On the hardware/software front, these two are what I am watching this year:
I like Android, open-source and Google, and I want my machines to compute for me and access data and information on-the-go.
In addition, when the service is ready, I will communicate worldwide using Google Voice through it, doing away with the hefty charges Traditional Telcos pass onto the consumer.
Apple’s tablet or as some say ‘tablets’.
It is rumoured that one tablet will be sold as an eBook reader and another one as a general-purpose computer. Personally, I wish that Apple just gives us a multi-touch general-purpose computer, and I prefer Snow Leopard 64-bit rather than the iPhone O.S.
In any case, Google and Apple will clash on several fronts as I detail in a previous post.
I like the following design prototype, and if anybody can make it work like this, it is Apple.
As for web services, the following are going to be instrumental in the coming years’ socio-cultural and technological evolution:
Augmented Reality
Applications like Layar and Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera will pave the way for location-aware applications and services. For these, your Internet mobile devices need a camera, GPS, a magnetometer or compass as well as an accelerometer. I like Google Goggles too.
The Internet of Things
Pachube is another web service and technology I find fascinating after reading Richard McManus’s posts about it on ReadWriteWeb.
A lot of the benefits will be made through mobile computing devices and smart phones.
Read:
Morgan Stanley/Mary Meeker’s Mobile Internet Report.
Mobile computing is ramping up faster than the Desktop Internet did, as there are 5 trends converging:
3G, Social Networking, Video, VOIP, Impressive Mobile Devices.
and
Fred Wilson’s areas of interest.
Augmented Human
This will be a trend for the next decade, a time like no other in history where technology empowers and augments Human capacities. This entails watching anything having to do with AI.
Any application or service which allow me to enhance aspects of my human life is going to fall in this category, like Networked-computing, Cloud-computing and Social Computing, and AI of course.
Augmented Human apps and services will exponentially increase society intelligence.
Web 3.0 or the Semantic web
I think that 2010 is the year where semantic applications and services become prominent and usable for the mainstream.
A key factor to overcome is the inertia of publishers to push structured Web data. The answer is to allow the infrastructure to do that automatically, e.g. your WordPress platform.
One service I am watching here is Thomson-Reuters’ Open-Calais.
Trading & Investment applications using one or more of the above.
I am especially excited by the prospects in systematic or algorithmic trading and analytics. In fact, I believe we should be doing a DOW theory 2.0 right now.
