Tapes, VCRs and Cassette players are obsolete now, with the abundant usage of IPods, DVDs, Blu-Ray Discs and MP3 players. Even CDs and CD players are not as widely used as they were before. But, who would have thought that computers would be predicted to merge with human beings? Hasn’t that already been depicted in some muscle-bound Hollywood movie?
It would seem that experts have predicted that by 2020, the words ‘interface’ and ‘user’ will become as obsolete as the Cassette walkman, as the computer merges with people. In time, computers will determine what people want from the computers. It will mean new dynamics and new rules in the relationship between people and computers.
To put it simply, things like the keyboard, mouse and monitor will be replaced with more interactive and intuitive forms of devices such as the tablet, a speech recognition system and fingertip operated surfaces. As the production of devices embedded into objects increase in numbers, computers and humans are unlikely to be separate entities.
Things like digital paper will become a primary source for use of things like social networking magazines, which will update in real time. Furthermore, mass digital storage of our most personal aspects of our lives could be possible in 2020, from mobiles to CCTV camera footages. The focus will soon turn to privacy not to mention questions about how much information we can store about ourselves as the ability to store as much as we can about ourselves, become bigger, simpler and more accessible. This will coin the new term of digital foot printing as opposed to carbon foot printing.
However, there have followed concerns of losing control, as some argue that it will increase our ‘techno-dependency’, as this is considered the era of hyper-connectivity. Fears grow that we may lose control of ourselves, with emphasis on suggesting that the government and policymakers play a stronger part in this. This is however not about losing control; this is about taking computers to a new level with us mere mortals.
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