IBM: Within 5 Years, You Will Touch Through Your Screen
IBM just released its traditional 5 in 5 predictions - five innovations the company believes will be available within five years.
Some of the predictions may be obvious, while others may raise questions if we really need such capabilities. All predictions, however, are solidly placed in mainstream and consumer electronics computing and relate to a machine ability to adopt superhuman-like senses.
For 2013 to 2018, the predictions are:
Touch: You will be able to touch through your phone
Sight: A pixel will be worth a thousands words
Hearing: Computers will hear what matters
Taste: Digital taste buds will help you to eat smarter
Smell: Computers will have a sense of smell
With the exception of "touching through the screen of a phone" and "interpreting pixels", we have heard the remaining predictions in the past in varying forms. The interest in computers adopting more senses beyond touch has been with us for awhile, so it should not be surprising to hear about them again and again.
Touch, of course, has still plenty of innovation room left and IBM's idea is that haptic feedback will beable to simulate certain fabrics not too far down the road. When online shopping, for example, you will be able to feel the fabric of a t-shirt.
Personally, I would already be happy if some of the prior predictions would come true. For example, kinetic device charging, which would allow a phone to generate power from your body movements, or holographic phone calls. Of course, IBM's tech predictions are frequently not so much about the details, but also reflect our changing interest in what tech should do.
I guess i should stop calling that phone sex hotline then. Seeing an old dude with frilly undergarments impersonating hot Spanish model projected through my phone kinda kill the mood right away.
My computer is gonna hate me!
I guess i should stop calling that phone sex hotline then. Seeing an old dude with frilly undergarments impersonating hot Spanish model projected through my phone kinda kill the mood right away.
At first thought: What? Like air phone or something? Then I watched the video... and it sucks. Buy a dress online. Feel the texture through your phone bla bla. Pffft. If you haven't touched most of the materials used in dresses, you're probably living in a cave.
I just want to make phone calls.
My computer is gonna hate me!
Wasn't there a guy who put up a million-pixel website that was worth a million dollars?
Where is the substance? Or the tech? I can say anything will happen in 5 years.
The Mayan EXTRA long calendar ends in 2017. In 5 years we will all die
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22683.wss
Non-mechanical devices, no need to know the texture (like a mug's). For buying food/groceries online, you rely on reputation of the store. The rest, like clothes and such, we go to malls/boutiques to shop. No need for useless touch crap. I'm more concerned with how a dress will fit.
Touch: It's very impractical to "texture scan" every item on the catalog especially wasting resources on "below standard" items. Fashion trends always change (maybe except jeans) so they'd be constantly updating the catalog. If you're lazy (always prefer shopping online) or don't have time to go out shopping (to feel out the dress yourself), you probably don't care that much about quality (unless you already know what you are buying).
Smell: They're not talking about artificial odor. It's the computer that will have the sense of smell... not consumer computers anyway. Still, I don't know why you'd want to know the smell of a restaurant's food. Taste isn't always about the smell. Like artificial flavors, smells can be faked (like the smell device will produce).
It's useless to try every smell of detergent/cleaner/shampoo/etc (via smell device) unless you change to a different one every time you ran out. What you're buying/trying is probably cheaper than refilling the chemicals on the smell device. If smell devices can mimic expensive perfume, there's no need to buy the real one.
You say the scenarios are common but all of them are about online shopping. Maybe IBM is trying to make everyone into shut ins or something:
Computers can smell if you are sick (and alert someone), can see and hear what happens in and around your house (and alert someone if it's bad), and tell you what to eat. No need to go out to shop. You can feel what you're buying online through your phone.
Most of these things have been around in one way or another for devades.
And yet, we can not even make a Graphics card hacker proof; not to even mention a whole computer.