There was an article in yesterday's London Telegraph that listed 50 current "technologies" (the definition used is a bit of a stretch as you will see) that in the next twenty years or so will look absolutely archaic if not out right silly.
The Telegraph article says,
"There can be little doubt: yesterday’s cutting edge technology looks silly to today’s children and much of today’s technology will look silly to tomorrow’s children. Here’s a list of 50 technological advances, past and present, that will have young people asking: "You used to have to do what?"
The list includes everything from TV schedules (TV on demand will do them in) to paper business cards (the prediction is we will all have wireless business cards in the future) to fillings in teeth (we'll simply have our teeth removed and replaced by ones grown from stem cells).
Many of the items on the Telegraph's list are IT/software intensive in nature. I wonder if software systems will be that much more reliable in 2030 than they are today?
I hope so, but I am not betting on it.
Robert N. Charette is a Contributing Editor to IEEE Spectrum and an acknowledged international authority on information technology and systems risk management. A self-described “risk ecologist,” he is interested in the intersections of business, political, technological, and societal risks. Charette is an award-winning author of multiple books and numerous articles on the subjects of risk management, project and program management, innovation, and entrepreneurship. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, Charette was a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s Golden Core Award in 2008.
