What's on the technology horizon? Six perspectives—part 1 - Business of Technology

Computer Technology Review, May, 2003

Before we can deliver that kind of intelligence, we have to develop applications that deliver better real-time, physical data. This will simplify any number of daily functions at home, at work and when we travel. For example, airlines will be less likely to lose your luggage because radio frequency identification (RFID) tags will be affixed to your bags. If your bags do get lost, they will be easier to find with the RFID tag.

Having your possessions--and you--so easy to trace will make random theft more difficult. But this same capability raises privacy concerns. For instance, clothing may also have RFID tags. When you walk into a store, the store could recognize a clothing item that you had previously bought there. But what's potentially more troubling is that as more of what we do becomes electronic, it will be technically possible to know where someone is and what they're doing. That's fine if you're simply watching your young kids. It's not so good if the government is watching you. We'll need both the technological and legal means to place controls on this powerful capability.

Having data on demand means that, fundamentally, everything is going to be knowable. The challenge that has never faced humans before on such a grand scale will be for each of us to determine what we want to know and what we do not want to know. And, what do we want other people to know about us?

What will make possible the new world of ubiquitous real-time data? Metadata will be one of the most important underpinnings of this knowledge. By labeling electronic information, metadata helps computers structure information and handle it more intelligently and flexibly--and present it better to humans. When you log-on to a website through a specific interface, it's as though you've turned on the lights to see what's there. Just as websites will disclose information about themselves, so will the physical world. A car will be able to identify its owner, where it is located and where it has its oil changed. In effect, we'll be able to query the whole world.

On the people side, individuals will have the ability to manage their contacts, from and to. That is, you can maintain a list of the people you communicate with, and define them in various categories. Then you can define how available you want each category to be. If you're in a meeting, you can set specific responses for each category: Ask them to call back in 10 minutes, forward them to someone else, or promise to call them back later. Even as our ability to communicate increases, we'll need--and get--better tools to handle our increasingly complex lives.

Steve Shepard, Shepard Communications Group

People aren't looking for the next great killer app as much as they're looking for a killer way to access today's applications. This is particularly true in the area of telecommunications. On both the residential and business side, users want better access to voice, email, instant messaging and rudimentary Internet access via phones and PDAs for information like airline flight schedules and city maps. They also want better access for games played on PDAs and cell phones. The market for standalone and interactive games is surprisingly strong. In five years, the game market is expected to reach $8 billion.