Futurology
For some centuries people are not only trying to predict the future, but write books about it. With time, humankind even got a new science - futurology. Some of futurologists let their fantasy fly and write science fiction, others base on statistical models and trends shown by other sciences. But in any case, noone knows very exactly how the world will look in the future, and can predict with certain level of accuracy only a short period of time. What distinguishes XXI century is that the period of accurate prediction gets smaller and smaller.
About 10 years ago, innovation in mobile telephony was mostly in miniaturization. I can remember that the smaller phone you had, the more mojo you got. Now, look at the phones - they are reasonbly small, but noone tries to make even tinier devices - focus shifts to functionality. Nowadays phones in our pockets have more processing power than our desktop computers 10 years ago. Regardless of phones’ capabilities, they changed our habits forever. Nowadays it seems incredible how people could organize any meeting and social activity without phones and e-mail.
Internet was a toy for academics and IT people 15 years ago, so who could imagine 20 years ago how it will affect our lives? That we will do lot of stuff without leaving our homes, that children will start have problems with communicating real people instead of their virtual egos? Automotive industry and television made this world a small place in second half of XX century, now the world shrinks to the size of your portable computer, which is now passed period of gaining row performance and is following the miniaturization trend (as 10 years ago with small telephones, nowadays people are crazy about as thin and as small computers as they can get).
Web 1.0 was an important step in evolution of technology. It made information of any kind easily accessible. Web 2.0 breaks further and adds a social dimension which allows information exchange even less formalized and more total. What will Web 3.0 give us? Or will it at all be the Web? Our life changes quickly - new technologies attack and it’s just incredible what you can do nowadays. Google cotributed most to make search a commodity. Apple proved that selling music online is a feasible business. My iPod Classic holds my whole music collection - no need for CDs, which in their turn promised heaven on earth after tapes and vinyls. The same fate obviously await DVD collections. Amazon with their Kindle kills the book printing. Finally, it seems that cutting trees for paper might eventually become a history.
We live in very interesting time - we can see technical evolution blooming all around us. I think that last time when people were as excited was the end of XIX century, when inventions in field of electricity and radiowaves provided a lot of new devices. And as they did not know what they will get in a few decades, we can’t imagine what devices will fill our life in just ten years.
At first site, financial crisis [everyone talks about] threatens technological progress. But I think that on the contrary, it gives another push signal to inventors - to create more effiient things. I put my hopes to efficient airplanes, automobiles, power plants; electronics that consumes almost nothing and provides more functionality, effective communication, advanced health systems that rely more on natural stuff. If only we had the political stability for the next years to overcome the crisis. As we remember, the world after last Great Depression was a fragile thing and had fallen to a great war. Devices get smarter, but the humankind? Not really, I am afraid.
I think that we should not just concentrate on technical process. We need to improve out way of thinking and remember that simple humanistic values will make this world a better place, not a miraculous technology. Do something kind tomorrow - donate to a charity, adopt a homeless dog, teach something good to your children, call your parents, sort your trash, plant a tree, switch off excessive light in your apartment. Be a good man.