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gentrone wrote on 2010-12-15 18:23
This is a guest post by Robert Stern, Web Developer at Reenhanced and the winner of the Chrome OS competition.
Google Operating System Blog
Thanks to everyone who participated in this contest. It was really difficult to find a winner because there were so many interesting essays.
Today we carry around devices that are as powerful as our desktops were ten years ago. We have bandwidth that would have been unobtainable to most individuals. These trends show no signs of slowing.
Five years out, wireless connection speed will exceed broadband. Many families will cease having home internet, similar to how many families no longer have home telephones. More and more is already being done through mobile devices instead of desktop computers. The majority of purchases will begin to be completed through mobile devices, beginning to supplant cash and credit cards.
Cell phones and other mobile computing devices will become more powerful due to the increase in bandwidth, utilizing the CPUs and GPUs of machines in the cloud. Storage will be nearly limitless and extremely redundant. Upgrading to new devices will only require signing in; your existing data and preferences will be restored from the cloud.
Ten years out, sensors and processors will be built into most products and even roads. More importantly, they will be linked together, providing massive amounts of data. This data will allow for extremely accurate traffic analysis, home electricity conservation, and even assist in getting ready for work or school in the morning.
Computation will be nearly effortless. It'll be even easier to access knowledge and trivia. Computing through glasses will finally be more feasible, as technology improves enough to fit displays in normal sunglasses. New input methods will allow individuals to search and access vast amounts of information at all times. They will be able to instantly compare prices, allow for nearly instantaneous translation between spoken languages, real time subtitling, and instantly look up movies or music by simply a line or scene.
Twenty years out, computing will cease to be something separate and discrete. It will be integrated in everything. Video displays will be built into contacts. Input will be far more discrete and possibly sublingual or even using an advanced form of EEG. The internet will be a literal extension of your brain.
Self driving cars will have begun to become common. Computing power will be spread across the entire planet. Wireless will be everywhere and speeds that we could only imagine today and holograms will allow for 3D video communication.
The aspects of the future of computing can be seen today. Chrome OS stores its data in the cloud. If you upgrade your machine, your data and preferences come with you. Android is similar.
Through cloud virtualization, we have already begun to see netbooks and other dumb terminals play games and access programs that would never run on their hardware alone. Google has created and tested self-driving cars and their navigation and traffic analysis products will only improve with time. Voice transcription has reach incredible accuracy, as has language translation.
These incredible accomplishments and the current technology in development show that things that would have been considered science fiction ten years ago, are now coming into use. All of this and the existence of companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple, competing with one another and redefining the definition of computing, points towards a great future for technology.
It's an article I wanted to share, and this is one of my favorites topics. I'd like to know what you think about it. I think 20 years from now is too much considering the huge improvements we've made over the past ten years.
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-12-16 02:07
I think the time frame is exaggerated but concepts are a definite reality.
IPv6 will allow for every atom on the planet to have an address if we cared to do so, meaning everything you own can theoretically be online, even your soda can will be able to report it's nearly empty and spam your inbox with the nearest vending machine. Moore's law will let you have computers with the same properties as sheets of paper.
The sad thing is, all this cloud based technology is already very advanced and ready to roll out.
There's only one limitation for all of this. The current state of internet access around the world. North america is doing horrible. Disgustingly horrible. It literally makes me sick how bad our broadband and telecommunications are here. It's impossible to participate in serious cloud computing if you exceed your monthly data plan by browsing a few youtube videos, or if it takes you 20 minutes to upload your files.
Get an estimate of when 1 to 10 Gbps (symmetrical) connectivity, both wired and wireless will be available to all of the developed world for as cheap or cheaper than our current average plans, with no data limits, and this cloud computing will fly. It'll happen so quickly entire economic sectores will crash if they're not ready. Selling desktop computers, or servers will no longer be a viable business. Everything will be streamed to your mobile device to thin-client from the cloud. Software boxes won't exist on store shelves anymore.
At my work we're already planning this out, a large part of my job is researching and developing business concepts to work with these technologies so we don't end up trying to sell a desktop to a business when they can just stream Windows + office and every other software they need right out of microsoft (this is actally coming soon but internet connectivity will prevent most customers from using it at all).
There was the .com bubble in the late 90's and soon there will be the cloud bubble, the timer on it whenever governments and ISPs get off their asses and invest in proper infrastructure.
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BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2010-12-16 02:26
Technology is indeed moving forward at an extremely fast rate
The majority of college students are into computer science because they believe there is a large demand of jobs
Painfully untrue because there aren't and the majority of those students will be inefficient in their jobs.
You need be well adept at computer science to adapt to this pace of technological progress.
The cat has an associate who is a damn genius, working in a company which developed the process of downloading terabytes per second
Terra bytes are over a million times bigger than megabytes, which is the average amount of data you can download per second
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-12-16 03:21
Terrabit Ethernet? We need that prettydesperately like I said, the single greatest barrier is internet infrastructures currently in place and the willingness of ISPs/governments to upgrade. Without that nothing can progress.
Some china/asutralia/europe team developed a stable 670 Gbits transfer speed method, which is wonderful. Other methods for 100 Gbit already exist. The problem isn;'t the technology but the people who provide it not wanting to... provide it.
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psyal wrote on 2010-12-16 03:35
I'd guess that's because they want to say it's extremely new, then charge tons extra for it.
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Chillax wrote on 2010-12-16 03:40
The only thing stopping all this from happening quickly is initial resistance and fear of what will happen if technology gets too advanced for us. The cost to need/want ratio is also an important thing to factor.
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-12-16 03:42
They seriously won't be able to do that, nor will they be able to hold out much longer.
All the technology vendors are on their way to providing most of their services via cloud infrastructures. There's going to be huge pressure on ISPs and governments to get their **** together. Not only from major companies like google and microsoft, but even hardware vendors who can make cheaper material for better profit margins for thin clients, and users who want to save money by switching to these business models.
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mewball wrote on 2010-12-16 03:52
Quote from Osayidan;249271:
I think the time frame is exaggerated but concepts are a definite reality.
IPv6 will allow for every atom on the planet to have an address if we cared to do so, meaning everything you own can theoretically be online, even your soda can will be able to report it's nearly empty and spam your inbox with the nearest vending machine. Moore's law will let you have computers with the same properties as sheets of paper.
The sad thing is, all this cloud based technology is already very advanced and ready to roll out.
There's only one limitation for all of this. The current state of internet access around the world. North america is doing horrible. Disgustingly horrible. It literally makes me sick how bad our broadband and telecommunications are here. It's impossible to participate in serious cloud computing if you exceed your monthly data plan by browsing a few youtube videos, or if it takes you 20 minutes to upload your files.
Get an estimate of when 1 to 10 Gbps (symmetrical) connectivity, both wired and wireless will be available to all of the developed world for as cheap or cheaper than our current average plans, with no data limits, and this cloud computing will fly. It'll happen so quickly entire economic sectores will crash if they're not ready. Selling desktop computers, or servers will no longer be a viable business. Everything will be streamed to your mobile device to thin-client from the cloud. Software boxes won't exist on store shelves anymore.
At my work we're already planning this out, a large part of my job is researching and developing business concepts to work with these technologies so we don't end up trying to sell a desktop to a business when they can just stream Windows + office and every other software they need right out of microsoft (this is actally coming soon but internet connectivity will prevent most customers from using it at all).
There was the .com bubble in the late 90's and soon there will be the cloud bubble, the timer on it whenever governments and ISPs get off their asses and invest in proper infrastructure.
mind = blown
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gentrone wrote on 2010-12-16 14:50
Well Google is working on this as well. I think in just a few years we will have top speed Internet. Isn't it awesome but a little creepy at the same time that Google is working on this stuff? It's like they are watching the World from outside and know where it's going.
Quote from Wikipedia:
Google Fiber is a project to build an experimental broadband internet network[1] in the United States in a community of Google's choice, following a selection process.
It has been estimated that Google will need to pay $3,000 to $8,000 per home broadband connection, totaling anywhere from $60 million up to $1.6 billion USD.
Google Fiber will provide connections at over 1 gigabit per second, which is about 100 times faster access than most Americans have. Despite the advertising claims of internet service providers, the average download speed in the United States is only about 4 megabits per second.
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-12-16 16:07
Yeah I appreciate google's initiative a lot. More companies need to do this.
The issue now is no matter how large google is, they can't cover the whole country, and even if they could it still leaves the rest of north america (canada and mexico). They might be able to do it in mexico, but in canada there's laws preventing foreign owners of telecom companies.
It has to be a global initiative, where every company in that domain invests into the technology. If everyone's doing it, prices for materials will drop as production increases, and the competition will drive price wars.
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Cucurbita wrote on 2010-12-16 16:34
This reminds me of a thread on /a/
Speed test thread, mind was blown by the ridiculous speed some foreigners had. Like, literally hundreds of times faster than ours.
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Osayidan wrote on 2010-12-16 20:54
Quote from Cucurbita;249755:
This reminds me of a thread on /a/
Speed test thread, mind was blown by the ridiculous speed some foreigners had. Like, literally hundreds of times faster than ours.
Friend in netherlands has 10 Gbps symmetrical for a few months now.
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Zid wrote on 2010-12-16 21:46
Quote from Osayidan;249271:
There's only one limitation for all of this. The current state of internet access around the world. North america is doing horrible. Disgustingly horrible. It literally makes me sick how bad our broadband and telecommunications are here. It's impossible to participate in serious cloud computing if you exceed your monthly data plan by browsing a few youtube videos, or if it takes you 20 minutes to upload your files.
This this this this this all the way.
The ideal world of cloud computing will always fall flat on its face as long as we have expensive, low-quality bandwidth that is not available everywhere.
Just look at South Korea's internet infrastructure on a whole. It's like looking at another universe there.