages’ right now. I think the high level language of the future won’t really be a language at all – it’ll be a system hiding behind the name ‘language’ (like a templating ‘language’). You’ll download modules much like you download packages on some Linux systems – they’ll have library or class dependencies to track and resolve and will make some functionality available to your application (CPAN is miles ahead here). You’ll choose streams of data from various APIs, probably all online, though local mailboxes and filesystems may be here to stay (I hope so – I like keeping my data on my computers).  Something like Yahoo! Pipes.

It would then be a matter of dragging and dropping interface elements, maybe ‘objects’, into some sort of advanced stylesheet mechanism and specifying a bit on how they are to behave and/or display their data. In other words, I think the term ‘programmer’ will start to be seen in very different ways – you’ll have people writing the nitty-gritty assembler code and compilers and whatnot, you’ll have people using things like Java to make modules, classes, and libraries, and you’ll have your average Joe making terrible applications built on beautiful code.

Sound familiar? We’re not that far away from this. I think what it needs to take off is someone with the audacity to create a ‘language’ that does nothing but form an easy-to-use gui-based framework for incorporating other language’s code in a way that isn’t tied to X, Y, and Z. I’m not saying this is good, I’m just saying this is where I see things going. Synaptic (Linux GUI package manager) style management of application code, APIs, and a sort of drag ‘n drop widget creator and manager, something like a mix of iGoogle or Yahoo’s homepage system with visual basic…but not retarded. Hopefully. I imagine something like this would be quite popular with your average Joe.

Filed under: predictions, high level language

Computer Goggles

I’ve thought this for awhile, and after a childhood of ‘hey, someday they’ll have…’ predictions coming true I figure I should create a new category in which to write these things down for a global ‘I told you so’. Really, though, guessing what the future might hold is fun, and looking back and laughing at what you thought can be fun as well. The prediction for today? Computer goggles.

Ever since I saw my first pair of VR goggles I’ve thought that sooner or later that’d be all there was – just a pair of goggles or sunglasses with the computer built into them. Earbuds and a microphone would be built into the above-the-ear pieces, a camera on the nose bridge, and the on-lens display could be made transparent, translucent, or opaque depending upon need. ‘Intelligent’ GPS software would augment sight with additional information – maps and relevant articles and the like. Seeing people running around with bluetooth phone headsets only confirms this progression in my mind.

I imagine ‘mousing’, if it hasn’t evolved, will be done by watching eye movement. Input may well be voice-only, though I would bet gloves come into play as well. We’re better suited to hands-on and voice interaction than mouse and keyboard, though I can’t imagine speaking the code for a program.

In use, it’d be the dream: digital camera/webcam, phone, music player, GPS, and general ‘laptop’ all in one. By this time I’d think wireless internet access would be pretty ubiquitous, so things like skype would replace typical cell companies and most media would be of the downloadable sort. The only things I see as a real problem are power, heat, and size. Many of these technologies are out there already and could be put together – especially if you forwent the computer part and made the goggles a thin-client. I don’t think things like this are too far off.

Filed under: predictions, vr, vr goggles