Mobile Supercomputers

Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes the future of computing lies in smart mobile devices and data centers. "A billion people on the planet are carrying supercomputers in their hands," Schmidt says. "Now you think of them as mobile phones, but that's not what they really are. They're video cameras. They're GPS devices. They're powerful computers. They have powerful screens. They can do many, many different things." Schmidt says over the next few years mobile technology will continue to advance and consumers will be exposed to new applications that are unimaginable now. For example, Google's Android phone division is working on an application that can take pictures of bar codes, identify the corresponding product, and compare prices online. Another Android application can translate a picture of a menu written in a foreign language. Cloud computing will provide the computational muscle for many of these future services, which Schmidt says is probably the next big wave in computing. He also believes that computing will continue to bring major changes to our society. "We're going from a model where the information we had was pretty highly controlled by centralized media operatives to a world where most of our information will come from our friends, from our peers, from user-generated content," Schmidt says. "These changes are profound in the society of America, in the social life, and all the ways we live."

The Latest Technologies

Five new technologies are on their way that will give users unprecedented access to data thanks to new high-speed connections and user interfaces. First, USB 3.0 is a new standard that preserves backward compatibility by allowing older cables to plug into new jacks, but features an extra pin that boosts the data rate to 4.8 Gbps. USB 3.0, dubbed SuperSpeed by the USB Implementers Forum, can transfer a 30 GB video in just over a minute. Second, by 2012, two new wireless protocols--802.11ac and 802.11ad--should be able to provide over-the-air data transmissions of 1 Gbps or faster. The faster wireless data rate will enable users to stream multiple high-definition videos throughout a room or house. Third, the next wave of next-generation TVs will allow viewers to experience three-dimensional (3D) videos at home. 3D TVs are likely to rely on alternating left-eye and right-eye views for successive frames. Many HDTVs already operate at 120 Hz, so the ability to alternate left and right eye images far faster than the human eye can see is already available. This type of 3D viewing will require glasses that use rapid shutters to alternate the view to each eye, but TV manufacturers also are working on 3D sets that do not require glasses. Fourth, augmented reality in mobile devices will become increasingly popular as consumers expect to be able to receive information on any subject in any location. Researchers also are developing contact lenses capable of projecting images into someone's sight. Finally, HTML5 promises to do away with browser conformity issues and the need for audio, video, and interactive plug-ins. HTML5 will enable designers to create Web sites that work the same on every browser and give users a better and faster Web experience.

3M Jobs for I.T. Professionals in Asia-Pacific

Nearly three million jobs are expected to be created by the Asia-Pacific region's information technology (IT) industry by 2013, according to a new IDC study, which also projects 4.8 percent growth in IT spending each year for the next four years. "Innovation in technology will play a vital role in enabling new business opportunities and employment growth throughout Asia," says Microsoft's Emilio Umeoka. "IT will be a catalyst for the wider economic recovery, as companies take advantage of technology solutions to improve their cost base and service outcomes." The study involved the participation of more than 50 nations, and focused on IT's contribution to gross domestic product, IT job creation, software sector employment, formation of new companies, local IT spending, and tax revenues. The study predicts that 32,000 new businesses will be created by higher IT spending by 2013, with the majority of those companies being small and locally owned. Singapore's IT spending is expected to grow by almost 2 percent a year through 2013 and create approximately 17,000 new IT jobs. The study names cloud computing as the next major IT development area, and anticipates that the sector could generate close to $300 billion in net new business revenues to the Asia-Pacific region's economy by the end of 2013.

Robots in Education

Robots are increasingly becoming ubiquitous in education. The Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million contest to design a robot capable of traveling to the moon, is being envisioned for children by the X Prize Foundation, Google, Lego Systems, and National Instruments on MoonBots. The winner of the Google Lunar X prize can send his or her robot to the moon to gather information, photographs, and video footage to send back to Earth. Children can assemble robots that imitate the same tasks using a Lego Mindstorm kit. The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering has a Senior Capstone Program in Engineering (Scope) that asks students to work on a large engineering project that simulates the kind of problems they would tackle in the corporate world. Vision Robotics Corp (VRC) has asked the Scope group to help them design fruit-picking robots. The first robot finds the fruit, and the second picks it. The team of seniors designed an end effector that can select the fruit, and the device has been added to a working model of the fruit-picker. Researchers from Nanyang Polytechnic, Schmid Engineering, and Analog Devices--from Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.S., respectively--have put together a spider robot that can crawl into small places and across difficult surfaces. Equipped with six legs, the robot can move in any direction, either slowly with all six of its limbs or more quickly with just three. Scope director David Barrett says that robots are the new groundbreaking technology, in use today "in the military, in industries and the consumer level."

Open Web Education Alliance

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is creating the Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA), a new body designed to help ensure that educational institutions around the world are providing Web professionals and information technology graduates with the skills the industry needs. OWEA co-chair John Allsopp says students might learn things that are relevant to their role in the industry, but the fast-evolving nature of the Web often requires Web practitioners to teach themselves new skills. "The goal is to create a sustainable organization to promote best practices in education for Web professionals, working to both develop curricula itself and promote this within universities, colleges, private education providers, and inside large organizations," Allsopp says. "There's a strong belief within the industry that something like this is really needed and we are currently investigating different models of sustainability for the organization." OWEA, which is expected to launch in 2010, is preparing a white paper on its operational plans for the W3C. A dozen international Web professionals are involved with OWEA, which also is backed by Microsoft, Adobe, and Opera Software.

Wimax: City-Wide Wireless Service

Cities will be transformed by WiMax, smart grids, social networks, and other emerging technologies, once they are cohesively integrated. WiMax is seen as a critical tool for supporting city-wide wireless services. WiMax offers more ubiquitous access than Wi-Fi, because WiMax is available throughout a given area while Wi-Fi hot spots require users to search for them. The notion of the smart grid is oriented around the idea of using electricity when it is available at low cost rather than at peak periods, and the integration of renewable energy sources into the grid via two-way communication between utility companies and the businesses and individuals who use their power. There might be a central command center for overseeing and adjusting power usage and for delivering information technology (IT) services through WiMax, but the actual IT operation could reside in the computing cloud rather than in the city's data center. Social networking technology also is being tapped to provide online services through which citizens can keep up with local developments and comment on neighborhood issues. For example, Dublin, Ohio, uses networking software to operate a portal where government officials can post blogs, engage in dialogue via instant messaging, and share documents. Dublin plans to make the private network accessible to all citizens over the next several months.

LifeLogging

Pioneering Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been recording and storing virtually every aspect of his daily life in an effort to build a searchable electronic memory for everyone, and he speculates that increasing numbers of people will be doing the same in the future. He envisions the practice of lifelogging as the logical next step up from social networking. The cell phone is already a rudimentary instrument for lifelogging, and support of the practice is increasing as phones add more features to record daily activities. Concurrent with this trend is the development of specialized devices and Web services geared toward lifelogging enthusiasts. For example, Zeo is a sleep-monitoring gadget that maps out the patterns and quality of each night's sleep, while an accompanying Web service helps users optimize their sleep habits. Livescribe, meanwhile, is a digital pen that converts notes and sketches into image files and records the sound of conversations, lectures, and conferences. Analyst Esther Dyson forecasts that markets will open for software to "extract order and meaning from the chaos of proliferating data."