Notes

THE MAIN ONE Predictable Thing About Technology
... Is that it is unpredictable.

Making predictions about anything is really a tricky business. It's often fraught with problems and compounded by two factors: too many variables and too many people.

Making predictions in the wonderful world of technology is about as rough since it gets. You visit a trend, a fad, or perhaps a new craze, jump on it, extrapolate, and go and get everything totally wrong.

As an example, at the turn of the 20th century, it was predicted that passenger air balloon travel - pioneered by the likes of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin - will be commoditized and become the pre-eminent means of mass transit. In fact, it could be so popular, by the 1980s, people could have their very own personal air balloon as their primary approach to conveyance.

Obviously, this gaze into the future didn't take into account the airplane, which end that pearl of foresight.

The main problem with excited is that people take action such painfully straight lines, because the previous example demonstrates. The telephone is another useful example; who may have predicted mobile phones at that time Alexander Graham Bell was fussing around with the technological exact carbon copy of paper cups and wet string?

No one could have. Furthermore, how could anyone have predicted that these mobile telephones would one day have cameras built-in? Or that you could send written messages in it? You only need to go back a decade, and such ideas would be derided as foolish drivel.

The future is a curly thing, and in the wonderful world of information technology, the driving force behind a lot of the confusion is convergence.

Now t here 's a buzzword if I have you ever heard one. Which becomes the next big problem with predicting future trends in technology: let's get two awesome gizmos 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 increasingly being exercised, here, yet another than the other!

If something doesn't fulfill a practical purpose, then it's neither use nor ornament.

This future-predicting thing is even harder these days, but in a means, even the most outlandish theory may have its day. Things are changing so quickly that new technologies are emerging literally overnight. And considering that people's needs are also changing, evolving, and emerging, who knows?

Going back even more, desire, need - call it what you will - includes a common source. The very engine of change is people, society, lifestyle, and a requirement to manage, re-route and/or if you need to, delegate all of this data and information.

The Apple Newton was way before its time. A bunch of clever guys 'n' gals sat in an area and made a remarkable prediction about how people would "consume" data and information, plus they were right on the money - the only problem being that they were over a decade early!

Now, people are on the road. People focus on the move, hold down long-distance relationships, work with colleagues across time zones, and manage bank accounts in a cafe while drinking a cup of chai.

The only certainty is the same one which has been pontificated upon since forever: things change. Things often get 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! Am I wrong?

Wayne Smallman is the man behind Octane Interactive, a web design [http://www.octane.uk.net/html_content.services_web-design-development.php], web applications development [http://www.octane.uk.net/html_content.services_web-applications.php] and online marketing [http://www.octane.uk.net/html_content.services_search-engine-marketing-optimisation.php] agency based in Yorkshire, England which has been around since 1999.
My Website: https://telegra.ph/The-One-Predictable-Thing-About-Technology-04-21