Technology Trends that Can Change Everything: It All Boils Down to Input and Output

It's well known that technological innovation increases exponentially as it builds a larger base of users and more prototypical features to draw from. While the smartphones and touch pads of today are a far cry from the room sized computing machines first developed in the 1940s, the usefulness of both boils down to input devices and the overall capabilities of their output. Keep in mind that the most useful components in technology started out as prototypes that had very little, if any practical use. Technology leaders recognize this. An example is the high stock prices associated with cloud computing companies before the cloud was even installed. Here are three innovations that have the potential of drastically altering the way we interact with our technology, and the output we derive from it.

Motion Based Control

In the gaming industry, developers have eschewed traditional controllers for sensors that track movement as an input device. Microsoft's Kinect peripheral goes a step farther to incorporate sound and video capture into a sensor that is smarter than most farm animals. While the technology is used predominantly in gaming as of now, crowd sourced applications have shown that motion control coupled with audio input can be used for a surprisingly large array of applications. In the future we may see robots controlled remotely by similar devices in medical or military applications, and normal input modes become more clairvoyant when paired with motion control.

Augmented Reality

Mobile apps like Layar and Google Goggles try to span the void between the information superhighway and US 23 by overlaying pertinent information onto the view recorded by your phone's camera. The increase in information available to the cloud will allow your smartphone to interact with most locations in the civilized world before long. Most smartphones are already capable of translating barcodes, and then bringing up the related web page or search query. The real fun starts when companies start placing AR access points throughout the environment that allow you to connect a device and sync up with their network, or possibly display a holographic envoy that relates up-to-date information.

Flexible Displays

Wouldn't it be nice to carry a small cylinder that you could pull a rolled up tablet from instead of a 10x7 inch version of an iPhone? Don't fret, the technology for flexible displays has been in development for some time, and could be brought to the market as soon as 2013. Sony, HP, Phillips and several research departments have been developing the necessary technology for more than a decade. The rollable touchscreens would make conventional smart phones obsolete since the lack of adequate display size could be mediated with the new technology. Mass produced flexible displays for mobile devices could kill off print media once and for all.

Sources-

Mobile Payments Prepare to Cash In, Robert Strohmeyer, Maximum Tech Jul 2011

Future Phones Tech: 2012 and Beyond, Robert Strohmeyer, Maximum Tech Jul 2011