The most anticipated technologies of 2010

With the beginning of the new decade, we can expect a lot of new things from the world of Information Technologies. There are many ideas and projects that are ready to undermine our worldviews this year. Some of them will be completely new, and some are already being hatched for a long time, and their time is about to come. Of the ten technologies that we are going to consider now, more than half belong to the mobile category. But today's web is hard to imagine without them.

1. Tablet

The most awaited product of this year. The mythical “pill”, on which it seems everyone is working. Wonderful instances for Android , a lot of different concepts and of course the Apple iSlate tablet (or whatever it was there) were presented . And if Steve Jobs is not working on this “pill”, then it’s time to take it, because everything else will be a big disappointment. In fact, it is not clear why we need another gadget between a laptop and an iPhone, but this is only until the moment it is released. After all, at a time when all applications and data are transferred to the web, this gadget becomes your best guide. He also remains an excellent "reader", player, "typing machine", etc.

2. Geolocation

The combination of GPS in mobile phones, social networks and innovative mobile applications turns geolocation into the most promising feature of any gadget and application. And this concerns not only entertainment, like Foursquare or Gowalla. The introduction of GeoAPI in such services as Twitter, Simplgeo and Facebook turns this toy into a useful tool with information layers and positioning. Just recently, Twitter launched its own API and acquired Mixer Labs, the company that created GeoAPI .
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3. Search in real time

After issuing permissions to broadcast streams in real time by twitter, facebook and mayspace, google and bing quickly began to prepare their services. But so far this search is being finalized and is not displayed on the main page. I hope for 2010 the search engines will deal with the issue. In addition to the main players in this market there are startups like Collecta, OneRiot and Topsy, which can compete and bring new ideas. Also, real-time search can be the basis for navigating the web, especially with Twitter and Facebook. By combining a query with other filters, users will be able to receive not only the latest, but also the most relevant information on their request.

4. Chrome OS

In November, Google provided its own operating system, which was expected only this year. This is the most powerful Google attack against Windows. All web applications are built into the operating system itself, which allows you to run them and work with them much faster than using browser counterparts. According to rumors, Google is already working on its own netbook , which will show what this webOS is capable of. It seems that this OS will be ideal for the already mentioned TabletPC. Chrome - a risky bet, but still has great potential.

5. HTML5

The web is based on HTML, the next version of which will be HTML5 . Many browsers already include support for new elements and as soon as the new standard gains popularity, we will not need to use plug-ins like flash or silverlight to view videos, animate the site, drag-n-drop, data storage or desktop application features. All this will be based on web standards. According to my forecasts, many sites will begin to introduce HTML5 features during 2010.

6. Mobile video

With video cameras built into the latest models of iPhones and similar devices, real-time video broadcasting applications are becoming more attractive. And the broadcast in both directions. With the gradual transition of cellular networks to 3G (somewhere already on 4G), mobile video expects even greater success.

7. Augmented Reality

One of the best ways to use your cell camera is to use augmented reality applications . They add a new information layer to the existing reality with tweets, blog posts, information from social networks, photos, etc. At the moment, representatives of augmented reality are Sekai Camera , Layar , GraffitiGeo and even Yelp .

8. Mobile commerce

Slowly, mobile phones acquire the functionality of ordinary PCs and it becomes possible to conduct commercial transactions. One of the prospects for 2010 is the introduction of payments and transfers via cellular. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey opened the Square project to turn an iPhone into a credit card reader. Verifone has a competing product created with Mophie . The idea is that the cell could become a point of sale associated with all the necessary settlement systems.

9. Android

Last year, nearly two dozen android-based phones were released, including the Verizone Droid. In the next couple of days, the Google Nexus One should come out, which should become the first android phone with the ability to unlock from any carrier (launched with the participation of T-Mobile) . Android is the answer of Google to the iPhone, and as the number of phones based on it grows, it becomes more and more attractive for developers. Already there are more than 10,000 applications and their number will grow next year.

10. Social interaction and customers

We all saw the rise of Twitter and Facebook as tools of social interaction. This year, these tools should go deeper into the corporate sector. Saleforce.com is preparing to launch Chatter , which will be a network of corporate data that can be presented on Twitter and Facebook, as well as other applications. Startups like Yammer or Bantam Live also make businesses more socially oriented.

PS First translation. For any comments I will be very grateful