Survey: Keyboards, DRM to become scarce in 2012
Step aside, keyboards, laptops, and 9-to-5 jobs. A survey of more than 1,000 Internet activists, journalists, and technologists released Sunday speculates that by 2012, those quaint relics of 20th century life will fade away.
It's not a formal survey of the sort that, say, political pollsters use. Nor are computer journalists especially known for their prognosticative abilities. Still, the Pew Internet and American Life Project hopes the effort will provide a glimpse of the best current thinking about how online life will evolve in the next decade or so.
Lee Rainie and the other Pew researchers asked their survey respondents to respond to a series of questions about 2020 future scenarios, including whether the mobile phone will be the "primary" Internet connection (most agreed), whether copy protection will flourish (most disagreed), and whether transparency "heightens individual integrity and forgiveness (evenly split).
The rough consensus was that "few lines divide professional time from personal time," and that professionals are happy with the way work and play are "seamlessly integrated in most of these workers' lives."
Another, which also met with broad agreement: "Talk and touch are common technology interfaces. People have adjusted to hearing individuals dictating information in public to their computing devices. In addition 'haptic' technologies based on touch feedback have been fully developed, so, for instance, a small handheld Internet appliance allows you to display and use a full-size virtual keyboard on any flat surface for those moments when you would prefer not to talk aloud to your networked computer."
One respondent was Google chief economist Hal Varian, who said: "The big problem with the cell phone is the (user interface), particularly on the data side. We are waiting for a breakthrough."
It's easier to read the report itself, which you can find here (PDF). This is Pew's third report in the series; further reading can be found in its 2005 first survey (PDF) and 2006 second survey (PDF).
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan.
The people who believe that will happen by 2012 will fade away long before the relics.
I believe this will happen like I'm likely to store all of my files in the "cloud". Just not going to happen anytime soon.
So in other words we'll still be using keyboards. They'll just be virtual ones. Which will work great until you need to reinstall Windows and can't type in your CD key or anything else because the built in virtual keyboard program isn't installed yet lol. Ok, just kidding. I already assumed keyboards would go virtual, but that's not exactly the same thing as eliminating the keyboard. Virtual keyboards are much cooler anyway. They have the potential to be customized to your specific task. Macro keys all around!
Even a lot of the current keyboards don't exactly type as comfortably as the older ones. I find that the older designs with nice keyswitches rather than thin membranes make typing easier.
Maybe because it is much more expensive. Apple is not the indicator, Chinese manufacturers are. The future is only cheap if that's all you dream it to be.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10114351-1.html?tag=mncol
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/18572/page2/
With books the issues blocking ebooks often have more to do with licensing than technology.
There is a lot of anecdotally evidence that paper is starting to decline in importance. Newspapers are seeing sales decline left and right. Magazines are abandoning their print editions and going online only.
Even public schools, which are often far beyond the curve on technology are slowly moving away from paper.
While predictions that paper would become obsolete 10-20 years ago were pretty lofty predictions we are now starting to see the decline. I don't see paper disappearing anytime soon, but I wouldn't be surprised to see paper sales decline dramatically in the next 10 years.
As for keyboards I think the bigger issue is the lack of a compelling alternative. Voice recognition technology hasn't advanced dramatically in recent years and with a few exceptions most people aren't clamoring for voice recognition.
Paper does what digital can't. It's a universal format. Digital documents (and there is a big push for digital review where I work) has a lot of problems to overcome. One of which is the permanence of the digital format itself.
10 years is long enough to work out the bugs if the private sector (MicroSoft etc.) is on board.
*However*
I find the claim that DRM will go away by 2012 to be absolute bollocks. To be clear -- DRM is more than just FairPlay in iTunes and PlaysForSure on Windows Media. It's any key management scheme used to control information -- whether it's a stream cipher used to encrypt streaming Netflix movies, HDCP to protect hidef content displayed on your TV, something to protect say audio books or e-books from being copied infinitely, encryption technologies to keep corporate documents secure, or encrypted email to keep private information private -- if anything, DRM is getting more pervasive all the time, and will continue to do so.
The thing I do agree about -- there are certain types of media (music being the obvious example) where the cost and inconvenience of DRM will weight so strongly against what DRM actually achieves that the market will force vendors to abandon DRM in those markets. But that doesn't mean that everything will go the same way as music.
I agree it's total bollocks but it does create banner impressions to bag on DRM. CNet loves to bag on CDM even though their parent company CBS requires it on their media.
Not that they did not speak to one industry technologist or a Major Studio, Network or Label rep. Probably because they knew the answer would be that DRM is not going away just evolving.
Ad-supported models are not going to drive the content industry alone.
Mobile devices will or have already moved to touch, and people will be connecting with these devices more often and using them as their primary internet device.
But productivity will still rely on probably a notebook type device. Because as much as we try, we will still be typing documents, presentations, and spread sheets. They are not going away soon, and so neither is the keyboard. Perfect the tech and some will adapt, and some will not; that is the way it will go!
The key points have already been made before me here - the accuracy of typing just can't be met (yet) with any commercially viable alternative.
And philosfool, I LOVE your example!
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by AppleSuxLeo
December 15, 2008 1:23 PM PST
- Apple will be the only company left with DRM.
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by jinx101a
December 15, 2008 7:16 PM PST
- They'll be making too much money from their keyboard alternative that we'll all have to have even if we have to mail it in and wait 3 weeks everytime there's a problem with it.
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