Around the Corner

While I was stuck in traffic the other day, I recalled a Wall Street Journal article about driverless robocars. I enjoyed the article and even Tweeted it. The article referred to predictions that futurist Norman Bel Geddes made back in the 1930s.

Bel Geddes made predictions about architecture and transportation. His work on the Futurama for the 1939 New York World’s Fair contained what were then almost-shocking transportation concepts. His Futurama concepts included extensive car ownership by individuals (amazing in the post-depression years), dramatic interstate highways, and unheard-of radio controlled cars – something like a robocar.

70 years later almost everyone does seem to own a car and we certainly have interstate highways, although I did not like being stuck in traffic on one. So, where is my radio controlled driverless robocar? I think it is coming soon, step-by-step. Manufacturers are touting their advances in adding technology to their cars: Bluetooth cell phone connections are everywhere, GPS systems will show us the most energy efficient route, collision warning systems will make us safer, hands-off parallel parking is now a reality, and wireless internet capabilities will provide for streaming radio, Tweeter, and Facebook. Fully automated robocars can’t be far behind.

When I see a dedicated HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane, I think some day maybe there will be a dedicated RC (Robo Car) lane. I’ll be able to drive my car onto the RC lane, press a button on the dashboard, and the computer will take over – keeping me on the straight and narrow. That would be great, especially if I want to make a cell phone call, text, surf the net, update Facebook, or Tweet! (It will probably be a toll lane, but it will be worth the toll.)

Which brings me to a comment I saw which said what we really need is smarter drivers not smarter cars. Well, maybe we could use both. As we transition to Bel Geddes’ “Radio Controlled” cars (or even today, actually), we will need to be very careful about distracted driving. Surely, the next steps with technology will include lockouts for texting or other functions while driving – except, of course, on the Robo Car Lane!

Growing technologies in our cars will make life very interesting.

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A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a conference in which Ray Kurzweil made a presentation called “The Democratization of Innovation in an Era of Accelerating Technologies.” Ray, an inventor, futurist, entrepreneur, and author, took us through the exponential growth of technology over the last 100+ years.

None of the information Ray presented was really new; in fact, much of it was history. But sitting there over lunch, it did make me stop and think about the rapid pace of change we are experiencing in our information technology world. Ray reminds us that this improvement is accompanied by a dramatic reduction in unit costs, so that technology becomes "democratized," available to all.

We have all personally experienced this trend first hand. For example, remember that first digital camera? It was kind of large and bulky, pretty slow, just a ‘meg’ or two, and expensive. Now, Best Buy has displays filled with digital cameras that are faster, smaller, better, and cheaper.

At work, we have witnessed the dramatic growth of data traffic and we can handle that traffic with smaller and cheaper equipment. Of course, we are not satisfied. We continue to develop systems that increase the traffic and, of course, we want to continue to shrink the costs.

Ray one-ups Moore’s Law , which originally stated that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years. Ray says that information technology of all kinds doubles its power every year. This concept also applies to miniaturization, i.e., as things get more powerful and cheaper, they also get smaller. A prime example is nanotechnology – working on an atomic and molecular scale.

What really grabbed my attention was the application of this increasing power and shrinking cost and size to two “technologies” that we in the CIO world do not normally consider: Solar Energy and Health IT.

Ray’s projection is that nanotechnology will enable solar technology, in only five years, to be at the tipping point – when the cost of solar energy will equal the cost of energy from oil and coal. I can only hope that Ray Kurzweil is correct! But will we really see solar energy move into a significant role in our lives starting in only five years?

Health IT is even more intriguing. Not only will IT help us manage all our health related information , nanotechnology will allow us to study the human body faster and better. The next generation of CT scans and MRIs will assist medical personnel as they work to solve our individual medical issues as well as the larger issues of solving cancer and other diseases. One can only imagine the diagnostic equipment we will we have in a few years. Nanotechnology and medicine can improve our lives with new gene therapies, smart drugs, and simulated testing of drugs. Will nanotechnology allow us to indeed solve cancer?

As I try to comprehend what a doubling of all kinds of information technology every year will bring to us, one thing is sure - it will be truly amazing. I can hardly wait!

If you are interested, take a look at Ray Kurzweil’s presentation and slides.

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As I mentioned in my last blog posting, mobility is a big trend in IT today. For everything from finding the nearest pizza place, looking up movie show times, getting driving directions, or checking social media, “there’s an app for that,” as the commercial says.

But increasingly smartphones are becoming a standard accessory that we carry everywhere, and they have become a mandatory business tool, including for Federal use. Of course, we expect to be able to access our corporate e-mail. But beyond e-mail, there is an explosion of uses and possibilities. For instance, did you run into a business contact today and even briefly discuss a project, an idea, or a future meeting? Better write it down, or better yet, go to the Customer Relationship Manager app on your smartphone and put the information where you can better manage it.

For those organizations (such as GSA) with fleets of vehicles, a smartphone app could give a quick and easy way to enter or retrieve data on vehicles. Health professionals can have important data readily available as they are making hospital rounds. The US Postal Service provides users with the ability to track packages. Travelers love the ability to receive travel schedules and enter expenses in real time. Sales staffs can retrieve inventories from a business database while talking to the potential purchaser. For those professionals that track billable hours, what could be better than a quick timekeeping entry on the smartphone?

These activities in themselves are not new ideas. What is new is having all these capabilities on a platform that is mobile and convenient. The possibilities are endless ... but the challenges are huge. For instance, security is paramount. We will need secure communications, possibly encrypted data. If a user loses a smartphone or, worse, it is stolen, we must ensure that the data is not vulnerable. Also, IT staffs and application owners may need to build interfaces to legacy systems, or develop new architectures to support mobility requirements.

For those of us who are IT service providers, the challenges will be to manage the various the interfaces, increasing capabilities, security needs, and rising expectations of our customers. I’d like to hear from readers. How do you see these trends developing? Do you see smartphone apps becoming a significant part of our IT responsibilities? How will other mobile devices such as e-book readers fit into this mix? What will be next?

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