The 2010 technology wish list

2009-12-31 20:06

Washington - The dawn of a new year is a time when people in many parts of the world make wishes for the future. Technology fans are no different.

While 2009 was traumatic in the financial world, there were glimmers of hope in technology: the iPhone 3GS continued pushing the boundaries in handhelds; computer technology got smaller, faster, and cheaper; the internet bubbled with social networking sites.

But there are still plenty of areas of technology in which wishes are welcome. Here are a few.

- Cheaper handhelds

Sure, the iPhone and BlackBerry are great devices, allowing you to do everything from check your e-mail to help you find your way to places you've never been. But all of this functionality comes at a price - and one that's simply too high for many.

Add up the price of the handheld and the monthly fees from your cellphone provider, your data plan, and perhaps you BlackBerry surcharge, and you're probably looking at a monthly bill that has you thinking about what other expenses you can cut out of your budget.

Put simply, many people consider handhelds a necessity these days, but that shouldn't mean that in order to use them, you have to cut your food budget by a week each month.

Almost every component of the wireless chain is too expensive: the handhelds themselves, the service fees, the overage fees, and more.

What's called for is either greater competition among carriers and handheld makers or, barring that, greater regulation and oversight.

Because handheld devices are becoming as much of a business necessity as computers were ten years ago, we need to ensure that they remain affordable to the majority.

- A solution to phone spam

It took almost a decade to get e-mail spam under control, but the struggle ahead seems to be with cellphone spam - unwanted text messages from companies or even people you don't know.

In some places, these messages come with increasing regularity, and they're always a nuisance. Cellphone providers themselves are often at fault.

One thing is sure: there's no easier way to anger a mobile phone user than to interrupt him or her with an advertisement sent by text. Let's hope that in 2010 companies see the folly of this method of advertising and regulators crack down on the practice.

- More competition

Technology always seems to get better and cheaper, but only when there are plenty of competitors around to vie for customers.

In some of the hot areas of tech today - smart phones, computer chips, e-book readers -there simply are not enough players involved to force manufacturers to keep prices low.

Apple and BlackBerry have a virtual lock on the smart phone market. Intel's only competitor - AMD - is miniscule by comparison.

And Amazon and Sony control the e-reader market. The result in all cases: prices are out of reach for too many.
- An end to transition ads

Most internet users understand that content providers have to make money from advertisers in order to provide information or services for free.

But the emergence of transition ads - those full-screen or almost-full-screen ads that force you to click "close" or "continue" in order to get to the content you seek - are beyond annoying.

And they're appearing with increasing frequency around the net. Pop-up blockers can't stop them, either.

As a consumer, you can do your part to put end to them by not clicking on them and by seeking out providers of information or services that do not use them.

- Better battery life

Mobile devices aren't really very mobile if you constantly have to worry about whether they can hold enough of a charge to get you through your next flight or workday.

Netbooks have shown that it's possible to significantly raise expectations regarding how long technology products can last on batteries. Some netbooks operate for as long as 10 hours before needing to be recharged.

They achieve this feat with a combination of ultra low-power parts and cutting-edge battery technology. Now other products need to follow suit. Here's hoping that in 2010 we can go a lot longer while untethered.

- Cheaper SSDs

There's no doubt about it: the best way to improve performance in today's fast computers and notebooks is to use a solid state disk rather than a traditional magnetic platter hard drive.

SSDs can easily achieve read and write speeds that are twice as fast as those of conventional hard drives - and they're silent, they run cool, and they sip energy as bonuses.

The trouble: SSDs are still outrageously expensive on a price-capacity basis. The same amount you spend on an 80 GB SSD will buy you almost two 2000 GB - or 2 terabyte - conventional hard drives. That price differential keeps SSDs out of consideration for many.

- Apple tablet impresses

Apple's forthcoming iTablet portable reader is rumoured to be debuting early in 2010, and a successful launch of the product would be a boon to a trend that seems both inevitable but has had difficulty gaining traction: reading books, news, the web, and other materials on electronic readers.

So far Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader have impressed with their promise, but their prices and lack of key features have simply kept them out of the hands of most people.

If Apple can do for the e-reader market what it did with the digital music player and the mobile smartphone, we may all be using or wanting an e-reader in 2010. That should make reading more accessible, more powerful, and more fun than before.

- Competition for Google

Overall, Google has done a masterful job of both maintaining goodwill among customers and slowly dominating the markets it enters.

But the fact is that Google's footprint in the internet space has become huge and in some cases overpowering.

It may not yet have the monopolistic reach of Microsoft or Intel, but it's close. Most internet users turn to Google's search engine first.

Google's advertising footprint on the web is unmistakable. Its entry into the office application market, cellphone market, imaging, maps, books, and more mean that Google is touching almost every aspect of internet use today, and its interest in making much of the world accessible online has caused many to be concerned about invasions of privacy and violations of intellectual property rights.

While there are few examples yet of a widespread user backlash against Google's ever-increasing influence, the signs point to virtual monopolies in the making.

In 2010 let's hope for both greater competition for Google and the restraining influence of regulators concerned about our privacy and about fair business practices.
 

- SAPA