Okay, so at the end of the last decade (which was, y’know, six days ago), I did a run-down of the best bits of 2009, and touched a bit upon the first decade of the third millennium, as a whole. The big thing in that decade, I think, was the mass market uptake of mobile phones, with the Nokia 3210 (which was technically released too early to be included in the phrase ‘last decade’, but what the hell) leading the charge. Now, though, an enterprising chap has gone round and asked a load of commentators (a list of people that doesn’t include me, but then, I’m a pleb) what the next decade will bring.
And here’s what they say (and yes, I’m embedding to try embedding something other than a Youtube video on here):
In short, lots of things. Er, not the most useful conclusion I’ve ever come to, that, so maybe I’d best expand it a bit, for anyone who can’t be bothered to read the slideshow…
Well, augmented reality gets a mention a couple of times, with people seemingly torn between it being the next big thing, or the next big white elephant that no-one’s actually that bothered about. The whole privacy issue gets mentioned a few times, as well, which seems oddly appropriate since today I’ve also blogged about the Nexus One, the phone touted by Google as the best thing ever, being unveiled (I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions from lumping those two things together).
Oh, and NFC (Near-Field Communications) gets mentioned as well, although I’m not convinced people will actually use that as much as commentators think. Sure, the camera is now ubiquitous on mobile phones, but the appeal of that is much more immediately obvious than that of, er, the wireless communications method found in Oyster Cards. However, I don’t doubt we’ll see it on more and more phones.
And, of course, there’s the big conclusion, which seems to be obvious: mobile phones will become more and more important, and for many, will become the only way they access the internet. Personally, I’m not yet convinced it’ll signal the end of the desktop computer, but time will tell…
And just for good measure, I’m going to chuck my own prediction in. Just like we’ve always done in the past, I reckon we’ll continue to see today’s ’superphones’ (like the Nexus One and the HTD HD2) become tomorrow’s entry-level phones. It’s been happening for ten years, I can’t see that trend stopping any time soon…
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