Jameswmiller's Blog

5 gizmos we’ll be playing with by Dec. 31 (that is, most people…or more people than now…someone at least).  We’ll be:

1.  Talking on our phones by video rather than just audio.  You’ll be popping open your phone and staring at a live streaming image of the person who is calling you, with them looking back.

2.  Watching TV in 3D.  This will be a bad bet on the part of the stations, because A) it gives me a headache and B) your friends are going to make fun of you for wearing those glasses while sitting on your couch.  These TV’s will be larger than ever, movie screen size.  And not long after that they will be voice operated rather than just remote.  Your coffee table with have a digital surface through which you operate the various electronics in the living room, and will eventually replace the remote, fixing the problem of you always losing your remote.  DVD’s will be phasing out and replaced with strictly online and digitally transfered videos.  There will be a defining moment in which the mp3 of the digital video world comes of age.

3.  Saving gas.  If you haven’t made the leap to hybrid, the Chevy Volt will push the market to the next step and the next price war over the next eco friendly model.  These will be increasingly keyless, opened with a chip in your pocket, as will your house.

4.  Writing on your clipboard computer.  Tablets will become a rage, even if Apple doesn’t drive them.  Although Apple will probably drive them.  We’ll be watching TV on them and reading the paper on them.  Newspapers don’t need to hang on in 2010: we’re going to have moving graphic news on our expanded-kindle tablets, Harry Potter style.

And I’m going to guess that not too long after that, you won’t be writing on them, you’ll be speaking to them through that little bluetooth headset you’re currently wearing in your car.  We’ll all be walking around, talking in headsets to a computer that’s in our backpacks, staring at someone on our phone, and running into poles, because no one is paying attention to where they’re going.  Auto accidents will increase, because people are going to be watching TV out of the corner of their eyes while they drive.

5.  Air travel will still be awful, and you will still avoid it.  Online access will not fix this problem.  The fact that everyone is staring at their tablets will not fix this.  We will much prefer running into poles and crashing our cars to flying on planes.  And when we run into poles we will mumble to ourselves, “At least I didn’t pay $15 for the luggage.”