I recently read an article in which Mark Zuckerberg gave predictions about the next decade. I really like the topic of forecasts, I myself try to think in this vein. So, this article contains his words that every decade there is a change in the technological platform. In the 90s it was a personal computer, in the zero years the Internet, and in the 10s a smartphone. In the 20s, he expects to see virtual reality as such a platform. And with this, if I can agree, it is only in part. And that's whyβ¦
A person wearing virtual reality glasses looks ridiculous. You can use them only at home and only in a familiar environment surrounded by understanding people. So purely virtual reality is not our choice. Here augmented reality is already more interesting. But more on that later.
Still, about the technological platform that I see in the 20s as the base. She will stand on 3 pillars:
- Voice control
- Biometric Authentication
- Distributed network of gadgets
Those voice assistants that are now crawling out of all the cracks will sooner or later lead to a qualitative leap in this area. It seems to me that we will come to some kind of engine that can work with voice messages and extensions for it for each area. And just like we are now writing bots for Telegram, we will write extensions for voice assistants. And conditional Alice will not only set an alarm, but will be able to order fast food under dictation in an application that provides an API for such a solution.
No matter how much they curse voice messages, they will soon be part of our lives. And messengers are gradually migrating into the technological chain of audio - text - translation - audio. Of course, the possibility of communication through text will remain, but will not be dominant. A new generation is growing up that doesn't like typing, but loves to chat. However, the format of messages in the messenger is more convenient than a direct telephone conversation, as it gives you the opportunity to take a break. By the way, βliteracyβ will totally increase on the same wave, since the computer will write, and it will make fewer mistakes.
But now working with voice messages is inconvenient. At a minimum, you need to pull out the smartphone, look at who the message is from, press the button to listen to it, record the answer into the smartphoneβs microphone and send it to the interlocutor. If the voice assistant reads such a message into the earpiece, it will be more convenient. And reading audio or voicing text is not so important, everything is one.
But listening is only half the battle. Some more points are added here. For example, security. If we want security, then access to the correspondence should be given only to a trusted user. And biometrics will help to identify it. And the easiest way is to make identification by voice when we reply to a message, for example.
The second side of security is privacy. If we communicate by voice, then those around us hear. And this is not always convenient and acceptable. And that's the problem. We will not grow to neural interfaces in this decade. So you need something that will allow you to distinguish between a whisper, articulation or lip movement and, based on this, form a text or sound message. And such neural networks already exist.
Another issue is the speakers, microphone, and/or camera. Pulling out a smartphone for each voice message, and just carrying it in your hand for this, will no longer be so convenient. Therefore, the camera, microphone and display of the smartphone should move to the area where the mouth, ears and eyes are located. hello google glass.
I will allow myself a small lyrical digression. Remember the Newton handheld or Tablet-PC? Very solid, but ahead of their time, tablet concepts. The tablet has grown to mass character only with the advent of the iPad. Many copies have been broken about this, I do not want to delve into the discussion, but I will rely on this analogy. It seems to me that the time for mass smart glasses has not yet come, but it is already near. Since there are points, but there is no mass character. For myself, I deduced such a criterion of mass character: when your entire social circle already has something and, finally, your parents also buy it. Then it's mass technology. The current glasses have too many childhood diseases that need to be eliminated. Without this, the path to the market is closed to them.
Whether it will be transparent glasses with a projector or opaque glasses with screens is not so important. It's just that opaque glasses look wild, which I wrote about at the beginning, so I don't think that the evolution of glasses will go that way.
Here augmented reality for such glasses is just a song. As soon as the algorithms and video processing are so fast and good that the projection on the visible world is flawless, then the turn of smart glasses will come. If the projection is not on the screen of glasses, but on the retina of the eye, then even better - applications like "show all women naked" and "show all data about a person" will give them popularity. Pure cyberpunk, and it's close.
Obviously, in a car, such glasses are contraindicated for the driver - what if they turn on and block the view? (Yes, yes. Drones will not yet become the dominant technology in the 20s, they will just need this decade to overclock.) Therefore, there will be a voice assistant and a projection system on the windshield. But otherwise, everything will be the same - the ability to listen and send messages, control your voice, etc. This assumes a single profile on all devices, we have already come to this. The difference will be only in transparent authorization by face, voice or retina.
A speaker with a voice assistant, as an element of a smart home, will also fit into this ecosystem, although it will not gain the same popularity as wearable gadgets. The same will happen with sports trackers and smartwatches - they will occupy their niche and stay in it. Actually, this has already happened.
In principle, the rise of any IT technology is determined by how convenient it is to earn money and watch porn with its help. The app market for eyeglasses and voice assistants is a new market, money will come into it as soon as it gets big enough. Well, augmented reality glasses are just made for watching porn, so my prediction is that the technology will take off and set the trend for the whole decade. So let's meet in 10 years and compare the results.
UPD. Once again I want to dwell on the highlighted point above. Interfaces will be essentially voice, but not loud. To give a voice command, you will not need to say it out loud or at all. Yes, it sounds strange now, but these technologies are only at the beginning of their journey.
Source: habr.com