- Get your #baseball cap on! MLB Extra Innings is on free preview until May 5th. ^eo
The future of the Internet: from a six year old child’s point of view
June 26th, 2012 a 12:28pm
When I was six years old, there was no computer, no online shopping… no Internet! How did I survive? Today, as I watch my six year old son, I realize how far we’ve come. He has never known life without Internet. His favorite toy since he was 4 has been the iPad. He has watched a handful of TV commercials in his life. He has grown up watching his parents do everyday tasks online.
To my six year old, the Internet is not a place, thing or cool technology, it’s just there!
My son’s future experiences will be supercharged by the Internet. As he starts to grow up, he will start interacting with the world around him more, and as he does, he will find the Internet to be woven into the fabric of his day to day life. The thing is, he won’t actually notice it’s there. For my son, the online option will be the default option. Print, banks and ATMs, call centers and CDs? Those will be things his old dad still uses.
Everywhere my son will turn, both at home and wherever he goes, there will be touch screens of different shapes and sizes. They’ll be access points to his online world. He’ll use his virtual persona (could that be his avatar?) from any of the screens around him.
However, my son will not solely live in a virtual online world. He’ll still visit stores, go to concerts, go out with friends and deal with professionals. But all these experiences will be augmented by his online interactions.
Stores will know he is coming, and what he likes. Offers will be presented to his smart phone, as he walks down the street. When he gets to the store, he will be presented with a recommended shopping list of products and services he will like, in the size or color he likes best. He will even be able to “try on” the outfit on his smartphone if he likes, without getting undressed!
Concerts and sporting events will be enhanced with interactive experiences available at touch of a screen: real-time conversations with friends, back stage views, live playbacks, and clips of the highlights easily shared with friends and family. And if my son can’t make the event, he’ll be able to access a virtual online version, or experience it through his social connections.
My son will enjoy real time, immediate, intelligent, personal experiences, with the world of possibilities at his fingertips.
To me, that’s phenomenal.
To him that’ll just be the way it is!
What do you think? Do you see the same future for your children?
Robert Switzman is Rogers Futurist and Senior Director, Convergence. This is his first post on RedBoard.
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When I was a child I did, but then my family got kicked off the Rogers network cause of me pointing out flaws in the network, like running everything over port 53(DNS) to subvert bandwidth tracking and DPI.
I don’t get it. What’s so special about this? You watch Minority Report from 10 years ago and you write down what you saw. And he is your futurist?
Yes, I really enjoyed the Minority Report! When I watched the movie in 2002, it was considered to be complete Science Fiction, a future world of cool technology, created by special effects, a world that could only exist in movies. I never expected to live in that world….weren’t there also flying cars?
What excites me in 2012, is that many of the ‘cool’ things featured in such movies are now becoming a reality in today’s technology, all driven by the Internet and Mobility. We are seeing this technology being tested and rolled out around the world, perhaps in early stages. Most importantly we are now starting to see how it is going to be accessible to Canadians, like my son, starting in the next few years.
Its always fun to look out at cool new technology, I find it more exciting to figure out how such technology will be made available to Canadians, and what are its practical uses in our daily lives.
I see a future where people like me aren’t stuck with Rocket Hubs that don’t work because I choose to live in the country. I see an internet that is fast and accessible and affordable to everyone, not just those who live in the city. I dont enjoy paying $180 a month for internet access with Rogers. What a bright future! Yeah right.
So Rogers is looking forward to a “Minority Report”-type future, where it will actively volunteer customers’ data to a neo-Conservative authoritarian government for the purpose of convicting potential criminals before they actually commit a crime?
Ambitious. But since Rogers hasn’t mastered the ability to provide consistent Internet access to its paying customers after all these years, I’m not worried that your Minority Report future will be upon us anytime soon.
In the future of Rogers internet, Rogers will still only be offering terrible upload speeds while gouging them for more money.. Unfortunately, I’ll still probably be stuck with Rogers as the competition refuses to upgrade service outside 15 minutes of a major city.
Seems like a lot of hate on this post by random people about Rogers and it’s service. Nothing really seems to have anything to do with the post. I love the rogers service even though arguably it can be seen as a more expensive alternative it is a reliability that I love. I have the HTC One X and a LTE Hotspot and they never let me down. I have been to Wind and Telus and even bell and have always returned here. Now for my 2 cents.
As a future tech father(wife currently pregnant) I can only imagine how technology will change in the future for children. I see even know my cousin’s daughter is 2 and can use her iPad and operate an iPhone. She is able to launch apps and play angry birds. I am always amazed by human evolution and the aptitude the upcoming generation has for anything technological. I would imagine my son or daughter will express the same aptitude. Who knows what’s ahead for the future bug judging where we have come from even 5 years anything is possible. Perhaps the tablet will replace the laptop or all together your entire system fits on a cell phone and all you need to do is plug into the TV. Kind of like what Motorola did with the Atrix but a lot better.
I think the only thing that truly scares me about the future and currently for my future son or daughter is the ideas of social networks. It is hard to trust who you can’t see and who knows what kind of people may be trying to friend them. I realize that social networks are a great way to communicate but there is still something unsettling about them. I realize a 1 or even 5 year old might not be exposed to it but nevertheless. It is an exciting future and it will be nice to see how things evolve.