James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » Waterstons' executive consultant, Alistair McLeod, debates where technology will take us...
I was watching BBC Four's new series called âÂÂVisions of the Futureâ the other night and it got me pondering about what an exciting time we live in, and what the future will hold for us in the next twenty or so years. It may not feel like it, but we are really only at the start of the information revolution, and we still have some way to go before we can say that information is truly available on-demand wherever we are. The Internet is the greatest biggest contributing factor to the information age, and if somebody told me when I was child in the seventies that we would be able to download music, news, information, and chat with people on the other side of the planet I would not have believed it would be possible, yet we now all take it for granted.
So what does the future hold? I think the acceleration of the internet will continue with people finding even more diverse uses for it. Facebook and MySpace sites are becoming increasingly more popular and are not the exclusive domain of teenagers anymore. Friends and ex work colleagues stay in touch so easily (how many times have you lost touch with somebody because making that phone call is that bit more difficult?), and with future enhances in video imaging and increasingly faster bandwidth, communications will continue to improve. Physical location will be become irrelevant.
As for Robots and flying cars? The Honda ASIMO robot is certainly impressive but they are still seen as a toy, something to entertain us, not something that has a useful function. I no doubt imagine one day in the not too distant future that will change, but for now the focus will continue to be on how we can share information more easily, faster and with the right people.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »