To preface a little fictitious story I wrote on how I feel the world will be in the future, I wanted to share some notes I’ve compiled on the future of the internet technology and how it will affect the world, mostly inspired from futurist Thomos Frey – presenter, founder of the davinci institute and ex IBM engineer (and receiver of over 270 awards, more than any IBM engineer).

Even with today’s technology, we are able to draw RF radio signals from the air and convert them into energy.  With the ability to pull energy from the air to power your electronic cars and appliances, can you fully imagine the possibilities?

"All information, ever created, is still in existence." - Thomas Frey - Executive Director, The DaVinci Institute

...a day without internet?  yea, right.

 
Dying Products:
1.    keyboards
2.    computer monitors
3.    computer hardware
4.    books & magazines
5.    television
6.    traditional music systems
7.    cell phones
8.    ipods

According to Entrepeneur.com & AOL, the following Businesses are also expected to go extinct in the next 10 years.

1.    Record Stores
2.    Camera Film Manufacturing
3.    Crop Dusters
4.    Gay Bars
5.    Newspapers
6.    Payphones
7.    Used Bookstores
8.    Piggy banks
9.    Telemarketing
10.     Coin-operated Arcades (sniff)

In a study done by Pew Research, A broad-ranging survey of technology leaders, scholars, industry officials, and interested members of the public was performed, in which it finds that most experts expect attacks on the network infrastructure in the coming decade. Some argue that serious assaults on the internet infrastructure will become a regular part of life

The internet experts predicted the most radical change in news and publishing organizations and the least amount of change in religious institutions. They also predicted large-scale change to educational institutions, workplaces, and health care institutions.  They believe that families and communities will experience change, but not as much as
other social arrangements.

"All technology is approaching invisibility" - Thomas Frey - Executive Director, The DaVinci Institute


Wait for the WiMax:
WiMax – Wifi on steroids
    Sprint Nextel has announced plans to spend 3 billion  in the next 3 years on the WiMax infrastructure.

Once this happens (a blanket of internet over the whole world) cell phone use is expected to change drastically.
    Cars will be Onstar 100

Hyperlocal Future – a hyperlocal city will never be out of touch and/or options, and with technology that is what we will become.

The growing confrontation between Google and Microsoft promises to be huge, and is likely to shape both companies by the end.  How consumers and corporations work, shop, communicate and go about their digital lives will be dependent upon this battle.

Google sees all of this happening on remote servers in faraway data centers, accessible over the Web by an array of wired and wireless devices — a setup known as cloud computing. Microsoft sees a Web future as well, but one whose center of gravity remains firmly tethered to its desktop PC software. Therein lies the conflict.

"The sad truth is that the opposite of 'war' is not 'peace'." - Thomas Frey - Executive Director, The DaVinci Institute

Future Human Connectedness:
Eight Dimensions of Future Human Connectedness:
1.    people to people
2.    people to goods/service
3.    people to culture
4.    people to opportunities
5.    People to Nature
6.    People to Information
7.    People to Money
8.    People to Govt.

Beyond imagining new ways to engage with your consumers, it is just as important to imagine how new technologies change the way people can engage with one another.  For example, we feel related to people in our families, attached to things that are important to us, or bonded to friends and loved ones.

According to The Human Connectedness research group, some other things to think about are:

1.  How can we convey a sense of presence and togetherness over space and time?

2.  How can we promote and support collaboration between different
groups of people?

3.  How can we achieve greater balance in our relationships
with others?

4.  How can we share a sense of intimacy and closeness in new
ways?

5.  How can we enable new forms of cultural exchange

"Rest assured, there are no utopias and conflict will not go away in the future.  If life became too easy, we would lose our motivation to move forward.  However, we have an opportunity now to move into an era with a far better grade of conflict, with problem sets that are infinitely more interesting." - Thomas Frey - Executive Director, The DaVinci Institute

Future of Internet Search:
According to a Microsoft study, users spend 11 minutes on a typical search.

Even with all of the improvements, internet search is still in its infancy and there's still a lot of room for growth. Moreover, the super high valuation of Google on NASDAQ pushes investors and researchers to find better search solutions - discovering better indexing techniques, exploring new horizons like vertical engines, testing meaning-based search, intent-driven search, researching new clustering methods, and much more.

Soon search will become increasingly more complicated and an even bigger business opportunity.  In the future we will be able to search…
1.    smell
2.    taste
3.    texture
4.    reflectivity
5.    harmonic vibration
6.    specific gravity

The innovation in search does not stop and there's much to look forward to in the search space. What's more, Google and Yahoo search APIs and the open source Nutch and DMOZ projects allow anyone to try out new ideas.


Future of Education:
According to Futurist.com the best predictors to be hidden in the participative viral systems springing to life in the online world, such as iTunes and Amazon.  These bottom-up approaches are quick to develop, participant-driven systems that are closely aligned to the demands of the marketplace.

Online education is growing increasingly popular.  With the ease of scheduling classes at your convenience and the immense amount of help online, more and more companies are beginning to recognize the potential. The key to this whole system is an easy-to-use courseware builder that catches the imagination of the general public and inspires participation.

Unfortunately, not everyone will be happy to see them develop.  Teacher unions among others will be the least happiest to see it’s arrival.  Because of this, it will be phased in, starting with the courseware builder and distribution system, and later followed by the official record keeping system and various groups providing inputs. 
 
Futurist.com predicts home schoolers and foreign students as being some of the earliest adopters, followed by private schools and charter schools, and later public schools.  Initially these courses will be used to supplement traditional classroom-based courses, but will later develop into a complete learning curriculum.

I predict that open source education – think wikiversity – will become the next big thing.

P.S. - Right now the most educated country is Canada.

“Education is now the number one economic priority in today's global economy.”  - John Naisbitt, Author of Megatrends


Future of the World:
More powerful than loyalty to your country will be loyalty to your products.  The world will form colonies and become a techno-nation state.
1.    virtual communities – no land involved
2.    membership will be voluntary
3.    control over an economic domain
4.    large associations will evolve into much more powerful influences

"Sometime between 2010 and 2020 it will become clear that human beings are no longer the smartest things on earth. This will be profoundly disturbing for many." - Glen Hiemstra - Futurist.Com


Future of Web Development:
FaceySpacey dominates the industry, people scream uncontrollably. (of course. ;) 

"The age of reason has ended, and now we must organize around chaos." - Watts Wacker - CEO and Futurist, First Matter

-Anthony





Futurist Thomas Frey:

http://www.davinciinstitute.com/speakers.php

Futurist.com:
http://www.futurist.com

View Reports, Data & More regarding Internet Usage & Online Trends:
http://www.pewinternet.org/

The Human Connectedness research group: Chapter X
DESIGNING DISPLAYS FOR HUMAN CONNECTEDNESS:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/hc/publications/Agamanolis03Displays.pdf.

10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/extinction/index.html

Future of the Internet:
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/pip_future_of_internet.pdf.

The Future of Education:
http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=170

Search 2.0 – What’s Next?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/search_20_what_is_next.php