My technical wish-list for 2009

Talking about the New Year - What do I expect from the technical perspective? Here comes my wish-list which is a blend of my expectations and the trends I see in general for 2009.

• A better support for effective parallel programming, also with a more implicit approach
• New solutions to interact with smart devices (cell phones) to overcome tiny keyboards and cumbersome handling
• A synthesis of a Handheld-GPS and a simple mobile phone to reduce the number of devices in the outdoors (let’s call it a rugged GPS-Phone)
• Cool applications (and gadgets) making use of the so-called “cloud computing”
• GPS and RFID in much more tools and gadgets (cameras, mobile phones, bikes…) with the option to switch it off anytime
• Location Based Services (ez to use, respecting privacy, useful) with real benefits for the user
• NetBooks for all known OS platforms
• Home automation for mainstream households; many use cases are conceivable and could help saving energy, this would give the buzzword “Green IT” a very new meaning
• More awareness of security and privacy issues in a connected world which leads to new options to protect digital information, assets, and people’s privacy
• E-books based on gadgets and applications that create a new reading experience; don’t get me wrong, I will always stick to real books made of paper but I see E-books as a interesting alternative beyond the advantage to carry a lot of books wedged in a handy device when travelling
• A new album from my favorite band TOOL
• Anything to add? Feel free to comment.

Computing in the clouds

Many people might perceive Amazon as THE online store for books, music, gadgets and many other things with advanced market place capabilities and as one of the trail blazers on the Web. But the company from the Pacific Northwest is much more. Amazon is a high-tech company when it comes to very large distributed architectures and technologies based on web services. The “Mechanical Turk” is one example, an impressive idea to use human beings as “end points” in a Service-Oriented Architecture in order to let them do what human beings can do best. I really like this concept.
Another great thing is Cloud Computing as currently (21-April-2008) covered by an article on wired.com. It’s a must read! The company offers computing capabilities for everyone. This is good news for young enterprises that don’t want to spend too much on hardware. In essence, it is a lesson and a serious example at the same time how to offer computing power (and hardware, of course) as a service. I strongly believe we can expect much more from Amazon in the future. These guys are working on a real new computing platform on the web. The vision that the network is the computer, as verbalized by other companies, might turn into reality …

Just a recommendation

There is a fascinating article on the WIRED MAGAZINE (16.04.) with the title: How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong. This is a must read for all folks interested how Apple is doing their products, maintaining their status and myth, and with many interesting insights. It is also about company and management culture, openness, transparency, proprietary solutions, vertical integration, and the different approaches in the high-tech industry from Apple to Google.
The phenomenon is that any other company, especially the software giant located in Redmond, would have been ended with endless criticism, if they had done their products this way. Another interesting view is mentioned briefly, the so-called “three-tiered systems” consisting of blend hardware, installed software and proprietary Web application. Let’s see how this model is doing in the future because this is the antithesis to the Open Source / Open System approach.