“Eyes for your Eyes deux” (part 2)
Summary:
In my last post I talked about my ideas for tomorow’s software development.
I did not talk about programming languages, I talked about devices, plugins, and visualizations that are changing the face of software. I also made the challenge to developers to set high standards, to use open development, and to recognize the value of your IP.
While my post had favorable response and a lot of traffic, I had little input or engagement. So, while I wait on that input, here are some more thoughts on what tomorrow’s software is going to look like:
Engineering and art are merging in a way that some find frightening, while others find it magical. The line between software and hardware is blurring merging and becoming one;
examples might be, the iPad with a built in OS, and pluggins, or Google’s web OS ”Chrome”, Smart phones that are now computers, and the line up of TV sets that are now computers. (I failed to mention previously how touch screen and gesture based software is part of the future of visualizations and graphical user interfaces, and part of this blurring of hardware verses software.)
So what does this mean? The biggest impact is on mobility. Users are no longer tethered to an office chair, a desk, a tower connected to a company network, or even lugging a laptop and a bunch of wires and cables from office to coffeeshop.
So, active mobility opens a new world of development. And I want to talk about what I think that world will look like.
Think about the impact of the internet to software over the last 20 years, and think about what if there were a new internet? Or even two? Seems to me that too many developers are thinking about current projects from their experience of five years ago, instead of in terms of five years from now.
I see the new dual “dotcom-like boom” full of investment opportunity has already started, we are just not fully aware.
I believe the future is developing in two dynamic stratum; “Internet of things” (Also known as EveryWare & Spimes) and “Augmented Reality”.
A Spime as defined by by SciFi Author Bruce Sterling is a neologism used for currently-theoretical objects tracked through space and time throughout the lifetime of those objects. While his characteristics are defined loosely with a focus on manufacturing and cradle to grave process, I like to think of “smart tools” having:
- RFID or wi-fi
- GPS (geolocation)
- Memory (hard drive)
- Intelligence or processing
- Sight (video)
These devices will be both networked and common place as ambient findability becomes more relevant to a people who compute while mobile.
Merge these networked “things” with a visually enabled layer of extended internet known as augment reality (or “aug” for short) and you have the utlimate stratum for a new internet.
This is not that far off. Cloud computing and mobile devices are making this a must. (Those of you who know me recall me talking about “The Cloud” several years ago.)
Semantic web development has preciptitated augmented reality. (Think of semantic software like Google, Glue, Evri, Zemanta and user driven content, with curation, and tagging.)
Examples of everyware devices we already use: tablets, phones, laptops. and RFID already tracks merchandise, vehicles, airline passengers, Alzheimer’s patients and pets.
Examples of augmented reality curently in mainstream use are QR codes, first down lines in football games, fighter pilot’s “Heads Up”and helmet mounted displays, and soon in BMW windshields. Ipad 2’s and iPhone 5 forward and backward video camera’s set the stage for mass visualizations of augmented reality as common place.
Just imagine this on a much much larger scale; mass distribution.
Remember the stat I mentioned before? iPad has sold 5 million devices, and plans to sell another 100 million in the next 700 days. This isn’t to speak of other tablets, or phone devices. Currently stats estimate 5 billion phone users, and only 1 billion computer users. Tablets will take up that slack, and change how we think about and use software.
So what does it mean to software developers, start-ups, and investors?
1. Look for and create hybrid software/hardware developments.
2. Hire people who can not only code but can handle a soldering iron, fix a circuit board, or program an arduino.
3. Select management teams who have experience with both virtual merchandising and physical bricks and morter distribution.
3. Think about how software you are creating now will extend itself to the new internet I described.
4. Develop software for “smart things” and augmented environments.
5. Start conversations inside your company, outside with vendors and clients about these technologies.
6. Don’t marginalize the mobile computing revolution, be a part of it.
A few investible local businesses who I think get it:
~ Esau Kessler | Bio
