Computers will be replaced by “implants”

Everybody wants to know the future. The problem is only in the prophets who could be trusted.

However, when it comes to the future of the Internet, you can turn to Tim O'Reilly for a credible forecast. Almost 15 years ago, he predicted the emergence of Wi-Fi and other technologies that are common today.

The founder of the company O'Reilly Media and the author of many books about the latest technologies says that it does not predict the future, but only notices promising new technologies, while they have not yet become widespread.
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About how he sees the further development of the Internet, Tim O'Reilly said in an interview with Maria Grechaninova.

BBC: In five years or even 15 years, what will we see when we sit down at a computer and connect to the Internet? What will the future network look like?

T. O.: First of all, I do not think that people will use computers like the ones that exist now. Perhaps we will go even further than the current Internet connection with mobile phones. Most likely, we will use a variety of implanted devices.

In my company, we follow what hackers are working on. They are already experimenting with modifying their own body and implanting sensors under the skin. I think that on the street, people will talk to their computers and ask them to book a plane ticket.

Internet access will be so common that we will talk to each other through implanted devices. We will talk with the computer. I think that there will be a huge breakthrough in the field of speech recognition systems, speech sensors, automatic translation. We will be able to talk, and I will speak in English, you will speak Russian, and this will be instantly translated.

And all this will be completely natural. We will take it as today in developed countries perceive electricity.

BBC: In how distant future will all this happen?

TS: Changes never happen at the same time. We first wrote about the Internet in 1992, when there were only about 200 Internet sites. But everything that happened in the last 14 years has already been laid down in the technology that emerged then. Just used it some 200 people. And now there are already several hundred people who use computer technology in a new way. And it will gain momentum in the coming decades.

BBC: You were one of the first to use the term Web2.O. Now this second generation Internet concept, which will be largely created by users, is vividly discussed. Tell me more in detail what is it?

TS: The network appeared outside the commercial sphere. It was then gathered entrepreneurs and people with money. But they all did not understand. So Web2.0 is not a new idea. We just rediscover what really works on the Internet. That is, we can say that the Internet is becoming what it always had to be.

We began with a question: what distinguishes companies that survived the crash of dot-coms, such as Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo! and new companies like YouTube? We realized that they used the Internet in new ways, effectively. Unlike, for example, Pets.com, which collapsed during the crash of dot-coms, which was, in fact, a collection of advertisements that happened to be on the Internet, these companies realized that the main thing that keeps the Internet is people related to each other.

You evolve by allowing your users to contribute to your business. So, eBay is just a site that connects people. Amazon revolutionized online commerce by allowing people to write annotations. As for YouTube, all of its content is produced by users.

So the future of the Internet is to attract users. That is, Micrisoft Word does not get smarter from the fact that its users do something together. And Google becomes.

BBC: How will commercial organizations react to this?

TS: Companies that understand this will benefit from it. But it will be a revolution. We will see a lot of new successful companies. Most of all it will affect the economic processes associated with globalization, will help them to accelerate. We will see new companies like Skype, originated in Estonia.

The Internet is an untapped field for entrepreneurs. And a new successful business may arise, for example, in St. Petersburg, and not in Silicon Valley.
BBC: Internet users are involved in creating not only the content of various sites, but also the programs themselves. Whether this will lead to the fact that these programs will replace the usual "purchased" software. Well, or at least knock him on the price?

TS: Of course. This has already begun to occur. A huge number of services that we use on the Internet are already free. No one, for example, pays more for sending emails. We see that Google is starting to release office software. And such free services will become more and more. Or they will be paid differently, for example, through advertising. Of course, people will still buy programs. But we will gradually move away from the practice of buying software packages.

BBC: So the competition for free Linux and paid Windows will continue?

TS: It seems to me that the competition between Linux and Windows is exaggerated. Because tons of programs that we used to think of as important operational systems, become just components. When I ask at all kinds of speeches how many people are using Linux in the audience, only a few people raise their hands. Then I ask, and who uses Google, hands raise everything. This demonstrates that people simply do not know which system Google is running on.

The software is no longer tied to your computer. We are moving to the fact that people simply will not know what programs are behind the Internet services that they use.

BBC: Advanced users create not only useful programs, but also viruses. What will happen to them?

TS: To create anti-virus and anti-spam programs already use the help of groups of volunteers. It helps to detect viruses faster and it works. This system is like a living organism. We always have microbes in the body, but only when something fails or when a new strain appears, they take over. So we create the Internet’s immune system, which works on the same principle as the infection.

via bbc.co.uk , 2006