{"id":1573,"date":"2008-01-06T10:12:25","date_gmt":"2008-01-06T10:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/?p=1573"},"modified":"2008-01-06T10:12:25","modified_gmt":"2008-01-06T10:12:25","slug":"life-in-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1573","title":{"rendered":"Life in the Future."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of my favorite times of the year &#150; the two-week period that contains both the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and MacWorld.  As a future-loving son of a gun, I&#8217;ve been restlessly refreshing the newsfeeds at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electronista.com\">Electronista<\/a>, <A href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmodo.com\">Gizmodo<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\">Engadget<\/a> to stay on top of all the new announcements.  So far, here are my favorite picks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The PS3 is rapidly going from zero to hero (Hercules!) and Sony&#8217;s long-term household media system strategy is beginning to coalesce into something potentially brilliant.  <i>Stuff<\/i> magazine is reporting a rumored <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/gadgets\/leaks\/new-aibo-ps-rumors-grow-playstation-aibo-331651.php\">PS3-compatible AIBO robot dog<\/a>, Sony is apparently bringing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pspfanboy.com\/2008\/01\/04\/skype-support-will-be-limited-to-psp-2000\/\">Skype to the PS3<\/a>, and given <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joystiq.com\/2008\/01\/04\/warner-bros-goes-blu-ray-exclusive\/\">Warner Bros.&#8217; recent Blu-Ray switch<\/a>, things may finally be turning around for the beleaguered PS3 (especially if New Line&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/341119\/new-line-cinema-also-joins-blu+ray-exclusive-party\">Blu-Ray commitment<\/a> means <i>Lord of the Rings<\/i> in HD).\n<\/li>\n<li>Two words: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joystiq.com\/2008\/01\/05\/stargate-worlds-trailer-offers-chance-for-eternal-fame\/\"><i>Stargate Worlds.<\/i><\/a> Assuming Cheyenne Mountain doesn&#8217;t drop the ball on this one, an <i>SG-1\/Atlantis<\/i> MMO might be something I could really get behind.\n<\/li>\n<li>From the what&#8217;s-next-in-your-cellphone department: apparently 3M&#8217;s mobile mini-projector is finally <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/340816\/half+inch-thick-mobile-projector-with-vga-resolution-is-available-now-from-3m\">ready for prime time<\/a>.  Half an inch thick, able to project a 40-inch or larger image at VGA resolution&#8230;  My main concern would be the power draw on something like this, but the option of whipping out my iPhone and projecting a movie onto the nearest wall is pretty thrilling.\n<\/li>\n<li>Ever since first seeing frogdesign&#8217;s redesigned concept Mac for <i>Macworld<\/i> magazine back in the 90s, I&#8217;ve been fascinated by concept machines &#150; and Fujitsu is apparently showing off one of my new favorites.  Imagine a <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/341138\/fujitsus-fabric-pc-and-three-other-forward+looking-concepts\">&#8220;soft, pliable&#8221; fabric laptop<\/a>.  Also of note, an electronic card viewer, a salesclerk browser, and a customer browser.  All of these are pretty dang sharp.\n<\/li>\n<li>People are slowly coming around to the thing that I&#8217;ve been harping on for years: the LG <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2008\/01\/06\/lgs-watch-phone-production-please\/\">watch phone<\/a> is just a prototype for now, but it&#8217;s a sign that hopefully the wrist-bound interface for calls is finally becoming more widespread.  Couple this with improved, more ubiquitous wireless headphones and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/miscellany\/bluetooth.php\">my proposed personal communications network (PCN)<\/a> is <i>almost here&#8230;<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the Mac side of things, the rumors are flying fast and furious now, with just enough <i>actual news<\/i> included in the froth to keep things interesting:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Erector, of all people, seems to be gunning for the LEGO Mindstorms market (kinda) with their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electronista.com\/articles\/08\/01\/05\/new.erector.spykee.robots\/\">Spykee Skype-enabled robots<\/a>.  Three new models include iPod and iPhone docks in their crotches, which is a little pervy but still an awesome idea.  Imagine programming a &#8216;bot to <i>bring your phone to you<\/i> when it rings&#8230;\n<\/li>\n<li>ShowTime&#8217;s demonstration of <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/341064\/showtime-brings-true-video-recording-to-the-iphone-verdict-nice-but-we-want-more\">video recording on the iPhone<\/a> demonstrates that this functionality is at least <i>possible,<\/i> if somewhat suboptimal; 6FPS is a long, <i>long<\/i> way from broadcast quality.  Still, as a proof of concept it&#8217;s encouraging that this might be one of the features Apple could unlock on the iPhone with a firmware upgrade.\n<\/li>\n<li>One of the perks of being an Apple aficionado is the collective Photoshop prowess of the tribe &#150; every year before Steve Jobs&#8217; big talk teh Intarwebs are flooded with mockups of possible new devices, and this year&#8217;s no different &#150; behold the shoulda-woulda-coulda w\u00c3\u00bcndercomps of the <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/341007\/is-the-apple-macbook-touch-a-realistic-possibility\">Apple MacBook Touch<\/a>.  There&#8217;s all <i>kinds<\/i> of these rumors going around now, largely based off of recently-unveiled Apple patents for an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macnn.com\/articles\/08\/01\/03\/imac.like.notebook.dock\/\">iMac-like laptop dock<\/a> and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macnn.com\/articles\/08\/01\/03\/dynamically.lit.keyboard\/\">dynamically-lit keyboard<\/a>.  The keyboard sounds an awful lot like Art. Lebedev&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artlebedev.com\/everything\/optimus\/\">Optimus Maximus keyboard,<\/a> although what has me really excited is Lebedev&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artlebedev.com\/everything\/optimus-tactus\/\">Tactus concept<\/a>.  While 2008 might not be the year of the touchscreen, is sure looks like 2009 or 2010 will be.\n<\/li>\n<li>If there&#8217;s one thing that looks like a sure thing for the Stevenote, it&#8217;s the addition of video rentals to the iTunes store.  This has been in the wings for a while now, but a barrage of recent reports on the rumor sites sure seems to suggest that where there&#8217;s smoke, there&#8217;s fire: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.appleinsider.com\/articles\/07\/12\/29\/new_report_claims_24_hour_variable_price_itunes_rentals.html\"><i>Variety<\/i> says so<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.appleinsider.com\/articles\/07\/12\/29\/more_studios_reported_linked_to_itunes_rentals_iphone_1_1_3_leaked.html\"><i>The New York Times<\/i> says so<\/a>, even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.appleinsider.com\/articles\/07\/12\/26\/report_apple_fox_sign_movie_rental_deal_for_macworld.html\"><i>The Financial Times<\/i> says so<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n<li>This leads me to what I myself am personally hoping for, although I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;ll happen: HD-quality video downloads from the Apple store.  There&#8217;s been talk that the Apple TV will be getting a shot in the arm at Macworld, and I&#8217;d say this would be the easiest way to do it &#150; the Apple TV can support 720p playback but the Apple Store currently only offers videos at NTSC TV resolution, which is 640&#215;480 or lower.  1080p would be ideal, but the files required for that sort of thing would be mammoth, so I suspect 720p will be the way to go.  If Apple does rentals <i>without<\/i> the inclusion of HD, I suspect they&#8217;ll be just as poorly received as the Apple TV has been so far because of an astonishingly uncharacteristic oversight on Apple&#8217;s part &#150; the massive chunk of the Venn diagram between Apple TV owners and HDTV owners.  SD content looks like crap on an HDTV and the early-adopters who are the target market for devices like the Apple TV have said so loudly and repeatedly.  Jobs previously referred to the Apple TV as a &#8220;hobby&#8221; for the company rather than an actual product line, which also didn&#8217;t do the device any favors, but like my folks always taught me, anything worth doing is worth doing right.  I suspect the Apple TV line will either get an upgrade to HD at Macworld or get dropped altogether in favor of something else, but I could be wrong.\n<\/li>\n<li>New towers are also probably going to make an appearance, and I wouldn&#8217;t be a bit surprised if they were accompanied by the long-overdue Cinema Displays with built-in iSight cameras.  The standalone iSight was discontinued, what, a year and a half ago?  For some reason the new displays with that included still haven&#8217;t appeared, which I suspect may have to do with the company&#8217;s reluctance to offer new displays without the HDCP required for eventual HD movie playback &#150; and HDCP inclusion would require (I think) new hardware on the tower side as well, so I suspect we&#8217;ll see this whole package show up at the Stevenote.  And, I suspect, that will include <a href=\"http:\/\/www.appleinsider.com\/articles\/08\/01\/03\/apple_set_to_ship_macs_with_blu_ray_support_report.html\">a Blu-Ray drive as a BTO option<\/a>, especially given the Warner defection.  Yeah, yeah, I know &#150; it sure looks like I backed the wrong horse on that race.  Oh, well &#150; mea culpa.\n<\/li>\n<li>The two big buzzwords at CES this year are <i>wireless<\/i> and <i>GPS,<\/i> so I&#8217;m hoping we&#8217;ll see similar trends at Macworld as well.  Wireless TruHD speaker systems!  Improved wireless headphones!  True GPS functionality in the iPhone!  Bring it on!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There have been a large number of times during my stint at MIT when I&#8217;ve found myself grinning from ear to ear and remarking at how much I love living in the future.  It&#8217;s true.  The future is awesome.  It&#8217;s exceptionally gratifying to see things that I&#8217;d hoped for two or three years ago finally come to market, which means that if my predictions and mental sketches continue to stay accurate, the next 5-10-20 years are going to be <i>amazing.<\/i>  Let&#8217;s hope we don&#8217;t wind up getting thrown into another Dark Age by war or climate collapse before we can get there, okay?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of my favorite times of the year &#150; the two-week period that contains both the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and MacWorld. As a future-loving son of a gun, I&#8217;ve been restlessly refreshing the newsfeeds at Electronista, Gizmodo and Engadget to stay on top of all the new announcements. So far, here are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4e5QR-pn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}