The Internet is now almost 20 years old (depending of how you split the hairs) and its effect on life, industry and society has been massive. I’ve been thinking about what’s next, and how the Digital Life will continue to affect us, and what the consequences will be on everyday life. Here are some of my reflections.

I’ve divided these into predictions for this year, the next five years, and the coming decade. I had planned to go with ten trends, but this is the era of generosity (see #20). If you read ’til the end, I’d really like to have your opinions on these. Thanks.

1 /1 year – Handmade papercraft construction designs will die of overexposure
You’ve seen these just about everywhere, they are very cool. But it is inevitable that creativity-challenged advertising agencies will destroy this idea, the same way they destroyed the “viral video”. By using them to sell cheap and tacky products that no one wants or needs, and plastering everything you can see with their sub-quality version. It will act as a vaccine and nobody will be able to even look at these without throwing up. By the end of 2010, this cool trend will be dead.

2 /1 year – The Apple Tablet will change the world
Just like nobody was able to predict the shape, functions and market-shifting powers of the iPhone, the Thing That Has Yet To Be Revealed will fill a gigantic hole that exists exactly in everyone’s blind spot. And it will be huger that huge. Today, every. single. phone. manufacturer is doing an exact clone of the iPhone, while not even coming close to its level of quality and richness of experience. In 2010 Apple will repeat this apparently superhuman feat once again. I will give you my own predictions about this in an upcoming post.

3 /1 year – Comics will explode on the upcoming and yet unannounced Apple Tablet
Of course this fabled Magic Tablet still only exists in the imagination of… everyone, actually. But, like Microsoft, all they can imagine it doing is the old stuff in a new box. E-Books, email and web browsing. Now imagine a comic book page, in full color, zoomable and digitally distributed. Remember that a scanned comic book is just a bunch of jpegs, and zips right down that Torrent hose you got plugged into that computer of yours. Books without pictures do not stand a chance.

4 /1 year – Personal media
Facebook, Twitter and blogs will reach even further into the mediasphere, eating up more and more valuable space that was previously dominated by Big Media. Breaking News are, uh, broken more and more by, um, regular ol’ people. The main part of a journalist’s job in 2010 will be separated into two parts. 1: complain about how irresponsible the masses are, with their twittering and somesuch, and 2: joining the new world and participating themselves. Of course, you know which ones I think will still have a job by the end of the decade.

5 /1 year /5 years /10 years – Copyright Schmopyright
Copyright and digital distribution issues are still in the air, but it’s a safe bet that some semblance of solution will have taken hold by the end of the decade. One thing is clear is that the existing model is broken and the new one has not been installed yet. Personally, I’m leaning towards a monthly all-you-can-eat digital content subscription that would include music, movies, books, games, and anything else we haven’t thought of yet. Among other things, it would get rid of piracy. More on this later.

6 /5 years – The Cloud becomes The Fog
Clouds are up in the sky. Way up. Walking in a city today it’s still rare to find a Wi-Fi connection that lets you tweet, update your facebook and read your email everywhere. But in a relatively near future, the cloud comes down to street level. It becomes The Fog. Wi-Fi (or whatever replaces it) will, eventually, inevitably, become as accessible – if not more – as radio waves. Being disconnected will be the exception.

7 /5 years – Ubiquitous access
Subway rides will be the perfect example of this. You will read your news, check out the highlights of last night’s game – or party – and generally go about your digital life while sitting comfortably until you get to your station. Reading a dead-tree news paper will become a little embarrassing. Like, for idiots and tree-killers.

8 /5 years – Invisible, infinite storage
A good example is the personal media player. Storage will eventually disappear, replaced by a managed key that gives you access either to what you have purchased, or to you digital media subscription. It will be an antenna, not a box.

9 /5 years – Screen resolution becomes meaningless
As much in small handheld, arms-length or wall-hung devices, screen resolution is going through a turmoil. 480p, 720, 1080, 4k, whatever! Because of the exploding multitude of formats available today, combined with the incoming and never-ending formats coming in tomorrow, most people will just give up and read/watch what they want in whatever format is accessible at the moment they want to access it. You can’t expect people to buy a $2000 plasma screen this year and to get a new one next year. Expect resolution-independent design to become the next interface trend.

10 /5 years – One More Thing from Apple
More and more fictitious yet amazing Apple products will be willed into existence by the Collective Hive Mind. Apple will retain its central position as the R&D department for the entire tech industry.

11 /5 years – Movies get longer still
We’ve been seeing this in the last couple of years from the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, the Wachowski brothers and James Cameron. Digital technology and ego inflation are pushing this trend very firmly. There will come a time when a movie rental and a TV-Series rental will be indistinguishable in length.

12 /5 years – Computers become smarter
Repetitive tasks will finally be taken over by the smart computer. Whenever it senses you doing the same thing more than three times in a row, it will ask you if you want it to take over for you. A simple enough concept, but nobody seems to be putting their brain cycles on this one.

13 /5 years – Magazines and Blogs will merge
As the traditional magazine’s structure, content, distribution and readership are increasingly overtaken by blogs, they will merge into a new “thing” that will be a morph of the two, and which has yet to be named. The fact that you will read both of them on your Tablet in the bathroom will further muddy the distinction.

14 /5 years – The emergence of Personal Media
Maybe this will be the name of that new thing. There was a time when a major weekly publication needed an office full of people to merely exist. Today a fat guy with a laptop can and does compete – successfully – with that old structure. Digital technology has allowed solitary geeks to make bedroom music and movies, and now it will allow them to publish full-blown “magazines”. Glossy-quality publications about personal obsessions, be it Barbie collections, obscure bands or world affairs. The little fanzine that could, will.

15 /5 years – Better battery life
In the same way a fish cannot conceive of the existence of birds living on trees, I see nothing in this direction. The future seems closed.  I just keep hoping that within 5 years a new, unexpected technology will… happen, that will do for portable energy storage what has been happening to portable computing’s processing power. Allowing us to envision 10-day power and infinitely rechargeable batteries.

16 /10 years – Ubiquitous manufacturing
This is barely starting now, it’s still in the realm of garage-geeks and science fiction, but personal fabrication machines, 3D printers, replicators, whatever you might want to call them, are coming, and they are coming to a counter near you. They will become a fact of life. That handle that broke off your laptop, the pen cap you lost, the switch on that lamp that isn’t working like it used to? You will be able to download a file, or scan it, and then print an exact and functional replica. This will reduce the quantity of broken coffee machines you will find on the side of the street come garbage day.

17 /10 years – The death of Journalism
Journalism as we know it – something that has only existed since de mid-19th century – will die its inescapable death, and not without an ugly fight. But it is going away, as surely as vinyl LPs and gas-powered lighting. In its place, a form of “human media” will emerge. A global village conversation, which disappeared when the emerging broadcast model was incapable of scaling it to the masses it was distributed to. Journalism will have been a chapter, a temporary blindness. I mean, do you really believe in the fiction that they call the “objective voice”?

18 /10 years – The new Privacy
Today you expect to be able to access all information. Yet you also expect to be able to block certain facts from that access. Really, who do you think will win that fight? Google and Wikipedia (and the things that will replace these) will know everything about you and about everyone and everything else. This is not something that we will escape. Human curiosity knows no limits, and you and your life are subject to it. It will take a long time, but people will eventually get used to this and get on with their connected lives. And wonder how the hell did they even function before.

19 /10 years – American popular culture opens up to the World
Maybe it’s because the Web will have beaten them to the punch, but within the next ten years, Hollywood will finally accept the fact that the rest of the world’s culture has value, and will start releasing dubbed movies, instead of crappy remakes with Ted Danson. Also, the studios will realize that it’s way cheaper this way.

20 /10 years – Generosity
Giving things away, doing more than what is expected, access to cheap power, communications and resources, these will usher in a new era of plenty. The poor will be rich. Websites and piracy are conditioning us to this frame of  mind, and it will want to expand to everything else in your life. The decade of Twenty Ten will be the decade of generosity.

Avant, quand je tapais une adresse et qu’il ne la trouvait pas, il m’envoyait sur une page Google avec des suggestions. Mais la plupart du temps, Google trouvait l’adresse tout seul, ma page loadait, et on n’y pensait plus.

Mais depuis peu, quand j’entre un nom que mon browser ne reconnaît pas, il m’envoie sur une page de Bell, qui essaie de se prendre pour Google. Sans grand résultat. Clairement les cerveaux sont chez Google.

Par exemple, si je tapais «wired» avant, j’allais direct à wired.com. Mais ça a changé. Un jour j’ai tapé «wired» et ça m’a ouvert une page qui disait genre «wired? je ne connais pas wired, bien que tu visites ce site à tous les jours de ta longue vie. Peut-être voulais-tu dire une de ces liens inutiles qui ne sont pas www.wired.com?» Avec en plus le logo de Bell, qui semblait me narguer en disant «hin hin, c’est qui le plus fin?».

C’est aujourd’hui avec grand plaisir que je constate que cette époque est maintenant révolue.

On peut revenir à l’ancienne manière. Voici comment :

1. Premièrement, il faut expliquer ce qu’est un DNS. C’est une liste qui fait le lien entre les numéros IP des sites web (genre 123.456.789.10 = www.monsite.com). Si vous n’en avez jamais vu, c’est pas grave. C’est ce que l’internet utilise pour vous linker au bon endroit.

2. Ensuite, expliquer que le changement de DNS a été fait par Bell il y a quelques temps, pour rediriger votre demande vers ses serveurs incompétents. Donc dès que la demande devient plus complexe (wired tout seul c’est où ça?) il l’envoie à un moteur de niaisage et vous présente une page contenant 50 liens qui ne sont pas celui que vous cherchez (did you mean wired.net ? or maybe wiredsomethingsomething.org?).

3. Finalement, une bonne nouvelle : Google ouvre ses propres DNS publics. On peut donc revenir à l’ancienne manière. Le lien du comment se trouve ici :

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html

Mais en gros, vous allez dans vos préférences de Network, et vous entrez les chiffres suivants dans la boîte DNS : 8.8.8.8 et 8.8.4.4 (cool numbers, BTW)

Si vous avec un routeur, il faut aller dans le machin du routeur pour changer les chiffres à cet endroit. C’est plus facile que vous pensez, vous trouver une boîte qui dit «primary DNS» et «secondary DNS» et c’est là. Si vous avez peur de tout péter, notez bien les DNS qui étaient là avant, comme ça vous pourrez les remettre si ça marche pas. Mais ça marche.

Ensuite redémarrez votre browser (très important), and bob’s yer uncle. En fait je viens de taper bobsyeruncle et ça m’a directement envoyé vers… http://www.bobsyeruncle.net !

Merci Google!

Ne sachant que répondre je prends mon iPhone et je tape “wikipedia pâté chinois” dans le browser. Une minute après j’avais ma réponse, que je lus à haute voix. Apparemment il y a deux versions de l’histoire, une ayant rapport avec les chinois qui travaillaient à la construction du chemin de fer transcanadien, et l’autre avec une ville dans le Maine appelée South China. Mais vous pouvez avoir plus de détails ici : Wikipedia – Pâté Chinois

Le but de cette histoire n’est pas de vous enseigner les détails du Steak-Blé d’Inde-Patates – que vous venez d’apprendre bien malgré vous (c’est capoté pareil comment ça marche l’éducation, an ?) mais de souligner le fait qu’aujourd’hui l’information – TOUTE l’information – est disponible au bout des doigts, a portée de conscience et pratiquement sans le moindre effort. Comme l’air qu’on respire. Il n’y a plus vraiment d’excuse à l’ignorance. Pas besoin d’être un gros geek, ou un gourou de la tech pour accéder à ça, faut juste avoir un cell, et vous en avez tous un. Un ordi à la rigueur.

Fuck, combien de questions, combien de réponses pour un esprit qui est en train de faire son éducation ? Enfant, je me suis demande longtemps qui était l’Homme éléphant, épluchant les livres des bibliothèques du quartier et de l’école, sans rien trouver de satisfaisant, des années avec cette question. Aujourd’hui c’est inconcevable. Aujourd’hui premièrement Google va me linker à une quantité astronomique de data, mais surtout, et c’est ce qui donne le vertige, c’est que tous ces liens existent, quelqu’un a mis toutes ces informations, toutes ces connaissances en ligne, gratuitement, accessibles à tous.

Trente secondes pour une réponse à toute question.

Une reponse validée, commentée, détaillee et enrichie. La réponse d’un expert. De manière transparente, accessible comme l’air qu’on respire. Et mes enfants sont en train de grandir dans ce monde.

Ma fille aînée a neuf ans. Dans quelques années elle aura – vraisemblablement – un téléphone cellulaire. Et maintenant je réalise que son PREMIER cell sera probablement dix fois plus puissant et connecté que le iPhone que je tiens en ce moment dans mes mains (oui je suis en train de bloguer dans le Metro, entre Laurier et Mont-Royal) qui est quand même le boutte de la marde. Son niveau zéro est déjà au-délà de ce qui est possible en ce moment.

The future is strange and we have no idea.

It works as expected, although reviewing older posts is a little weird because the images appear as HTML code, and look nothing like images.

Still it’s a thrill to be able to post from virtually anywhere. Even if that thrill is a little dampened by the fact that I’m actually sitting in front of my Mac and it would just be so much easier – and FASTER – to just use a regular keyboard. I’ll just have to get out of the house sometime this week to play with this IRL.

The new keyboard thing is also much easier to use than I expected, and thank Steve for the smart auto-complete features. This is something that I will be enjoying greatly.

Un article sur Wired qui détaille comment installer et utiliser Colors, une application qui permet de peindre en utilisant une petite console Nintendo DS.

On peut dessiner, sauvegarder, envoyer par wi-fi et email, et le dessin peut être transféré en un format animé qui reproduit chaque trait. Le stylet paut aussi être pressure-sensitive. Voici un exemple sur YouTube, fait par Jason Dunn.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vraiment amMAzing, mon ami !

- Hey t’as tu vu 99 francs ?

- Le film?

- Oui, avec Jean Dujardin ?

- Celui qui sort à Montréal dans un mois là ?

- Oui

- Oui je l’ai downloadé ça fait déjà un mois.

- C’est bon hein ? Moi je l’ai vu la semaine passée.

- Oui c’est vraiment bon, comme le livre. Mais je crois pas que ça va avoir trop de succès ici. Tous ceux qui voulaient le voir l’ont déjà vu. C’est sorti en septembre passé en France.

- Oui. Je sais pas à quoi ils pensent dans les compagnies de distribution.

- Ils pensent pas beaucoup. Ils vivent dans une autre époque.

- Dommage pour eux. En tout cas le film était vraiment drôle.

Probably won’t last very long, since it’s FUN and has something to do with MUSIC. And we all know the music industry is dead set against letting people put those two words together. Anyways, end of rant. Enjoy, this is like what radio should/could be like.

muxtape.com

Oui, vraiment, nous vivons dans le futur.

So after filling a Best Buy with fake employees and weirding out a used-books bookstore with a cell phone symphony (as well as a huge bunch of other chaotic «missions») this time post-comedy troupe Improv Everywhere have filled New York’s Grand Central Station with 207 frozen «Agents» to the dismay and disbelief of the usual crowd of tourists, travelers and random passers-by. This is truly amazing.

More info here.

[UPDATE : I had to change the Revver video for a crappier, lower-quality Youtube video because the Revver Worpdress Plugin doesn't work right. You can still click through to the Revver page if you want to see better quality video.]

D’après un article ici, des coquerelles conçues en apesanteur présentent des caractéristiques vraiment inquiétantes. Elles se développent plus rapidement, et elles courent plus vite…