Daily Cup of Geek

Rather than give my list of Top 10 Start-ups to Watch in 2008, I’ve been thinking about the importance of “going green” and technological innovation. It’s already 2008 — but what about 2018? 2028? My post on Black Friday’s post-Thanksgiving sales mentioned e-waste and our obsession with having the latest gadgets. How are we going to solve the issue of sustainability? Without that, all of our technological innovation won’t help us in the end.

I kicked off my second day at CES drinking coffee and watching coverage of the conference in my hotel room. One of the things that was brought up was increased storage capacity. Everyone is waiting for their terabyte iPhone. This got me thinking… why would I need a terabyte iPhone? Yeah, the concept is cool. I’ll admit that. I would love to have that kind of storage space at my finger tips wherever I go.

But here’s how I see it… there are two keys to the future of technology and sustainability:

1. global high speed mobile access
2. near bulletproof data security

If we can achieve those, why would I need to buy the new terabyte iPhone? Online, I could have 10 terabytes worth of data stored securely, and access it as quickly as if I had it on the device itself. Upgrade my TiVo? Maybe the software, but why do I need more storage space when I can just stream everything from my ‘net connection and storage?

One great example of how this is already happening is Sling Media. One of my favorites from CES this year, Sling Media offers up the Sling Box. One flat fee for the box itself, and you can now stream TV from your home wherever you are in the world (on your computer, mobile device, etc.).

But going back to the “terabyte iPhone” example. What I want is pretty simple, I think, and we’re already headed in the right direction.

Global Coverage / Internet Access

Wifi mesh networks are cropping up in third-world countries, which is opening up doors to information and enabling mobility of that information that didn’t exist before. The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program is using the same idea with the laptop’s networking capabilities.

With other programs, such as FON, user-based hotspots (my apartment is one!) are cropping up in cities, giving people an alternative to T-Mobile Hotspots and others that charge outrageous fees for access.

WiMAX is another contribution in this area, too.

Of course, just access isn’t enough. It needs to be fast enough to access large amounts of data very quickly. Third world countries are a great example of this right now. Many are gaining internet access, but their connection speeds are still in the “dark ages”. They wouldn’t be able to use YouTube, the iTunes store, have a video chat over Skype with friends and family overseas, or even have more than a handful of students accessing MIT’s OpenCourseWare.

But with high speed global access available, and with a price tag that everyone can afford (for example, I will pay an extra $10 a month at my “home base” if it means supporting high speed global access somewhere like Uganda), we can open up opportunities in education and technological innovation that were never possible before.

Online Storage and Data Security

This area is a little more tricky. The storage part is easy — just look at Google. Massive amounts of storage for pretty much anything are available for free, and even more storage is available for nominal fees. The real challenge here is trust. How much do we trust Google? Zoho? Mint? What about our banks, mobile companies, etc.?

I’m an early adopter and take risks. Calculated risks, but still risks. I have, more or less, turned my life over to Google. I use online banking (why would I ever go in a bank again?) and money management. I install new apps constantly. I have put a certain level of trust into security companies, computer security software, etc. We all trust the locks on our doors will keep people out afterall, right?

But I also understand the vulnerabilities and how much farther we have to go in security in general, and know that as long as there are people who want to hack that security (digitally or physically), they will find a way eventually. The trick is to at least keep up with them, if not one step ahead.

If the online world can continue to gain society’s trust in online data security, I think more people will be inclined to use a secure online storage “center”. I don’t have to worry about my harddrive crashing, or my laptop getting destroyed in a fire or flood… because, for example, Google has it locked up for me.

Say I lost my phone on a flight from Sydney to Moscow. I want to be able to go to a store, buy a new phone (in my mind, something more along the lines of a “data access device”). But I wouldn’t even need to “sync up” or “download” anything — just log-in.

Of course, there is the separate issue of passwords, password security, and how we need to change the way we treat that level of security (for example, I use alpha numeric passwords of varying and significant length). But I’ll tackle that another time.

Other Important Things to Consider

The ability to take online apps, data, etc., temporarily “offline” with you is also going to be important. Google Gears has started us in the right direction with this already. Remember the Milk, an online to-do list, was one of the first to enable Google Gears, giving users the ability to update and manage their tasks online, then go offline and continue to update the information they had grabbed prior to disconnecting. Of course, a data sync is required when you get back on the grid — but this flexibility is key in weening society off of the concept of desktop applications being the end-all-be-all.

Upgrading our gadgets will need to become less of a physical upgrade (meaning we need to hit a certain point for battery life and screen quality, among other things), and move to purely software upgrades. We’re still a ways off, but the iPhone and other touch-sensitive devices are our best bet because of the flexibility they’ve introduced.

I could probably go on and on, because this subject is thesis worthy, but I’ve more than made my point.

So while I am excited about 2008 and the new hardware and software I’ve seen (at CES and on the blogs), I’m more excited about where we could be headed. How quickly we can get there — whether it will be 2018 or 2028 — will be the challenge. Meanwhile, I’ll try to be happy with wifi coverage in the major cities and the eventual terabyte iPhone.

This entry was posted by Bronwyn Lewis, on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 10:57 am and is filed under consumerism, green, mobile, privacy, security, streaming, sustainability, technology, upgrade. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.