Michael Miller Now

By Michael J. Miller
Editor-in-Chief, 1991–2005

Certain things are constants in the tech world. Every year, hardware gets better, thanks to improvements in semiconductors driven by Moore's Law and the -efforts of brilliant engineers. Software plays catch-up, as developers balance the need to run on the most popular systems with a desire to exploit the latest hardware.

The big questions, though, are not about how technology will advance, but how we will use it. Ideally, our new world of communications will drive rapid improvements in global standards of living, health care, the environment, and education. Computers may merge with biomedical devices to the point where technology is embedded in our bodies, helping us to live healthier, more productive lives. And if we're smart, we won't wait 25 years to develop technology to help us solve the world's energy and environmental problems.

In the nearer term—five years from now—personal computers will be multicore, some of which will be optimized for particular tasks. Servers, including home servers, and some desktops will have massive hard drives, with 2 terabytes becoming commonplace. Laptops will have solid-state drives, and they'll connect wirelessly to the Internet at high speeds wherever they happen to be, through WiMAX and LTE (Long Term Evolution).

By then, most of us will be running 64-bit operating systems, though I won't be surprised to see businesses make that move slowly. Increasingly, software will take advantage of multiple cores in ways that go far beyond what we see today. Nearly every application will have an online complement—or competitor. Online data storage and applications will be widespread, though many large organizations will prefer to keep their data in-house for security and compliance reasons. We'll be able to get whatever information we want from location-aware, high-speed smartphones, but with much-improved connectivity, applications, and voice control.

We'll still have multiple devices—laptops, smartphones, servers, flat-screen televisions, digital cameras—but the devices will connect using faster wireless USB and Wi-Fi. Ten years from now, our gadgets will be even smarter, any number of them interacting automatically without our involvement. Voice recognition will be mainstream, and many of us will be in constant communication with the Internet data we most care about.

Moore's Law will eventually run out of steam as chipmakers moving to ever-smaller geometries encounter physical limitations. But fundamental improvements in computer hardware and software should continue indefinitely, thanks to human ingenuity. When today's shrinking geometries reach their limits—10 to 25 years from now—chipmakers will transition to other techniques, such as 3D chips.

Many of our current technology concerns will still exist, from privacy and security to management and the need for frequent software updates. Databases will track our every online move. Location-aware mobile devices will know exactly where we are. Cameras will record all our public movements. How this data is collected, used, and shared is a political and societal issue, not a technological one. And we're likely to still complain about how long it takes to do things. In the tech world, certain things are constants.