The one thing we were missing when it came to write this Big Report was a digital crystal ball. After all, how do you predict the future in a futuristic age? Who casts runes these days or pores over tea-leaves?
Instead, we did some reading and thinking, and reached out to some of our expert contacts, in our best attempt to visualize the World Wide Web -- and our interactions with it -- in the year 2022.
The United States will be on its 45th or 46th President by then. Barack Obama will be in his early sixties. We may or may not have a European Union. About the only thing that seems certain is that Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia.
2022 is a long way off, but key digital developments are already in hand. The current explosion of mobile connectivity will surely exert an influence 10 years from now. Desktops and laptops -- even tablets -- may be hardware of the past, as we access the information stream using voice, gesture, and retinal displays. Immersion in this all-enveloping data field will change the way we work and think.
The displacement of information from devices will be reflected in the displacement of the worker from the workplace. Accessing the collaborative environment anywhere, anytime, a nomadic workforce will expect IT to manage the streamlining of data through virtual platforms.
As for social media, we're not going too far out on that unpredictable limb. Will Facebook (or perhaps a successor) swallow the Internet whole, locking us into a fully socialized online experience? Or will an adverse reaction set in, driving users back into isolated silos?
Of course, what 2022 looks like will be governed in large part by the political and technological foundations of connectivity. Big changes are looming, but innovations in the basic architecture of the Internet -- like software-defined networking -- could be overtaken by diplomatic developments. Member states of the ITU, meeting in Dubai this December, are capable of throwing international network traffic, and even the domain name system, into utter confusion.
The risk, as ever, is that the decisions that will finally determine the structure and function of the World Wide Web 10 years from now will rest in the hands, not of entrepreneurs or users, but of politicians.
Read the report sequentially, or click specific pages listed below. And please share your thoughts with us on the message boards.
Mr. Roques the augmented reality stuff is pretty interesting. Working on this report really made me feel intrigued about the future of AR. I downloaded that subway app. I haven't had an occasion to really use it much, but testing it out was fun. I think there's much more that can be done with something like that in the future, but it's going to take a lot more mapping than we have today.
Compelling thoughts, DHagar! I especially like this thought: "The discovery of how human intelligence can combine with automated intelligence to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each."
It's nice to think of it that way since so often we talk about in the context of one versus the other.
Very interesting bigReport, Kim. I specially liked the access and infrastructure sections, which are the ones I relate the most with. I hadn't seen the augmented reality video, but its very promising and exciting.
Regarding the infrastructure, I wonder if networks, similar to Internet2, will start to come out, maybe in local or regional areas but not only for education and research, but maybe a municipal network that decided to offer access, and that ends up becoming a network big enough to be considered independent (although with obvious and needed access to the "old" internet).
Good post, Deborah. You are underlining the importance of balance. So long as we do not allow ourselves to be distracted and overwhelmed by data, there are great opportunities to put it to the service of our intelligence.
Excellent deep thinking, Paul. This series of blogs are highly though-provoking.
Several points that strike me are:
- The power of the internet. I believe the extended networking and use, coupled with the compounding information that the web provides, open up entire new vistas of power, information, etc. I believe this is why it is increasingly capturing political attention, whether from the Arab Spring, China, or our own interests in access to all information for cyber security.
- Moving beyond capacity to making decisions. The fact that we can no longer keep pace with the evolution or increased capacity that is realized through the internet brings us into a new reality of deciding whats important and how to manage or use the internet.
- The growing realization that data is just pieces of information and that the intelligence is built on information in context and connected with intelligence. This will help us increase our intellectual capabilities rather than be consumed by data, when equally valuing all data.
- The discovery of how human intelligence can combine with automated intelligence to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each. So far we view the battle as man against machine. In reality, the best use is to learn and understand the capabilities of each and how best to use them.
The US has shown no sign of taking positive action on this, and it really needs to. It needs to have a rational position developed ahead of the Dubai meetings. Let's keep an eye on this.
"The value of international e-commerce has plummeted. Geographically, the Web is now locked into noncommunicative silos. In addition to the official UN Internet, there's an Islamist Internet, carefully controlled by the participating nation states, and a series of technically primitive local Internets established by the governments of North Korea, Burma, the Sudan, and so on. Even more primitive "darknets" have been launched by opponents of the regimes."
This is the most scary prospects of them all. A geogtraphically fragmented internet is not definitely not a nice idea. This is a directly as a result of some governments inability to exercise control over the entire world wide web and in the process deprive their citizenry some aspects of the internet. This may actually change if the internet should come under the U.N. We've witness over the 67 year history of the U.N.how few despotic regimes have hijack the lofty ideals of the UN. to advance their own nefarious control. I just can't even imagine how a UN-control internet will look like but the question we should be asking ourselves is what can Western Powers do to prevent such a scenario from ever happening? I know they themselves are very much showing signs of wanting to control the internet but for them tosupport a UN takeover of the internet will be a very big blow to long term development of the internet.
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The US National Security Agency learned the hard way that it can be dangerous to give a contractor too much money and access, with too little scrutiny. The NSA and other government agencies hire tens of thousands of contractors
a year to analyze data. Edward Snowden -- who revealed himself as the NSA leaker after fleeing the country -- was one such contractor, reportedly holding a $122,000 salaried position at Booz Allen Hamilton at the time of his departure.
Midsize businesses rarely achieve the same standards of security in their own datacenters as professional providers that specialize in delivering these services to organizations.
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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