Seven Tech Trends From 2015

Walt Mossberg has published a list of seven tech trends from 2015 that is definitely worth reading. I think most of his observations are pretty spot on, what do you think?

Tech journalists, enthusiasts and investors are always waiting for The Next Big Thing, the compelling new device, app or service that will captivate — and change — the world. Like Google search, or the iPhone, or the Kindle, or Facebook. But nothing like that happened in 2015. It wasn’t for lack of trying. All the big tech companies, and some small ones too, brought out new things and, in my reviews, I liked some and not others. Some sold well, others flopped.

The internet of things need to be killed with fire

Uvaman said:

The internet of things need to be killed with fire

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The name is crappy but the concept is sound ... eventually we should have the fully automated and connected homes of the Jetsons, Martian Chronicles, and other Sci Fi landscapes

kbrickley said:

The name is crappy but the concept is sound ... eventually we should have the fully automated and connected homes of the Jetsons, Martian Chronicles, and other Sci Fi landscapes

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Yes and no. The biggest thing with me is who gets the data. My refrigerator telling me my milk is old is fine. Letting Samsung know my milk is old is not. Also I'm sick of vendors trying to lock shit down (look at the recent Philips hue debacle). My Samsung refrigerator should talk to my whirlpool freezer.

To me, the internet of things sounds like a solution to a problem that we never really had.

/usr/sbin said:

Yes and no. The biggest thing with me is who gets the data. My refrigerator telling me my milk is old is fine. Letting Samsung know my milk is old is not. Also I'm sick of vendors trying to lock shit down (look at the recent Philips hue debacle). My Samsung refrigerator should talk to my whirlpool freezer.

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I don't think smart appliances will end up being what we expect. When we (humans) imagine cool new things that we can't create immediately (within a few years) we are often slow to realize when our idea has been superseded by other technologies.

For instance, when the internet was young we imagined a refrigerator that can tell us what food we have and what we need, or when things have gone bad. And 20 years ago that made sense based on the technology we had and our expectations for the near future. But it has now been a couple decades, and we don't really have what we imagined yet, but we still imagine it functioning the effectively the same way. But when you really think about it, having a refrigerator that knows what you put into it is very limited and super hard to implement. Probably the only way a refrigerator can know what you put into it (without manual input or barcode scanning by humans) is to have a camera record everything you put into it and then have that camera connected to a very powerful image identification computer via the internet. How many cameras do you need though to record everything coming in and out at every level? At least 3, but for most refrigerators it would probably be 6 or more. Then there is the issue of knowing how much of something is left if it is in opaque container. The only solution for that is the ability to weigh everything as you set it down. That means probably at least 2-dozen weight sensors and the challenge of keeping them accurate. It just isn't realistic.

What makes far more sense is to have a few high-res cameras in your kitchen, pantry, and dining areas. These would work the same way as the refrigerator cameras, except they would tell you about all the food in your home, not just what is in the refrigerator. In most homes 6 cameras would be more than enough for this purpose, and there is no need for scales either because if you fill a 12oz glass 2/3rds of the way with milk then they know you used about 8oz of milk and so the system doesn't need to weigh anything. This system would also have the advantage of knowing what you are using when cooking, and so can figure out what you just cooked and thus know what is in the leftovers container you put in the refrigerator, which the refrigerator would not have been able to do.

Also, just forget about your concerns about who has what data of yours, because in the future the volume of data that is out there on everyone will be so ridiculous that it will cease to be a real concern. It is kind of like how in a town of 1000 anonymity is impossible no matter what you do, and at minimum a few dozen people will know quite a bit about your life. Meanwhile in a city of 100,000 you can put almost no effort into disappearing and it would be a miracle if 5 people really knew anything about you. The other thing that people will realize and accept is that 99.9999% of the time companies don't give a fark who you are. They aggregate most data and what they keep specific to you is never being viewed by an actual human so nothing bad will happen (assuming it isn't stolen of course).

Meh, nothing really different.

kbrickley said:

The name is crappy but the concept is sound ... eventually we should have the fully automated and connected homes of the Jetsons, Martian Chronicles, and other Sci Fi landscapes

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This will be a good idea when security is a primary focus and not an afterthought solved with free credit reports for a year.

I don't need my refrigerator to keep track of what I shove in it.
I don't need it to talk to my freezer.

I just need it to keep my food cold, and not break down in a few years because the manufacture decided to save 75 cent by using a marginal part.

About the only reason I could see for connecting it to the internet, is so it could send me an alert if it's not working properly. (I'd say send me an alert if the power is out, but if the power is out, so is my internet)

nutzo said:

I don't need my refrigerator to keep track of what I shove in it.
I don't need it to talk to my freezer.

I just need it to keep my food cold, and not break down in a few years because the manufacture decided to save 75 cent by using a marginal part.

About the only reason I could see for connecting it to the internet, is so it could send me an alert if it's not working properly. (I'd say send me an alert if the power is out, but if the power is out, so is my internet)

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TL:dR - GET OFF MY LAWN ... times change ... eventually we will have robots or robot like inventions doing most of our household chores and the interconnected nature will be needed for Cogsworth to keep everything running

Well, the smart phone is not the most important computer in my life. I pretty much just use it as a phone, calculator and alarm clock. I've got desktops with multiple large screen monitors at home and at work so why would I want to compute with my smart phone. Heck, I turn it off when I get home from work.

cocheese256 said:

To me, the internet of things sounds like a solution to a problem that we never really had.

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A lot of technology is that way. Modern convenience. We do things to make our lives easier.

IoT is a shitty name, though.

I just wish I was in control of my data. I was looking at a home automation server, but finding things that interface with it (Vera) are limited. So, those are the devices I'm looking at. The other "smart" devices might as well be rocks when using a more open piece of hardware.

Do I NEED it? No, of course not. We don't NEED a lot of the shit we have these days. It's nice to have, fun, and can serve a useful purpose.

cocheese256 said:

To me, the internet of things sounds like a solution to a problem that we never really had.

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There was always this problem of low access to information about things and services, especially in rural areas. Internet is major economy facilitator.