It’s crystal-ball time. Along with vows of making more money and losing more weight, the new year prompts visions of what the technology future will hold.
IBM has issued its big-five predictions, based on what it’s working on and a five-year time span, visualized with an animation on YouTube. For data-center managers, the company envisions all that heat from computers being harnessed to heat water or cool buildings. Big Blue also sees commuters in this bright future enjoying the evolution of personalization in GPS-equipped smartphones and car-based systems, with real-time traffic data, displays of alternate routes, and details on parking availability making traffic jams a thing of the past.
‘Citizen Scientists’
Traveling may become easier, but virtual travel and expanded entertainment may make actually going someplace less important. IBM foresees glassless 3-D moving holograms that allow friends to share their telepresences, and that enable entertainment to blur the line between make-believe and reality even more.
While smartphones and other mobile devices have become more powerful, they are still limited by battery life. IBM envisions smaller batteries that last 10 times as long as current ones, and that can draw their power from air or from static electricity generated by the user.
Finally, the computing giant sees sensors inhabiting all manner of vehicles, devices and facilities, such that “citizen scientists” will be able to help real scientists and researchers map their environment by collecting and transmitting data about everyday surroundings. In other words, we all become Google Street View vehicles.
Not to be outdone by the people at IBM, Intel focused its predictions on just 2011 — all of which, of course, involve areas of Intel R&D. Technologies picking up steam, according to Intel executives, include smart TV, hybrid tablets/netbooks, and “perceptual computers” that use object-recognizing, GPS and other sensors to create the next level in…