Currently we are existing in the era of Web 2.0, which is the term used to describe the changing trends in web technology and design. It effectively refers to the changes in the way developers and end users utilise the Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the evolution of hosted services and communities that we all use every day, for example social networking sites or blogs. In this rapidly changing environment, the question is what's next? The answer: quite simply, Web 3.0.
So what will the future look like with the arrival of Web 3.0 and beyond? Well the honest answer is that most people don't really know. The future is just as unimaginable as the world we live in today was just a couple of decades ago. There are obviously some educated speculations, such as Nova Spivack, a leading web pioneer who says Web 3.0 refers to the attempt by technologists to radically overhaul the basic platform of the web so it understands the near infinite pieces of information and connections between them. So it is effectively about making the web smarter and as Jonathan Richards puts it, "giving the Internet itself a brain". This to me sounds all too close to science fiction.
One thing we can be sure of is that the web will become even more fragmented. More information will be floating about and there will be even more customisation and personalisation of what of we want to use and consume. This trend has already started to emerge, for example just look at applications, such as iGoogle and Google News. Google News uses content from all other sites to create its news page with links to other news outlets. While iGoogle gives the user even more freedom allowing them to decide what news, feeds and information they want to consume and read with links to favourite sites and headlines or information streams from chosen web sites.
The next question is, how far will this trend develop within computer technology? Are we actually going to breach the realms of many of the fictional representations that we so often see of the future. Hollywood movies over the years have predicted or at least envisaged the future, most of the time quite wildly inaccurately, but every so often a film or fictional idea comes along that ends up being truly prophetic.
So what will the future look like with the arrival of Web 3.0 and beyond? Well the honest answer is that most people don't really know. The future is just as unimaginable as the world we live in today was just a couple of decades ago. There are obviously some educated speculations, such as Nova Spivack, a leading web pioneer who says Web 3.0 refers to the attempt by technologists to radically overhaul the basic platform of the web so it understands the near infinite pieces of information and connections between them. So it is effectively about making the web smarter and as Jonathan Richards puts it, "giving the Internet itself a brain". This to me sounds all too close to science fiction.
One thing we can be sure of is that the web will become even more fragmented. More information will be floating about and there will be even more customisation and personalisation of what of we want to use and consume. This trend has already started to emerge, for example just look at applications, such as iGoogle and Google News. Google News uses content from all other sites to create its news page with links to other news outlets. While iGoogle gives the user even more freedom allowing them to decide what news, feeds and information they want to consume and read with links to favourite sites and headlines or information streams from chosen web sites.
The next question is, how far will this trend develop within computer technology? Are we actually going to breach the realms of many of the fictional representations that we so often see of the future. Hollywood movies over the years have predicted or at least envisaged the future, most of the time quite wildly inaccurately, but every so often a film or fictional idea comes along that ends up being truly prophetic.
Films such as 2001: A Space Oddysey, Blade Runner and Minority Report have all contained ideas and visions that scientists think may become reality or have already formed part of real science.
In years to come will we have even more personalised computer technology that even greets us via retina identification when walking into shopping malls like in Minority Report?
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Or will we have to worry about this dismal depiction of the future from Terminator 2, by giving the web its so called 'brain'?
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Some claim that science and technology are moving so fast that it has become impossible for science fiction to keep up. Sci-fi did fail to predict the transistor, which as Marcus Chown from the New Scientist argues, is the development that enabled computers to conquer the modern world. Chown now believes that it may have become harder to predict the technological developments which will change our lives. With huge sci-fi films that portray even more depressing visions of the future, such as Avatar and Terminator Salvation, on the horizon lets just hope the rest of these predictions don't actually become reality.
Photo courtesy of Troutfactory:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/troutfactory/2046952826/
Click link:
Or will we have to worry about this dismal depiction of the future from Terminator 2, by giving the web its so called 'brain'?
Click link:
Some claim that science and technology are moving so fast that it has become impossible for science fiction to keep up. Sci-fi did fail to predict the transistor, which as Marcus Chown from the New Scientist argues, is the development that enabled computers to conquer the modern world. Chown now believes that it may have become harder to predict the technological developments which will change our lives. With huge sci-fi films that portray even more depressing visions of the future, such as Avatar and Terminator Salvation, on the horizon lets just hope the rest of these predictions don't actually become reality.
Photo courtesy of Troutfactory:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/troutfactory/2046952826/
SuperlativeQuip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeradkaliher/2226420056/
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1 comment:
If 3.0 means self aware technology/internet then we're all doomed - but maybe that's always been an idea which is a galaxy too far..
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