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February 1, 2008

The future tech I want is not what they'll try to sell me

Thinking About Tomorrow. "We look ahead 10 years, and imagine a whole different world." The free section of WSJ surveys experts about what's in the tech pipeline and heading at us.

Problem is, there is absolutely nothing appealing to me in the oddly disconnected world described in the lead essay by reporter Mylene Mangalindan:

Shoppers will still be greeted at Wal-Mart, but a computer may be the one saying hello -- and reminding them of what they bought on their last visit.

Why would I want to know what I bought last time, anywhere? I already have it. I'm thinking about what I came for this time, and where it is. Amazon is still treating me as the composite of everyone I bought Christmas gifts for, and recommending nothing I would want for myself. (SpongeBob Scare Your Pants Boxer Shorts for men!)

Friends will still send each other birth and wedding announcements, but the process will be virtually automated, thanks to alerts on social-networking sites.

Automated greetings turn being thoughtful into soulless spam -- "Send this card to everyone in my address book on their birthdays." And the message is "I'm too busy to actually celebrate your birthday, whenever it is."

A lot of this future seems like more inbox clutter -- you'll hear from your appliances and printers hungry for ink.

But this one takes the cake:

As you drive around, for instance, you might get reviews of nearby restaurants automatically delivered to a screen in your car -- maybe even projected onto the windshield.

Just before you hit the pedestrian you can't see. Right.

I think the problem is that engineers figure out how to extend a technology and then look for a marketable use for it, rather than find elegant solutions to real inconveniences.

The prediction that "a cellphone, BlackBerry or digital-music player... might allow you to make purchases with the touch of a button instead of pulling out your wallet" seems a metaphor for all of it -- it makes extracting money from you effortless.

We sheepie take what they come up with and learn to like it. But what would you really like technology to do for you 10 years from now?

Here are some modest advances I'd like to see.

-- My car would know I'm going to work and would warn me when Route 95 is a parking lot before I get on the entrance ramp. And -- the elegant twist -- the device should be an inexpensive little accessory you can stick on the dashboard of any old clunker.

-- An appliance that looks like a microwave would function as a small refrigerator until it heats to 350 degrees as I leave work and cooks the casserole I left there in the morning. It would also cool or freeze hot things as quickly as a microwave thaws and cooks them.

-- A truly universal TV (etc.) remote control that would automatically integrate all my components, ask me some questions about what I want to control manually -- and it would ask me what text should display on its LCD "buttons" so I know what they all do.

-- If I'm looking for a product, I could search local stores' inventories and instantly learn who carries it (in my size, if applicable) and at what price. Similarly, a search agent that alerts me when lobster and ribeyes and fresh cherries go on sale, and where. My searches would represent a customer willing to buy; savvy businesses eager to sell should take note.

-- Let me scan my feet at any shoestore periodically, and email the data to me. I store that profile on the Web and match it to the shape of shoes I buy online. Pressure points should be obvious. If the shoes fits the scanned shapes well, they should have a leg up on comfort over blind purchases.

- When I make these purchases online from stores that would be an inconvenient drive, give me the free option of picking up my orders a few hours later at a central delivery center in my neighborhood. (This eliminates the considerable extra expense of delivery to a million different doors.)

- Let me watch any prerecorded TV show when I want to, everything on demand, without having to schedule a recording when it's broadcast. Similarly, the giant jukebox -- any song anytime, anywhere, for anybody. All music "niche channels" are somebody else's taste.

-- Much better interfaces between humans and computers. I'm tired of navigating directories. Tell your computer in natural language what you want, and it's smart enough to do it.

- Universal free Internet access so we're all able to participate in the wired future. The Rhode Island Wireless Innovation Networks (RI-WINs) aims to blanket the state with seamless mobile Internet access via WiMax. (Think of it as WiFi on steroids -- its range is 31 miles.) The first pilot users were largely government agencies, emergency and social services, businesses and educational institutions.

Let everybody use it, teach everybody how. (Those smart interfaces will come in handy -- they'll sharply flatten the learning curve.) Anybody with a TV could use the buttons on that smart remote to operate Web TVs with interfaces that aren't LAME. (The first emails from customers of the badly crippled early Web TV were in all caps.)

Wouldn't you think retailers would support a technology that creates a statewide market everybody shops at, and that brings customers to their virtual doors, to boot?

These are the first things that came to my mind tonight.

You'll have better ideas -- please add them in comments.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:02 AM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: karen anne on February 3, 2008 4:31 PM