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Ongoing Projects at MIT Media Lab Offer Look at the Future

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April 1, 2013

Take a look inside the MIT Media Lab for an indication of what technology (and life, in general) will look like in the coming 10 years, suggests Business Insider. The article summarizes a tour taken of the Lab, where students are working on projects involving robotics to programs allowing virtual interaction with the real world — all projects guaranteed to get you thinking about the future. Continue reading Ongoing Projects at MIT Media Lab Offer Look at the Future

Making Netflix Deals: Does It Hurt Big Media Companies?

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March 28, 2013

Large media companies like Viacom are seeing financial growth coming from digital devices, on which consumers are accessing streaming services such as Netflix. While this seems like a win for Viacom, as it collects on money paid by Netflix for the right to provide shows it has already aired on traditional TV, it might also backfire as more users become accustomed to watching online rather than on television. Continue reading Making Netflix Deals: Does It Hurt Big Media Companies?

Social Second Screens: Twitter Wants in to TV Ad Business

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March 27, 2013

Business Insider deputy editor Nicholas Carlson admits that he did not plan on watching this year’s Academy Awards ceremony until he logged in to Twitter and read the many comments about the red carpet. He then tuned in, compelled to be a part of the ongoing conversation. Twitter believes that this type of response will allow the company “to get in on the $70+ billion that Nielsen says is spent on TV advertising in the U.S. every year.” Continue reading Social Second Screens: Twitter Wants in to TV Ad Business

Is Quantum Computing Ready to Supercharge Industries?

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March 25, 2013

In our current digital age, modern computer code is comprised of the precise ones and zeroes that make up bits. But there’s a new computer on the horizon, developed by a major American military contractor, which is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics, in which a one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time. Continue reading Is Quantum Computing Ready to Supercharge Industries?

CE Companies Should Focus on Compelling User Interface

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March 20, 2013

About 10 years ago, a battle for control of the living room experience began to play out between various consumer electronics companies. That battle has since given way to a full-blown war for the consumer involving tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung and LG. According to P.J. McNealy, founder of Digital World Research, the key to winning is control of the user interface on connected screens. Continue reading CE Companies Should Focus on Compelling User Interface

Modern Data Centers Turn to Flash Solutions from Fusion-io

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March 18, 2013

Apple, much like Google and Amazon, delivers Web services to hundreds of millions of people, from servers based in enormous data centers. Apple’s iCloud currently serves more than 250 million people, which is beginning to require new hardware and software that are more efficient than what is available in those data centers. Apple and Facebook, among others, have turned to flash-based options from Fusion-io. Continue reading Modern Data Centers Turn to Flash Solutions from Fusion-io

Wall-Sized Touchscreens in Our Near Future, Says Microsoft

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March 12, 2013

According to Microsoft’s vision of the future, our lives will soon be impacted by large, wall-sized touchscreens, on which we will perform daily tasks, communicate with loved ones and much more. Additionally, all of our gadgets will respond to our voice commands and we’ll be able to seamlessly transfer information between devices with just a few swipes and/or taps. Continue reading Wall-Sized Touchscreens in Our Near Future, Says Microsoft

MIT Initiative Explores Impact of Emerging Digital Economy

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February 8, 2013

MIT has launched the new “Initiative for the Digital Economy” to address the impact of existing and emerging digital technologies. The initiative’s three primary objectives are to analyze the potential of digital technologies to change businesses, the economy, and society; to engage students and faculty in programs related to the digital revolution; and to make practical recommendations to industry leaders and policymakers regarding the digital economy. Continue reading MIT Initiative Explores Impact of Emerging Digital Economy

Larry Page Talks Future of Search and Company Projects

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December 13, 2012
  • Google CEO Larry Page, who rarely agrees to interviews, sat down with Fortune to discuss the future of search, clashes with Apple, the company’s numerous Google X projects, and more.
  • Page acknowledges the change in advertising models, but views disruption as a good thing. Google still devotes 70 percent of its effort into search and ads.
  • “The perfect search engine would really understand whatever your need is,” he says. “So one of my favorite examples I like to give is if you’re vacation planning. It would be really nice to have a system that could basically vacation plan for you. It would know your preferences, it would know the weather, it would know the prices of airline tickets, the hotel prices, understand logistics, combine all those things into one experience. And that’s kind of how we think about search.”
  • On Google’s competition with Apple, Amazon and others: “I’d like to see more cooperation on the user side. The Internet was made in universities and it was designed to interoperate. And as we’ve commercialized it, we’ve added more of an island-like approach to it, which I think is a somewhat a shame for users,” Page says.
  • “I think it would be nice if everybody would get along better and the users didn’t suffer as a result of other people’s activities. I try to model that. We try pretty hard to make our products be available as widely as we can. That’s our philosophy,” he notes.
  • The remaining effort at Google is split between apps (20 percent) and new projects (10). “I think investors always worry about this. You know, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to spend all their money on self-driving cars.’ I feel like no matter how hard I try, I can never make the 10 bigger, because it’s actually hard to get people to work on stuff that’s really ambitious. It’s easier to get people working on incremental things.”

Opinion: Will Mobile Devices Eventually Replace the Big Screen TV?

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December 6, 2011
  • In this opinion piece published on CNET, freelance writer Steve Guttenberg predicts that iPads and other tablet devices will eventually make having a large screen TV a thing of the past.
  • “By 2020 younger people who will have grown up with tablets won’t see a need to ever buy a big display, which will by then seem as obtrusive as a pair of 4-foot-tall tower speakers do to most buyers nowadays,” he suggests.
  • For the naysayers, Guttenberg cites audio technology as an example. Twenty years ago, it was hard to imagine that most consumers would be less concerned about a set of quality speakers and more interested in portability or personalization. Yet that’s where we’ve landed.
  • “With music, everyone except for a handful of audiophiles, listens in their cars, computer, or on iPod,” he writes. “A home hi-fi of any quality now seems irrelevant; the same fate is in the cards for TVs. They will start to look too big, too imposing for the room’s decor.”
  • This is interesting to consider now, as tablet sales are taking off in the consumer market. Will mobile devices such as the tablet kill TV?
  • Guttenberg believes we are heading in that direction: “There will always be a market for big TVs, just as there is for great audio, but big-screen sales will continue to shrink over time. Most people will be perfectly content to watch movies and sports on their iPads.”

Secret Google Lab Where the Future is Imagined and Robots Run Free

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November 15, 2011
  • A top-secret lab called Google X is tackling a list of 100 “shoot-for-the-stars” ideas, including an elevator to outer space, a refrigerator connected to the Internet that orders groceries as they run out, and robots that serve a variety of tasks.
  • A Google worker familiar with the project likened it to how the CIA is mysteriously run. “In interviews, a dozen people discussed the list; some work at the lab or elsewhere at Google, and some have been briefed on the project,” reports The New York Times. “But none would speak for attribution because Google is so secretive about the effort that many employees do not even know the lab exists.”
  • Most of the ideas are only conceptual at this point, but others may eventually see the light of day. One idea that may reach the public involves driverless cars. It would not only provide a new business for Google, but promote the company’s navigation or information technology for cars as well as location-based ads.
  • Additional ideas in development include ways of connecting objects to the Internet, such as a garden planter that could be watered remotely, a coffee pot set to brew from another location, or a light bulb that could communicate wirelessly with Android devices.

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