The year 2006 was dominated by a couple of technology related keywords such as web 2.0, Intel, Vista, (.NET 3), “search” or YouTube.. Personally I’m wondering what next year has to offer from a technological point of view and which keywords will stay “hot” even next year.
Definitely Windows Vista will launch next year, catching up with technical & visual modernization as well as (more) “easy out of the box solutions” such as produced by Apple. But are Windows users so desperate to buy new hardware and fiddle with new eye-candy? Will office 2007 meet the expectations and resolve long known hassles? The previews do “feel” very promising though. I assume, that the success of the technology-push of the new file format (based on XML standards) is only a matter of time, looking at the market dominancy of Microsoft.
So what about tiny brother Apple? The huge change in strategy did pass without major coincidences. At least for me, the change to the Intel architecture is the real deal and definitely did boost performance. I assume Apple will reach the end of the transition by introducing Leopard, the fifth OS X. Long awaited (and needed) universal binaries such as Adobe’s CS3 or Microsoft should hit the markets in the first half of 2007. But what about new shiny gadgets? Oh yes, the iPhone! Phones and digital assistants (as well as digital entertainers such as the iPod) will converge. But will 2007 deliver us the ultimate gadget, not just loaded with (junk) applications but really integrate useful functions with user friendly interfaces?
One hot topic now days still is connectivity. The past has shown, that although people do want (wireless) broadband connections, not every technology successfully penetrates the markets. UMTS is a complete fail and network operators are still trying to sell broadband applications such as video telephony. So how will markets react upon the introduction of WiMax, a development based on the success of low-range WiFi? Other than UMTS WiMax seems to target broadband users (with laptops) directly and thus may canibalize wired connections with success. Furthermore new Wifi standards such as 802.11n will allow faster small scale data transfers and better QoS.
Will Google define Web 3.0? Where did this versioning of the “Web” come from anyway? Isn’t it just some creation by geeks (O’Reilly introduced the name web 2.0) desperately looking for innovation on the web itself? Since it’s creation it made alot of graphical improvements but the base idea stays the same: click on links, wait, get the response on “a page”. So then what is so new about todays web, why do people call it web 2.0 and would 3.0 be justified? More user-interaction, artificial intelligence and forms of interaction, namely community platforms and blogs were created over time. Sites like digg.com, youtube.com, flickr.com, wikipedia.com and technorati.com dominate (?) the web and get sold for billions of dollars. But still, what is 2.0? The technology additions, new forms of communication, interaction and information delivery or a graphical revolution? It appears to be a mix of everything - web 2.0, a keyword for internet-innovation as a whole. So now what about Google and web 3.0? As we watch Google to grow amazingly powerful their possibility of influence on how we do things on the internet and what we do rises without drawing too much attention. Where will all those possibilities lead, especially next year? In no way I have the intention of drawing an eavil picture called “Google”, but just mix current facts and your immagination to shape the “new internet”. Furthermore imagine billions of new users entering cyberworld as a consequence of growth & wealth especially in Asia. I wouldn’t be sitting at my desk anymore if I knew exactly what would be coming at us.
Happy new year!
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