What bright idea will hatch next?
By CHRISTINA DYRNESS, THE NEWS & OBSERVER OF RALEIGH, N.C.
newsobserver.com
(News & Observer) - With New Year's Eve relegated to the ranks of - perhaps hazy - memory, the day has dawned on a new year, prime time for pundit pontification about what the next 364 days will bring.
Although innovation has cooled some since the popping of the technology bubble, there still will be new gadgets to salivate over, issues to debate and trends to be embraced this year.
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Marshall Brain, founder of the popular techie Web site HowStuffWorks.com, predicts that 2003 will be the year that robotics begins to work its way into the mainstream, with automatic lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners. "Those sound mundane but they have pretty wide appeal," Brain says. He is also watching the merging of technologies around the house: the convergence of computers and televisions, the Internet and home stereos, and the DVD player that records and plays MP3 files. Coupled with the increasing popularity of fast broadband Internet service, many of the entertainment options that have been talked about for years - television via the Web, music and video on demand, etc. - are becoming possible and practical.
But all innovations have their stumbling blocks, Brain says. Really cool robotics will have to wait for the computing power to give the machines a closer approximation of human sight. And copyright issues have taken their toll on the proliferation of digital entertainment content, as evinced by the death of Napster.
And in terms of the broader landscape of innovation, Brain says that in some ways it has started to slow. "A lot of stuff, if you think about it, has been figured out," he says.
Ten years ago, for instance, digital photography didn't exist. Now it's so ubiquitous that it's been booted off new trend lists.
"Everything that was going to be converted to digital has been converted," Brain says. "I don't think newness is as easy as conversion. You'll see a lot of merging of technologies - like a GPS [global positioning system] with a digital camera. But I don't think it's as easy to invent as it is to convert."
But whether it's pure innovation, or just tech-related stuff that requires attention, there will be plenty to keep tabs on in 2003.
With the help of Brain and other tech-minded folks, The News & Observer assembled the following list of trends to watch this year.
Spam - it's bad
Wondering why spam, the scourge of unwanted e-mail that has been plaguing virtual in-boxes for years, is turning up on a trends to watch for 2003 list? Consider the following: These days, about 40 percent of all e-mail traffic is spam, up from 10 percent at the beginning of 2002, according to Brightmail, an anti-spam service provider in San Francisco.
Consumers and companies are busy buying and downloading spam-filtering software to slow the flood, but nearly everyone agrees that something has got to give.
Brian Smithwick, a systems administrator for Portbridge Internet, an Internet service provider in Cary, N.C., says his organization blocked 71,000 connections on Christmas Day - each connection could have been sending one e-mail message or thousands - from known spammers. But it by no means takes care of all spam for Portbridge's 5,500 customers.
"This will block mail coming from known spammers," Smithwick says. But spammers work quickly to find new e-mail addresses to send from. "Until it gets on [the known spammers] list, we don't know to block it. Our users are open to getting whacked by that."
In Smithwick's eyes, it's not unlike an arms race. ISPs and consumers keep coming up with ways to thwart spam, and spammers find a way to work around it. Many folks say that this will likely be the year that the federal government steps in to help with some anti-spam legislation that puts some teeth into laws for prosecuting spammers.
Smithwick put it this way: "That will slow the arms race a bit. That brings some pretty heavy artillery in."
Blogging - it's big
Blogs have also been around for a year or more, but watch them in 2003.
A hybrid word formed from "Web logs," blogs in noun form are public, online diaries where people post musings, links and information. In verb form, to blog is to partake in such activity, pontificating on the nuances of a particular software code or the latest in foreign policy maneuvers by the Bush administration.
At the close of 2002, blogs earned their chops in the matter of Sen. Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican and erstwhile majority leader. While the national press was slow to pick up on Lott's comments in support of Strom Thurmond's segregationist politics, Web logs - specifically sites such as www.talkingpointsmemo.com and www.instapundit.com - were credited with blaring the story until others took notice.
Sam Ruby, a senior technical staff member in IBM's software division, has been a blogger for the last year. His Web log, kept at www.intertwingly.net/blog, discusses mostly software developer issues such as the latest languages and standards.
Ruby isn't out to change national politics. "By writing my thoughts down, it helps me to clarify them," he says. "And I am watching who is watching me. It's been a great way to make friends across the country and around the world. It's just been a blast."
Ruby and other local bloggers meet regularly for lunch, where Ruby reports the conversation is often Dilbert-esque sketches of their respective workplaces. At their last meeting, a guy drove down from Washington to join them.
Blogging is burgeoning. Pyra, which makes Blogger (www.blogger.com), a popular online tool for Web logs, reports close to 990,000 registered users, up from 343,000 a year ago. Web log issues to watch in 2003 include the application of publishing law to Web logs and more examples of the power of public blogging.
WiFi - it's growing
A few years ago when wireless networks were still emerging, pundits tossed around two standards, the clumsily named 802.11, the same frequency used by microwaves and cordless phones, and Bluetooth, a standard backed by the likes of IBM, Ericsson and Nokia.
In 2002, 802.11 - now more commonly called WiFi, short for wireless fidelity - took a decided lead in terms of hot spots: places where computer users with the proper receivers can tap into high-speed Internet connections without cables or wires. WiFi hardware, which is remarkably cheap - about $200 for the home networking equipment and $50 for the user's computer card - and relatively easy to install, is also a popular choice for home and office users who want to set up a wireless network for a group of computer users.
In early December, a joint venture between IBM, AT&T and Intel announced it would set up hot spots across the country in hotels, universities and other buildings. The service, which can be resold to individuals or companies, will begin appearing this year. IDC, a Framingham, Mass., research firm, predicts sales of Wi-Fi cards will increase from 6.5 million cards in 2001 to 31.2 million cards in 2006.
"The WiFi stuff is really coming on like gangbusters," says Jim Clary, co-founder and CEO of Mi-Co, a handwriting capture software company that works with a variety of wireless applications. Clary has been watching the two wireless networking standards grow. "Bluetooth has been much slower."
Although much has been written about wireless home networking, Clary says, he is also seeing WiFi networks in places such as offices, hospitals and law enforcement centers.
Alan Clegg, a network security consultant with tech services firm HCS Systems in Garner, N.C. spent months mapping WiFi hot spots in the Raleigh/Durham area and posted the results on his Web site alan.clegg.com. Clegg says what businesses and home wireless network users often forget is security. A network without encryption technology is vulnerable to anyone passing by with a WiFi-enabled laptop, who could then use the network for nefarious Internet activity.
"It's terrifying," Clegg says. "If I wanted free Internet access, it's easy to find in Cary."
Online games
Last year the big story for the interactive game industry was how the new game consoles were stacking up, but 2003 is bringing in a new field of competition: the Internet.
In August, PlayStation 2 began selling a network adapter to connect the console to the Internet for interactive game play. In November, Microsoft launched Xbox Live, an online subscription service allowing Xbox users to play games over the Internet. Nintendo's Game Cube will catch up with its own Internet service early this year. In addition, popular Internet-enabled PC games, such as The Sims Online, are furthering the push of gaming onto the Web.
"Online probably caught everybody by surprise by how popular it is," says Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games, whose Unreal Championship game can be played online with Xbox.
Rein says he loves sitting on his own couch playing online with his friend in Vancouver, British Columbia. With Xbox Live's voice communication feature, they can chat as if they were sitting in the same room. Rein pooh-poohs analysts who say that online games don't have a business model. "It's not a business, it's a feature of the game," Rein says. "It's what makes the game sell."
HowStuffWork's Marshall Brain suggests that the online technology may have applications beyond just games.
"What are the implications of millions of people meeting in artificial worlds over the network?" Brain asks. "Right now, it's only sucking in the gaming audience. When it starts to do some other things, it will start sucking in everybody just like the Internet did."
Wireless gadgets
When it comes to cell phones, it's been a wireless world for many consumers for several years. But in 2003, things will start to get interesting with new handsets that use high-speed networks coming out with even more capabilities. At Christmas, the big story was phones with digital cameras. But the addition of new features on wireless phones isn't likely to stop there.
Jud Bowman, co-founder and CEO of Pinpoint Networks in Cary, works with wireless companies around the world, selling software to help them put more data services in customer handsets.
"In Japan, people upgrade their phones every six to 12 months. They're a device-loving country," Bowman says. "In the U.S., the trends have been 18 months to two years behind."
In 2001, Japan had Internet-enabled and picture-taking phones; in Europe they came in 2002. They've just now hit the United States. Bowman points out that the color phones, where the screen looks like a smaller version of a laptop or desktop computer, are enabled by the Java programming language to play an expanded role: Web-surfing device, personal digital assistant and the like. But in the past the color-screen phones have been expensive.
"A lot of this is about the price point, and getting the prices down to where the average price of these phones is something that the average person can afford," Bowman says.
Suzanne Cross, product marketing manager with mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson in Raleigh, predicts prices will come down on the color-screen phones in 2003.
And then high-speed data services - such as downloading games and sending multimedia messages - will become more prevalent. In other words: not your father's cell phone.
Open-source software
With Red Hat in Raleigh/Durham's back yard, folks here have had a good look at the growth of the open-source Linux operating system. Many have watched as more and more big businesses - with names such as Amazon.com, J.P. Morgan Chase and General Electric - have started using Linux and the tech-curious have tried the software on their home computers.
But open-source software, where the source code that makes the software work is freely available for tweaking, is much bigger than Linux. The world will continue to see its examples in 2003.
"It's just growing and growing," says blogger Sam Ruby, who is also vice president of the Apache Software Foundation. Apache, an open-source software, is by far the most popular choice that people use to put their Web pages on the Internet. "Whether or not you're an open-source person, it's what you use."
At IBM, where Ruby works, there are a number of open-source projects going on. The Web site SourceForge (www.sourceforge.net) keeps tabs on thousands more.
Up in Massachusetts, for example, Mitch Kapor, the man behind the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, is spending millions of his own money on an open-source project to build software to compete with Microsoft's Outlook software. The very idea baffles financial analysts, but many techies argue: If the software is free and better than the alternative, why wouldn't it spread like wildfire?
Dan Kusnetsky, a senior analyst with tech research firm IDC, says open-source software won't officially enter the mainstream until 2005, when it will start bringing down the price of software and challenging the development resources of software giants such as Microsoft. "It's not likely to be a large flash," Kusnetsky says. "But we're seeing the revolution happening."
Christina Dyrness can be reached at cdyrness@newsobserver.com. |
