Future technology predictions

Life Technology
1

Here are some of the things I predict will happen with computers in the near and not so near future (in no particular order).

One of my favorite computing daydreams is the day when there exists a portable and powerful computer. It would be something that would unfold into the size of a small laptop, but when compacted small enough to put in your pocket. It should be about as powerful as desktop computers are now, with wireless ability. I also envision this computer having the ability to connect to your HDTV (or similar) at home through some wireless technology so it would be a persons home and travel computer (much like laptops are for some today, only smaller). At home you’d have an alternative wireless input device (a keyboard or similar) and some sort of of back up system. Security would be handled with finger print identification (in case it’s lost or stolen) and it would be easy to restore if you had to replace one.

Sooner or later high-speed Internet will be whizzing around to every crevice of a city and country the way cellphone signals are. And with that dialing with numbers will become obsolete. People will have their own IP numbers that they’ll be able to customize. So instead of having to know a cell number, home number, office number, multiple email addresses, etc. one will simply have to remember a persons Tag (that’s what I’ll call it for now). Maybe mine would be miltownkid69 and with that you could call me, email me or leave me a voice message, all depending on how I wanted to have it route you.

I DO think I’ll live to see the day that robots are used in the house I Robot style (I guess I technically have). Robotics will (and has been) advance as quickly as personal computing. First it will be cars that drive themselves, then robots that walk your dog and pick up the poop, sky’s the limit after that

Other thoughts swish around in me skull, but I’ll leave it here for now.

Edit: Now that I think of it, maybe I should have posted this in the open fourm. Mods, do as you please.

2

I’d just like to see a bloody computer that you can turn on, turn off and use as quickly and reliably as a TV.

Full wireless compatibility between computer, DVD, stereo, would be nice. Then you could surf the net lying on the sofa, pointing a remote at the TV etc.

I wish they had cellphones that doubled as universal remotes.

Brian

3

PCs will continue to be riddled with viruses, spyware and zombies.

4

PCs running Microsoft operating systems will continue to be riddled with viruses, spyware, and zombies, oh my.

PCs running Morphix and Knoppix off LiveCDs will continue to be safe, secure, and dezombified after every reboot. :smiley:

Penguins will rule the Earth.

5

This Tag-idea has one big drawback, which is there is only a limited number of good Tags. As you might imagine I am not called t.ukyo in real life, it is just a handle I use on the internet. Your Tag would be much more official than an internet-alias. You would use it for job applications, visa and stuff like that.
My real-life name is very common (let’s assume Joe Smith), so chances are I will not get the Joe Smith Tag. Since there are so many Joe Smiths going around, I won’t get a good alternative either (Mr.Joe Smith or whatever). Thus, me and many other Joe Smiths would have to chose something like The_Joe_Smith_if_you_know_what_I_mean or similar crap. Or we would have to resort to funny stuff like Prince_Charming_of_Joe_Smith, General_Joe_Smith_hardened_in_Lifes_battles or those stupid numbers (Joe_Smith1122). Or I indeed would have to call myself t.ukyo in real life, which would lead to the same questions regarding the name over and over and over again.
This is a problem not just for the Joe Smiths of the world. There are hundreds of thousand of poor Li Meis and Chen Weis in China, Kims, Lees and who knows what in Korea and Millers, Johnsons whatever in the States.

Still, a nice idea. I just wish I had a more uncommon name.

6

I predict that Microsoft (and their “partners”) will have patented every damn mathematical formula that exists. It will be illegal to run any other software but Microsoft’s, because you’ll be violating their “intellectual property.” Only those who live in countries that DON’T recognize software patents will be safe. Right now, the majority of the countries in the world do NOT recognize software patents, but the USA is pressuring them heavily. Taiwan still does not have software patents, but if they sign a so-called “free-trade agreement,” you can kiss programming freedom goodbye. Australia just did this. Europeans geeks are fighting a losing battle against the same madness (see ffii.org). The pressure for software patents comes almost exclusively from the USA, or more specifically, from the Business Software Alliance (see the membership list at bsa.org - these companies are evil). One other country that is seriously guilty of supporting software patents is Finland (thanks to Nokia, who are trying to patent all the software in cell phones).

Don’t confuse software patents with copyright - it’s not the same. Copyright means you can’t run off illegal copies of Microsoft Office - I have no problem with that. Software patents means the “save as” command gets patented - I have a big problem with that. “One-click shopping” is patented, eBay just got sued because somebody patented online auctions. Microsoft has obtained over 3000 patents in the past year, mainly by patenting ideas that others invented but didn’t patent.

If you’re as worried as I am about this, boycott. Don’t buy anything from Nokia, or the BSA members: Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, Cisco Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Entrust, HP, IBM, Intel, Internet Security Systems, Intuit, Macromedia, McAfee, Inc., Microsoft, RSA Security, SolidWorks, Sybase, Symantec, UGS Corporation and VERITAS Software

OK, rant finished. Happy weekend to everybody.

7

Ok, I thought about it a bit more. On your business card you would just have your real name and your IP address. After the person enters the IP address into their system, they can add whatever name they want next to it (kind of like how you add names to email addresses). I not trying to be very technical with the explanations, just spouting off ideas.

I forgot to add that one. It’s been tried before, but it’s getting closer to realization. A computer that hooks up to your TV and is your DVD, stereo and computer. You’d also be able to order movies on-line with it, download new music…

If I may get wild for a moment, I’d like to see a solar powered hover car.

Yeah, this kind of shit sucks. It really stifles creativeness. Could you imagine martial artists trying to patent their moves? Or drug companies having patents on drugs, so they can charge a crap bag full of dollars? Or if someone patented split toe sandals in Taiwan and became an overnight NT billionaire?

Copyrighting is one thing, but that patent things sucks. And isn’t it ironic that Microsoft (probably the uber “patent” stealers) is the one pushing for this. Those filthy animals.

8

[quote=“robert_storey”]I predict that Microsoft (and their “partners”) will have patented every damn mathematical formula that exists. blah blah blah

Don’t confuse software patents with copyright - it’s not the same. Copyright means you can’t run off illegal copies of Microsoft Office - I have no problem with that. Software patents means the “save as” command gets patented - I have a big problem with that. “One-click shopping” is patented, eBay just got sued because somebody patented online auctions. Microsoft has obtained over 3000 patents in the past year, mainly by patenting ideas that others invented but didn’t patent.[/quote]
Your entire rant shows a total lack of knowledge of not just software patents, but the entire patent system.

(1) If someone else invented something, Microsoft cannot patent it, The other person has “prior art”, which negates any patent that Microsoft might try to get or to enforce. It would be a 100% waste of time and money for Microsoft even to try.
(2) It is specifically impossible to patent "mathematical formula"s.
(3) I seem to recall that Amazon’s one-click patent got shot down in flames. The people who sued EBay will likely meet a similar fate.
(4) Oh, “save as” is patented? Please show me where.

Oh, and FYI, speaking of evil companies, Apple patented the cosine transform back in the 1980’s. And one reason nobody could produce Mac clones (something which briefly helped the Mac market during the short time that Apple allowed it, before they pulled the plug on their licensees and destroyed all of the companies that were trying to help them out) is that Apple patented their display region algorithm.

9

The energy density of solar power is too low. Maybe you could hover for a few seconds after charging up for a few weeks, but the battery weight would likely kill it.

Yeah, this kind of shit sucks. It really stifles creativeness. Could you imagine martial artists trying to patent their moves? Or drug companies having patents on drugs, so they can charge a crap bag full of dollars?[/quote]
Regarding the first, the guy who “started” Bikram Yoga has been suing other yoga instructors for offering programs with “his” positions.

Regarding the second, I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or what. Drug companies spend billions of dollars on developing drugs in the first place, and only make the money back if (1) the drug gets approved, and (2) becomes popular. Without being able to charge “a crap bag full of dollars” for what they made, they’d quickly go bankrupt, and there would be far fewer new drugs coming to market – just whatever some academic thought would be a cool research project.

If you want cheaper drugs, get Congress to outlaw the FDA. They’ve saved thousands of lives through demanding high safety levels for new drugs, and killed millions through delaying safe drugs from reaching the market.

10

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]Regarding the first, the guy who “started” Bikram Yoga has been suing other yoga instructors for offering programs with “his” positions.

Regarding the second, I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or what. Drug companies spend billions of dollars on developing drugs in the first place, and only make the money back if (1) the drug gets approved, and (2) becomes popular. Without being able to charge “a crap bag full of dollars” for what they made, they’d quickly go bankrupt, and there would be far fewer new drugs coming to market – just whatever some academic thought would be a cool research project.

If you want cheaper drugs, get Congress to outlaw the FDA. They’ve saved thousands of lives through demanding high safety levels for new drugs, and killed millions through delaying safe drugs from reaching the market.[/quote]
MapoSuid, always ready to set a person straight. :notworthy:

I was just in my Utopian universe for second. A place where money isn’t needed and people do things for the love of doing them. Thanks for slapping me with a dose of reality.

That’s funny about the yoga instructor. I figured somebody would post about a person patenting Bruce Lee’s moves or something. I really don’t understand the whole copywrite/patent thing much anyway. I guess I have some more reading to do.

P.S. Don’t feel pressured to stay to “on-topic”, I like it when a threads twists and turns.

More technology stuff. I don’t know when or if it will get acceptable, but there must be people out there that want dollars and cents to go away and have everything credtized. Maybe one day you’ll pay for everything with retianl scans (or some other bio lock).

11

Anyone see that movie ‘Strange Days’? I want those ‘feelies’. You rig a set up to your brain somehow and it replays a recording to you with, sight, sound AND FEELINGS. “That was a 17 year old girl taking a shower - we got a lot better than that” “I’ll take it!”

Brian

12

[quote=“MaPoSquid”][quote=“robert_storey”]I predict that Microsoft (and their “partners”) will have patented every damn mathematical formula that exists. blah blah blah

Don’t confuse software patents with copyright - it’s not the same. Copyright means you can’t run off illegal copies of Microsoft Office - I have no problem with that. Software patents means the “save as” command gets patented - I have a big problem with that. “One-click shopping” is patented, eBay just got sued because somebody patented online auctions. Microsoft has obtained over 3000 patents in the past year, mainly by patenting ideas that others invented but didn’t patent.[/quote]
Your entire rant shows a total lack of knowledge of not just software patents, but the entire patent system.

(1) If someone else invented something, Microsoft cannot patent it, The other person has “prior art”, which negates any patent that Microsoft might try to get or to enforce. It would be a 100% waste of time and money for Microsoft even to try.
(2) It is specifically impossible to patent "mathematical formula"s.
(3) I seem to recall that Amazon’s one-click patent got shot down in flames. The people who sued EBay will likely meet a similar fate.
(4) Oh, “save as” is patented? Please show me where.

Oh, and FYI, speaking of evil companies, Apple patented the cosine transform back in the 1980’s. And one reason nobody could produce Mac clones (something which briefly helped the Mac market during the short time that Apple allowed it, before they pulled the plug on their licensees and destroyed all of the companies that were trying to help them out) is that Apple patented their display region algorithm.[/quote]

You can patent anything in the USA. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t invent it, doesn’t matter if it’s obvious, doesn’t matter if there was prior art, doesn’t matter if iit was previously patented and then the patent expired - describe it differently and patent it agan. This happens all the time. The USPTO grants bogus patents all the time because:

  1. The patent examiners who work there don’t have the time to research
  2. They don’t have the knowledge to understand what patents they are granting
  3. There is no penalty for granting a bogus patent. In fact, the culture of the USPTO is that “difficult” patent examiners get fired.

Big corp likes the patent system - it helps them crush small competitors who can’t afford to hire an army of lawyers. Once the patent is granted, you can try to sue them to get it revoked - do you have the cash to sue Microsoft?

The guy who sued Ebay won. The Amazon one-click patent also still stands (they sued Barns & Noble, their chief competitor - it was settled out-of-court). Just last Friday, Microsoft patented SUDO (it was invented in 1980, before Microsoft existed). Microsoft has started enforcing the patent they got on the FAT file system (in 1997) - now there are lawsuits flying over that (FAT is 24 years old, and was not even invented by Microsoft).

Many computer algorithms are nothing more than mathematical formulas. The RSA patent is a perfect example - it set back online security for 20 years. That patent expired about 2 years ago, which is why OpenSSH is now legal in the USA (it was invented in Canada, where there were no patents to inhibit it).

If you care enough to follow up, read this article - then we can discuss more…

linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5079

happy weekend,
Robert

13

Robert, I have now read the article, and the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Patenting output by a bitmapped display? You can put a DEPENDENT CLAIM in a patent where your primary INDEPENDENT CLAIM is further restricted by such a claim, but you sure as shit aren’t going to be able to patent the general case of “anything that is output via a bitmapped display”. Even the lowliest pinhead in the USPTO would dump that one in a heartbeep.

The “Halloween documents”? Yeah, Microsoft has tried to pull some crap on the open-source movement, but they’ve been spanked hard repeatedly, e.g. the Kerberos modifications they tried to pull. Microsoft didn’t even try to fight it. And think about that – Microsoft is, IMHO, five years behind open-source. Microsoft is borrowing from open-source to try to come up with new products, not the other way around. Perens has an excellent idea regarding creating their own patent portfolio to force Microsoft to cross-license; in fact, open-source can shut Microsoft down completely in a few years if they want to play that game.

The Perens case with AT&T is iffy. AT&T might have invented it before him, and might be able to file a patent on it, but that’s the way the system works. Plus AT&T has just given him a golden opportunity to engineer around their pending patent, shoot their patent application down, or otherwise negate what they’re doing. If I were him, I’d be staring dumbfounded at the letter on my desk, wondering what someone at AT&T was smoking a few days before.

Open-source might want to get into the patent game, sure. But their own published source code constitutes legitimate public prior art that can be used to invalidate anything that someone else comes up with after them. Yeah, it’ll have to be fought, but there are already legal defense funds going on to do similar things; they’ll just have to broaden their mission a bit.

14

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]Robert, I have now read the article, and the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
[/quote]

Whatever. Maybe this one’s better:

eff.org/patent/

By the way, you mentioned “drug patents” as being a very good thing. You might be interested to know that Richard M. Stallman (guess you’ve heard of him) said the same thing - he said it was just exactly the opposite situation of software patents, because to create a drug you had to spend years and millions of dollars for research and development. Compare that to patenting “Paying with a credit card online” (U.S. Patent No. 6,289,319).

peace,
Robert

15

Just coincidentally, I hit upon the eBay patent issue today (I wasn’t looking for it at the time). I hadn’t realized that they’ve been sued twice for patent infringement - I had thought it was only once. They settled one patent out of court, another they lost outright. Both patents were trivial - one was for “online auctions”, the other was for “sending personalized links through e-mail”.

The details (makes for exciting reading):

detnews.com/2003/technology/ … 238269.htm

crn.com/sections/breakingnew … d=18840325

I realize that I’ve pulled this thread off-topic, which was originally supposed to about “future technology predictions.” I apologize for that. So now I’ll shut up.

16

Can’t you buy the right to an invention or patent by others and then claim it as “your” patent?

17

Go ahead and pull it off topic, I don’t mind if others don’t. I’m enjoying the patent debate more then my Jetson like predictions.

18

Yes, that’s one of the big problems. There are several litigation companies that do just that, a good example being PanIP. PanIP has no programmers working for it - just lawyers, who buy up bogus patents and file bogus lawsuits. They sue small companies (“low-hanging fruit”) who can’t afford the litigation fees. Here’s a couple of really good examples of what they do:

indianabusiness.com/articles/1202_C.html

informationweek.com/story/IWK20021020S0002/1

PanIP’s lawsuits are so bogus that they immediately backed down when some of the victims formed a defense fund and countersued…

youmaybenext.com/

Unfortunately, one such small victory won’t change the outcome of the war. The only thing that will change that is if software patents are made illegal - as they used to be.

regards,
Robert

19

Imagine if they invent these little pills called ‘sleep’. One pill was the exact equivalent to an hours sleep. If you were dead tired, and you took 8 of them, you’d suddenly feel refreshed and rested, just like you’d had a good nights sleep.

So how much would you pay for them, and how often would you use them? (Imagine what you coul;d get done with all those extra hours).

Brian

20

[quote=“Bu Lai En”](Imagine what you coul;d get done with all those extra hours).

Brian[/quote]
More porn surfing. Increase my average posts per day to 8 (hmmm… maybe Tiger Man is holding out on us). Seems like they would be handy for school, I’m sure most people would be able to graduate in 2 years and hold down a job (you’d need one too assuming the cost of those pills).

I think I’d preffer to get my sleeping done the old fashion way.