It’s been about 1.5 years since I asked a few questions in my Google Lifestyle post:
So the question is, what is waiting a few more years down the line? Maybe I won’t be able to imagine life before my documents sat in a magic Writely cloud where I could get to them from anywhere? Will cell phones evolve straight to internet-connected computers with an always-on broadband connection? Will people record their whole lives, because storage for audio and video will be so cheap?
Let’s break it down:
“Maybe I won’t be able to imagine life before my documents sat in a magic Writely cloud where I could get to them from anywhere?”
The whole notion of storing your data in the cloud is really getting a ton of attention lately. Scoble recently said it better than I could:
I’m trying to get everything I do online because I want freedom from my computer.
What do I mean about that?
Well, what if my computer gets stolen? I don’t want any data on it.
What happens if Linux comes out with a Macintosh killer? Or if I decide to get a Windows computer again (I’m currently using a Dell Tablet PC because they sent me one to try out). I want to just load one thing: Firefox and go to work. Right now I’m switching between my Dell and my Mac without any problems at all because almost everything I do now is in the browser.
Earlier today my Windows XP computer halted with no warning whatsoever. That’s been happening more and more in the last few weeks. I think it’s because my laptop is overheating, but the net result is that I don’t want to store anything important on my laptop. And I don’t really need to. My email, calendar, bookmarks, documents, and feeds are all in the cloud. Of course my blog is too. If my laptop died tomorrow, I’d be a little bit bummed, but I could hop onto any other computer and get a full day’s work done.
“Will cell phones evolve straight to internet-connected computers with an always-on broadband connection?”
Hello, iPhone? The iPhone isn’t as fast as some other phones, but it’s still fast enough for me to consider it a broadband connection. I use my iPhone all the time to browse the web when I’m stuck in a line.
“Will people record their whole lives, because storage for audio and video will be so cheap?”
That post was from September 20th, 2006. Just as an example, Justin.tv, a popular “lifecasting” service, was founded on October 10, 2006. ‘Nuff said. To be fair, the writing has been on the wall about this one since at least the MyLifeBits project. I think lots of people will eventually record everything they hear/see.
So I’ll say that I did okay on these predictions, even though they were fairly straightforward in hindsight.
