Big Blue weighs in

When IBM says its going to be big, you can bet on the fact that they already have developed product and are about to flex muscle. So to some degree the trend is inevitable.

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The new year brings visions of the future, with technology predictions from IBM, Intel and others. IBM's vision is based on what it's working on and include harnessing heat from data centers, personalized systems, and long-lasting batteries. Intel's vision also focuses on its work, including hybrid tablets/netbooks and device sensors.

It's crystal-ball time. Along with vows of making more money and losing more weight, the new year prompts visions of what the technology future will hold.
IBM has issued its big-five predictions, based on what it's working on and a five-year time span, visualized with an animation on YouTube. For data-center managers, the company envisions all that heat from computers being harnessed to heat water or cool buildings. Big Blue also sees commuters in this bright future enjoying the evolution of personalization in GPS-equipped smartphones and car-based systems, with real-time traffic data, displays of alternate routes, and details on parking availability making traffic jams a thing of the past.

'Citizen Scientists'

Traveling may become easier, but virtual travel and expanded entertainment may make actually going someplace less important. IBM foresees glassless 3-D moving holograms that allow friends to share their telepresences, and that enable entertainment to blur the line between make-believe and reality even more.

While smartphones and other mobile devices have become more powerful, they are still limited by battery life. IBM envisions smaller batteries that last 10 times as long as current ones, and that can draw their power from air or from static electricity generated by the user.

Finally, the computing giant sees sensors inhabiting all manner of vehicles, devices and facilities, such that "citizen scientists" will be able to help real scientists and researchers map their environment by collecting and transmitting data about everyday surroundings. In other words, we all become Google Street View vehicles.

Not to be outdone by the people at IBM, Intel focused its predictions on just 2011 -- all of which, of course, involve areas of Intel R&D. Technologies picking up steam, according to Intel executives, include smart TV, hybrid tablets/netbooks, and "perceptual computers" that use object-recognizing, GPS and other sensors to create the next level in on-the-spot recommendations, such as when you're on vacation.

Intel also sees 2011 ushering in movie-like digital signs not unlike those in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, a surge in home energy-management devices, and a further blurring between consumer and enterprise devices. And, for those who think Moore's Law has reached its limit because the number of transistors on a chip cannot keep doubling about every two years, Intel says the law is still active and on the books in the new year.

Clouds in Your Future

Industry research firms, of course, are all about making predictions. Forrester sees hosted private clouds outnumbering internal clouds three to one, the arrival of industry-based community clouds, and workstation applications with cloud computing behind them, bringing high-performance computing "to the masses."

Al Hilwa, program director for applications development software at IDC, predicts HTML5 will begin to replace HTML "on some aggressive sites" by year's end, although Adobe Flash and Silverlight "will not go away" because of their "high-end effects, pixel fidelity, and content protection." He also sees a further heating up of mobile-application platforms, adding that "more than one vendor will provide tools that bring iPhone apps into their ecosystem."

One word that has dominated IT throughout 2010 has been "cloud," and Hilwa sees a wider adoption in 2011 of cloud application platforms, or what he described as "database, middleware and tools as a service." He predicted that in 2011 and beyond, these platforms will be more widely adopted by ISVs before "they gain serious traction in large enterprises."

Speaking of clouds, Gartner sees cloud computing in 2011 as tangled in a continuation of "inflated expectations," while IT management software and solutions company CA Technologies thinks 2011 will be the year when the talk about cloud computing's potential "will become a reality."

CA also expects organizations to change "their perception of cloud security as stronger, more advanced security options are deployed as cloud services from organizations that specialize in security," providing a level that most businesses cannot obtain by themselves.

With all these forecasts for the new year and beyond, it's wise to remember that predictions are quickly forgotten once the future shows up.