The future still seems a long way off

[READ TIME: 8 mins inc video]

Back in 2010 I wrote a blog about the the transformational shift caused by cloud, social, mobile and big data.  That was over 4 years ago. It is still very relevant, and worth a read.

But in that blog I put a link to a Microsoft video which portrayed the future. The notes to the video said that most of the technology shown was already in existence, just not at scale and affordable. Sadly the video is no longer available as it has been replaced by the video below which was uploaded in October 2011. But this new video is not really much different from the earlier one in terms of the concepts. It is a refinement on the earlier video, not a radical change. In fact is it is pretty limited in its vision. No driverless cars. No solar powered roadways (fantastic video at bottom of blog) No automated assistants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0#t=278

But it is worth considering how many of the “technology promises” in 2011 are here today? The future seems no closer. Not that more technology means happier people. Sure, there are new technology products launched everyday. But how many of them really make a difference to the quality of our lives? I recently overhead one person complaining about Twitter and the future:

“We were promised flying cars. All we got was 140 characters”

 

SOLAR FREAKIN’ ROADWAYS