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Thursday, June 9, 2011

CS855 - Week 9's Technology's Promise analysis

CS855 Futuring – Week 9 Assignment: Technology’s Promise


On your blog: Analyze a forecast from Technology's Promise and post it on your blog.
In the class forum:

     • List the url for your blog post.

     • Discuss the process used in Technology's Promise and its effect on the results.

     • Offer additional information in a reply to another student's post.


This week we are to return to William Halal’s Technology’s Promise and analyze another prediction. I have chosen to also return to Chapter 4, Society Moves Online: The Transforming Power of Information Technology and E-Commerce. In the text, Halal has a series of predictions about particular technologies in E-Commerce and Information Technology. I have chosen to look at eight technologies, four each from the two areas, and compare the predictions from the book printed in 2007 and the ones published on the TechCast.org website now (June, 2011). I have posted pictures of the tables on E-Commerce and IT from the website and from the text at the end of this post, and I have the predictions listed in a simplified table below:

Fields of Study                 |        Technology         |  Most Likely Year   |    Most Likely Year |
                                        |                                  |   (2007 Forecast)    |     (2011 Forecast)  |
Information Technology    |          Wireless           |          2007              |           2011.5          |
E-Commerce                   }       Entertainment      |         2009              |             2011           |
E-Commerce                    |     Convergence         |        2009               |            2012            |
Information Technology     |     Smart Phones        |        2009               |             2012           |
E-Commerce                    |     Web 2.0                |       2009                |             2013           |
Information Technology     |     Broadband            |       2010                |             2014           |

Information Technology     |     Intelligent Interface |       2011               |              2016           |
E-Commerce                    |     Global Access        |       2015               |               2016          |

Table 1. Eight technologies in IT and E-Commerce. Data pulled from TechCast.org (2011) and Technology’s Promise (2007)

The interesting part to me is that the order of implementation/acceptance is exactly the same for both sets of forecasts, though the years when they become commonplace have all shifted forward several years. Without access to the thinking of the TechCast.org folks, I cannot say why they shifted things forward, but I would think that part of it is that the “future” of 2007 is here in 2011 and many of the predictions of 2007 have not been met.

Personally, though, I feel that some of 2007’s predictions are better than the present ones, for to me, SmartPhones are here now (2011) and become common last year (2010), pretty close to the 2009 prediction. While SmartPhones continue to change and improve, I see no reason for saying that they are NOT here yet. The introduction of the iPhone from Apple in 2007 was a real game-changer. The new mobile-from-the-bare-bones OS and touch screen forever changed people’s idea of what a phone can, or should, do.

Availability of Wireless is another “miss” for the 2011 site, for Wi-Fi is here, but the need for Wi-Max and the other high-bandwidth wireless technology has actually dropped, due in part to technology issues (Wi-Max cannot penetrate glass; Wi-Fi is “standard” on laptops [and some phone] while the others require extra modems, etc.) and the shift of wireless internet and email to the smartphone cell-phones.

In my opinion, the others follow similar paths. What I see here is an adherence to the basic premises of the 2007 predictions now – that particular technologies are inter-related and cannot be fully implemented/adopted/accepted into common use until other technologies are at a particular tipping point. In my opinion, what TechCast is missing is the synergic relationship between the SmartPhone and the other technologies. The new SmartPhones are driving a need for a faster-wireless network, but not a Wireless as TechCast defines it! 4G phones need more bandwidth, but in the cell-phone network, not the wireless “internet” of Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, etc. The SmartPhones are also driving intelligent interfaces (voice recognition, gesture-based controls, etc.), and the new Web 2.0/3.0 applications (mobile apps, facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc.) are all interfacing with the new phones. I purchased new phones for myself and my wife last year, and the facebook and twitter and email applications came standard and we did not purchase expensive ones. A recent report discussed that the use of the new internet-ready cell-phones is reducing the traditional digital-divide between the less affluent city children and their richer suburban cohorts (Brown, Campbell, & Ling, 2011).

Entertainment-on-demand is also moving to the cell-phones, with recent 4G devices actually being advertised coming with a movie already pre-loaded. The phones come with e-reader applications, or can download them from major book-selling websites (iStore, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders, etc.)

I am in IT and teach some networking courses and the stories are common that the new phone systems being installed in the 3rd World nations are not land-lines, but cell-based., leading me to thnk that “universal access” is becoming a function of cell-phone access, rather than traditional land-line Internet access.

So, in summary, it is my opinion that many of the 2007 forecasts have actually come to pass, but the TechCast folks, missing the surge of the cell-phones, are still looking for the “old technologies” to be implemented have missed the change in requirements and are still looking for them to arrive! It is rather like the native American Indians believing that the Cavalry was carrying clubs (not recognizing rifles)!

Figure 1. E-Commerce Predictions 2007 vs 2011



Figure 2. IT Predictions 2007 vs 2011

REFERENCES:

Brown, K.; Campbell, S.W.; Ling, R. Mobile Phones Bridging the Digital Divide for Teens in the US?. 
         Future Internet 2011, 3, 144-158.

Halal, W. E. (2008) Technology’s Promise. PALGRAVE MACMILLIAN, 175 Fifth Ave., Ny, NY 1010

Anonymous (N.D.) Techcast's Latest Strategic Analyses. Retrieved June 9, 2011, from
         http://www.techcast.org/

Monday, June 6, 2011

CS855 Animoto Assignment for week of May 22 - 28

Hi, All!

Well it seems that your ol' Head (Le)Master Mind is running behind a bit for this one.

The assignment this week was:
  1. Design an Animoto video using images, photos or jpgs from your PowerPoint slides and set it to music to illustrate your innovation ideas.
  2. Upload or point to your image, drag them into the desired order and click an image and the Spotlight button to add effects that compliment the music.
  3. Embed your Animoto video
Well, I finally got one produced. I decided to go a little different way on this one. While I have been talking about my VR suits and set-ups, I could figure no way to show that in a video. So, I produced a video ad for a fake company producing VR temporary tatoos to give the wearer a new and different look!
I hope that you like it!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.