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> I increasingly think that augmented reality is the next fundamental platform shift. I read these articles and everyone seems to be operating from the assumpt

> I increasingly think that augmented reality is the next fundamental platform shift. I read these articles and everyone seems to be operating from the assumption that a fundamental platform shift is inevitable and coming within the next few years. Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years?

pjmlp 10y ago
The problema is all those OEMs and their shareholders that need something to hold on, so that they can keep targeting growing targets year after year.
arglebarnacle 10y ago
I wouldn't rule it out, but no computing hardware platform has ever been dominant for 50 years before so there are reasons to believe we're not about to get started with that kind of cycle now. Mainframes, minicomputers, desktop personal computers, laptops, and now tablets and smartphones. Maybe we have reached the end (for 50 years at least), but I think the safer bet is that the next big technology 30 years from now will be something that surprises us, not something we already have or could easily predict having wide adoption.
- cft 10y ago
  Except the Moore's law has (almost?) ended now, for the first time in 50 years.
- narrator 10y ago
  The next big technology revolution is AI. Should be pretty obvious at this point. The next one after that will be consumer technology integrated with human biology. All the fitness trackers are the first primitive attempts at that, but lab on a chip and brain machine interfaces are on their way. The $6 cell phone semen analyzer is a harbinger of this.
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    > The next big technology revolution is AI. Should be pretty obvious at this point. Unless you mean strong AI, which isn't anywhere close, I don't think this AI rush has much wider chances than the previous one, except for some narrow use cases.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >The next big technology revolution is AI. Should be pretty obvious at this point. I don't think so. I think AI is just one of those fads that come up every now and then, and then get abandoned for the next one. I'm calling AI as in "actual working strong AI" or useful soft AI stuff as fad. I'm calling "AI" as in the thing currently every VC/company is investing in and we see various helpers like Cortana and Siri based, the machine learning craze, on etc. Besides some obvious and fitting applications (like in self driving cars) it will go nowhere fast. VR has already reached this stage, without making any large dent on the market in the first place even temporarily. Note that this is the second time AI is promised and will get nowhere (the first was back in the 80s, with the "AI winter").
    - pacala 10y ago
      Google.com is today's Ai. No reason to believe it will stop improving.
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Stop? I can't wait for it to start!
      - nradov 10y ago
        And yet their search result quality subjectively seems to be stable at best or declining slightly. If that's AI then it's certainly not as smart as the spammers and black-hat SEOs. On the mobile side, when the latest version of Google Assistant misunderstands what I want so often as to be worse than useless. Still hoping to see some improvement but not holding my breath.
      - coldtea 10y ago
- coldtea 10y ago
  >*I wouldn't rule it out, but no computing hardware platform has ever been dominant for 50 years before so there are reasons to believe we're not about to get started with that kind of cycle now. "Mainframes, minicomputers, desktop personal computers, laptops, and now tablets and smartphones" -- yes, so we had like 5 generations of computing hardware platforms. And we began with so premature and begging for improvement technologies (when they started in the 50s) and so large form factors that we had Moore's law going on for decades until a few years past. Now we've reaching physical limits in CPU shrinking, and we have components so small (e.g. Apple Watch) than if they were any smaller you couldn't handle their buttons, or fit a camera lens, or speakers, or a large enough screen in there. My point is, just because something has been going on for 5 generations of form factors, it's nowhere near enough evidence to be meaningful statistically or otherwise to deduce it will go on forever. A turkey is fed every day by the farmer for months on end. But after 300+ observations that make it think feeding is never ending and inevitable there comes thanksgiving.
  - moe 10y ago
    > if they were any smaller you couldn't handle their buttons, They will connect to our brains. > or fit a camera lens, or speakers, > or a large enough screen in there. Not needed when they are connected to our brains.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Yeah, don't hold your breath for those. You'll be needing an oxygenated brain for when they arrive.
    - thegp 10y ago
      Trust me, they won't for a while and you don't want them to. Do some research into bio-compatibility. After that, do some research into electrolysis. You can do a fun experiment by connecting a battery to your tongue for a while. Just google it before please to know what is happening. Meanwhile, non invasive BCI are getting AWESOME...if you are a quadriplegic with no other options. Now imagine we solve those problems, and the first BCI is on the market. It's safe, it's a little bit faster than typing/reading (hey, first generation right). Who is going to be the first early adopter to undergo massive brainsurgery? Turns out upgarding cochlear implants is so hard they are made to last 100 years (they get surrounded by bones and scar tissue...) so upgrading will be really hard. And who wouldn't want to have their blackberry implanted into their head right now...even worse, if we have proprietary technology in the first ones and now your brainberry can only talk to other brainberries...or we go full internet of shit and it needs a cloud server to do anything:)
- wpietri 10y ago
  Unfortunately that heuristic is useless in deciding when periods of change end. Ditto when periods of stability end. I could say, "The manually driven, privately owned internal combustion car and truck have been dominant in transport for 100 years, so the safe bet is that they will continue to be." And that is definitely safe bet. But the interesting work will be done by people making the unsafe bets.
- Banthum 10y ago
  I don't disagree with your main point but I think it's worth saying - Pen-and-paper is a computing hardware platform! And it ruled for much longer than 50 years. And to no small success - they worked out quantum mechanics and a lot of other very difficult problems on this platform. People still even make games for this platform too.
  - Chinjut 10y ago
    Well, pen and paper is a memory device; the actual computing was carried out by human brains. But, yes, human brains have been successful for much longer than 50 years, and still enjoy success in many domains…
    - riffraff 10y ago
      Maybe slide rules/abacus/soroban ? "Computing" in the most literal sense :)
- cc439 10y ago
  The desktop PC became the dominant computing platform almost 40 years ago with the introduction of the first generation of affordable home computers (Apple II being the primary example). Even though laptop sales have overtook desktop sales around 10 years ago, the preferred form factor (15"+ screen) and intended use (sits at a desk 90%+ of the time) of the vast majority of laptop owners means the majority of laptops are nothing but desktops that happen to be easier to move to another desk. Even though the amount of time spent using desktops and laptops in a desktop-like manner is decreasing, it's still a form factor found in every home. There may be more smartphones in that home but in my opinion, any product which is universally present in people's home is dominant even if it isn't being used as often as other options. Another example of this would be the microwave versus the oven. I'm not sure which one is used more often than the other but both are still dominant in terms of their universal presence in every home.
  - brcha 10y ago
    Well, imagine being able to project your "laptop" where ever you want using AR? Then you could use it as your home desktop-laptop and carry it everywhere with you. Tablets are cool and you can carry them everywhere, but you can't really work important stuff on them since they are still too small. On the other hand, even if laptops had very good battery life (which usually is not the case), they are still too big and heavy to carry around unless really needed (ie. for a meeting or something like that). But an augmented reality laptop that lives in your phone is something people might want to use. Not for gaming, but for normal office work, be it programming or using spreadsheets. And, at that point, regular users might think about obsoleting desktop PCs and laptops.
    - nradov 10y ago
      A projected AR display would only be useful for creative and business work if it can completely occlude the background. I won't be able to see the spreadsheet clearly if light leaks through it through from the window in front of me. Due to limits imposed by optics, complete background light blockage is always going to require a bulky, awkward head-mounted display. No one has proposed any way to get around this issue even in theory.
- blitmap 10y ago
  I think we'll struggle for a long while to make the smartphone our main computer. One that can interface smoothly with wireless displays and peripherals at home. I could totally see a smartphone hooking up to another computer for gamers - like the Thunderbolt 3 chassis allowing you to use an external GPU. Or simply when you walk into your house your phone connects to a more powerful hub giving you sensor data and processing power? Eventually I think we'll socially "shift" to allowing electronics within our bodies to augment our abilities. We can't fit everything into a smartphone and we can't keep shrinking it. We can make things more efficient but it's more likely we'll begin building onto humans. Bodies are bigger than phones. I'm more excited than terrified about an implant attached to my optic nerve for true augmented reality. Imagine everyone having a photographic memory. I'd love to see more done to store data on crystal - or on DNA. Let's get freaky. :-)
  - toothbrush 10y ago
    You should watch Black Mirror S1E3, entitled "The Entire History of You". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You
erikb 10y ago
Agreed. The assumption that after one innovation the next has to follow is the flaw. It was like this for the last maybe 100 years. But it doesn't mean that it keeps going on like that. For the longest part in history innovation was a rare thing. And at some point we reach the global cool down of the innovation S curve.
eksemplar 10y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but I think someone is going to figure out a device that does what a smartphones does, minus the "carry around" bit. And I don't think it'll take 50 years. Google glass wasn't it, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  well we always can have a ST:TNG generation inspiration and use jewelry or similarly disguised devices at the communication device. Still the one point against miniaturization is how do you visually communicate something? if anything the smartphone will just become. become an everything. it will seamlessly interact with whatever device is nearby that you want to use and be the source point for your data and inquiries. get in your car, it takes over the center console. sit down at your desk and you work is right there like you left it. need to show a group something, point it at a display.
jlarocco 10y ago
> Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years? Nobody knows the future, and maybe phones really are the end of the line for computing form factors, but I doubt it - there are too many problems with phones. Tiny, hard to read screens; poor battery life; fragile and easy to break, etc. They certainly won't go away, because not even mainframes have completely disappeared, but they're already not the hot new thing, and the more time goes by the more people will be looking for shiny new devices.
Nokinside 10y ago
Innovation in saturated markets is different from growing markets. When smartphones become household items, visible innovation has turned into small tricks and gimmicks. People need smartphones for their daily activities and innovation that is directed towards low cost may be more profitable. TV, computer monitors and smartphones seem all to be riding on screen technology. If there is development VR or AR technologies that make it into mass markets, it can disrupt all these markets.
rokhayakebe 10y ago
Yes it is. Mobile phones are incredibly not user friendly. They are just the best thing we have for the moment. For consumers (not necessarily business use cases) you shouldn't have to pull your phone out every time you need direction, make a phone call, check your email, listen to a song etc...
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Yes it is. Mobile phones are incredibly not user friendly. They are just the best thing we have for the moment. Who said user friendliness is some inevitability? Some tasks (if not all) have some inherent complexity. Even if we had strong AI, we'd just delegate the tasks to it to handle -- we wouldn't reduce the complexity of handling them ourselves, we have just bypassed it.
naasking 10y ago
> Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years? Yes: a) dominant consumer-facing platforms don't tend to last much longer than 10 years these days, b) smartphones only really took off exactly 10 years ago with the iPhone, so it's presumptuous to think we've hit the perfect sweet spot that will last us much longer. It's almost like arguing the ENIAC would be the pinnacle of computing for the next 50 years. A lot of evolution happened, and "phones" 20 years from now will probably be nearly incomparable to phones today, just like your phone is just somewhat different from ENIAC.
- panic 10y ago
  The improvements since ENIAC have mostly been miniaturization. It seems like smartphones are about as small as you can make a computer before it starts to become less usable.
  - eximius 10y ago
    and speed, efficiency, complexity...?
  - naasking 10y ago
    A general computer you interact with via your hands, but those aren't the only kinds of computers we may use throughout the day, nor the only types of interfaces possible.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Yes: a) dominant consumer-facing platforms don't tend to last much longer than 10 years these days Citation needed. Although the addition of "these days" doesn't let us check any historical precedent, as makes the claim more like "it might have been different in the past, but from now on dominant consumer-facing platforms don't tend to last much longer than 10 years". >smartphones only really took off exactly 10 years ago with the iPhone, so it's presumptuous to think we've hit the perfect sweet spot that will last us much longer. That's irrelevant, since smartphones are just the continuation of computing platforms, so they herald back to ENIAC's time too. They are more portable computer in essence (that also takes calls -- which are now of course digitally communicated) than some novel technology. >It's almost like arguing the ENIAC would be the pinnacle of computing for the next 50 years. At the moment ENIAC has developed everybody knew it was early days, and tons of innovations unexploited for improvement. Heck, computing hadn't even hit the market much yet, it was all research work. Today we already have exhausted Moore's law, and we're near physical limitations for further shrinking. It's as if people don't understand that innovations in platforms are S curved such that one see more improvement in a platform before it plateaus, before all the low hanging fruits have been implemented, and further research yields marginal returns for very expensive costs.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
> Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years? Yes it is :-). We have not yet entered the age of carbon (still in the Silicon age) and when we get there (and it will be in the next 10 years or so) you'll see a large increase in computer power per watt. Combine that with the fact that we have imagined a more interesting future than the one we're in, and it pretty much insures evolution in personal technology.
- oconnore 10y ago
  The world we're in is one where the dominant use of pocket supercomputers is to send pictures, video, and messages around to our friends. Extrapolating to massive improvements in computing power per watt, and the main question is still: are augmented reality UIs and neural interfaces better at snapchat and poop emojis?
  - GrinningFool 10y ago
    I would expect new AR versions of those things to supplant the current iterations.
pacala 10y ago
I'm deferring so much of my details knowledge to google that's it not even funny. Even for casual lunch convos I pull the phone to google specific facts. I'd rather have a less intrusive and awkward interface.
- aorth 10y ago
  The alternative is to stop checking the facts constantly. See this article about disabiling "infinity apps" on your phone. https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or-why-im-happier-since-i-disabled-safari-80f8d525b0d8#.f20cehkjc https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or...
flogic 10y ago
That's really 2 questions in one. The first is "is there demand for another shift?". The second being "does the capability exist?". My inclination is to say the answers to those 2 are "yes" and "maybe" respectively. Smart phones are awesome but by their very nature they have some limitations. The slowest aspect on any computer is communication from the user to the machine. We're slow and the constrained real estate of phones only makes it worse. I wouldn't consider typing all this on a phone. The next slowest is the other direction. So if you can figure out how to improve those channels in a highly portable way people will most likely buy it. That brings us to the capability question. Voice kinda improves things when you can't use your hands but it's always been unreliable. Physical keyboards on phones are out of fashion. Smart watches are tiny and power constrained. Google glass looked neat but is expensive and again power constrained. It seems to be a serious question of how do you get a bigger device without the drawbacks of getting a bigger device.
- jest3r1 10y ago
  Product innovation doesn't always have to be a new feature, or a paradigm "shift" with new technology like AR. Smartphones could be due for a substantial reduction in price (there's certainly demand for that). Not just hardware pricing, but also carrier pricing. From a hardware perspective Apple must innovate (or have you believe they're innovating) to keep the product price and profit margins as high as possible. However, as the article points out, the smartphone market is mature. There's not much left to innovate in terms of the "hand held" form factor, other than price, or improving on already available features (better camera, better voice control, wireless charging etc). The iPod provided good insight into "size", and even when given smaller sizes (like the nano), consumers generally preferred the standard, easier to hold sizes, with displays big enough to read. The Sony WM-10 cassette Walkman from 1983 was about the same size! Size has been consistent for over 30 years. It must be getting harder and harder for Apple to spin each revision as groundbreaking enough to pay the same price as last year. Android capitalizes on this. But it's still a pricing monopoly on both sides, which carriers enjoy as well. When will there be a substantial reduction in price? Does the capability exist yet?
  - petra 10y ago
tvural 10y ago
One possibility is that the resolution of VR goggles becomes so good that you can simulate looking at a screen. Then you might have something as easy to carry as a smartphone but with unbounded screen size.
cm2187 10y ago
Yeah, I think most people aren't keen to wear glasses, AR or not.
- andrewfong 10y ago
  I think something like 40% of Americans already wear glasses. Make them light and comfortable and it's not hard to see AR eyewear taking off.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    So you think the customer base for AR is a middle aged to senior population?
adrianratnapala 10y ago
I don't know about platforms, but I think a shift in UI must come. The thing is that touchscreen mobile phones are terribly clunky interfaces. It's much harder to express you intent with fat human fingers than with keyboard-and-mouse device. The advantage of the phone is entirely in its mobility, and the fact that you want a telephone anyway. If some interface (augmented reality, voice, direct neural probes) becomes a workable UI that is both expressive and mobile, then it will take over.
- nradov 10y ago
  There's potential in building a mobile UI around gestures from the start instead of around touch on a flat rectangular screen.
mwfunk 10y ago
It's possible, but I think there's also something akin to the Anthropic Principle that affects what sort of articles get the most views and links- if the authors didn't think big change was inevitable, they wouldn't write the articles, or the much more sober and realistic articles that they would write instead wouldn't get nearly so many views and links in aggregators like HN. The nature of the medium favors people making exciting predictions (that might even come true, who knows), not people throwing cold water on other people's exciting predictions (who are more likely to be correct but don't prompt nearly as much sharing and discussion).

pjmlp 10y ago

The problema is all those OEMs and their shareholders that need something to hold on, so that they can keep targeting growing targets year after year.

arglebarnacle 10y ago

I wouldn't rule it out, but no computing hardware platform has ever been dominant for 50 years before so there are reasons to believe we're not about to get started with that kind of cycle now. Mainframes, minicomputers, desktop personal computers, laptops, and now tablets and smartphones. Maybe we have reached the end (for 50 years at least), but I think the safer bet is that the next big technology 30 years from now will be something that surprises us, not something we already have or could easily predict having wide adoption.

cft 10y ago
Except the Moore's law has (almost?) ended now, for the first time in 50 years.
narrator 10y ago
The next big technology revolution is AI. Should be pretty obvious at this point. The next one after that will be consumer technology integrated with human biology. All the fitness trackers are the first primitive attempts at that, but lab on a chip and brain machine interfaces are on their way. The $6 cell phone semen analyzer is a harbinger of this.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  > The next big technology revolution is AI. Should be pretty obvious at this point. Unless you mean strong AI, which isn't anywhere close, I don't think this AI rush has much wider chances than the previous one, except for some narrow use cases.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >The next big technology revolution is AI. Should be pretty obvious at this point. I don't think so. I think AI is just one of those fads that come up every now and then, and then get abandoned for the next one. I'm calling AI as in "actual working strong AI" or useful soft AI stuff as fad. I'm calling "AI" as in the thing currently every VC/company is investing in and we see various helpers like Cortana and Siri based, the machine learning craze, on etc. Besides some obvious and fitting applications (like in self driving cars) it will go nowhere fast. VR has already reached this stage, without making any large dent on the market in the first place even temporarily. Note that this is the second time AI is promised and will get nowhere (the first was back in the 80s, with the "AI winter").
  - pacala 10y ago
    Google.com is today's Ai. No reason to believe it will stop improving.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Stop? I can't wait for it to start!
    - nradov 10y ago
      And yet their search result quality subjectively seems to be stable at best or declining slightly. If that's AI then it's certainly not as smart as the spammers and black-hat SEOs. On the mobile side, when the latest version of Google Assistant misunderstands what I want so often as to be worse than useless. Still hoping to see some improvement but not holding my breath.
    - coldtea 10y ago
coldtea 10y ago
>*I wouldn't rule it out, but no computing hardware platform has ever been dominant for 50 years before so there are reasons to believe we're not about to get started with that kind of cycle now. "Mainframes, minicomputers, desktop personal computers, laptops, and now tablets and smartphones" -- yes, so we had like 5 generations of computing hardware platforms. And we began with so premature and begging for improvement technologies (when they started in the 50s) and so large form factors that we had Moore's law going on for decades until a few years past. Now we've reaching physical limits in CPU shrinking, and we have components so small (e.g. Apple Watch) than if they were any smaller you couldn't handle their buttons, or fit a camera lens, or speakers, or a large enough screen in there. My point is, just because something has been going on for 5 generations of form factors, it's nowhere near enough evidence to be meaningful statistically or otherwise to deduce it will go on forever. A turkey is fed every day by the farmer for months on end. But after 300+ observations that make it think feeding is never ending and inevitable there comes thanksgiving.
- moe 10y ago
  > if they were any smaller you couldn't handle their buttons, They will connect to our brains. > or fit a camera lens, or speakers, > or a large enough screen in there. Not needed when they are connected to our brains.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Yeah, don't hold your breath for those. You'll be needing an oxygenated brain for when they arrive.
  - thegp 10y ago
    Trust me, they won't for a while and you don't want them to. Do some research into bio-compatibility. After that, do some research into electrolysis. You can do a fun experiment by connecting a battery to your tongue for a while. Just google it before please to know what is happening. Meanwhile, non invasive BCI are getting AWESOME...if you are a quadriplegic with no other options. Now imagine we solve those problems, and the first BCI is on the market. It's safe, it's a little bit faster than typing/reading (hey, first generation right). Who is going to be the first early adopter to undergo massive brainsurgery? Turns out upgarding cochlear implants is so hard they are made to last 100 years (they get surrounded by bones and scar tissue...) so upgrading will be really hard. And who wouldn't want to have their blackberry implanted into their head right now...even worse, if we have proprietary technology in the first ones and now your brainberry can only talk to other brainberries...or we go full internet of shit and it needs a cloud server to do anything:)
wpietri 10y ago
Unfortunately that heuristic is useless in deciding when periods of change end. Ditto when periods of stability end. I could say, "The manually driven, privately owned internal combustion car and truck have been dominant in transport for 100 years, so the safe bet is that they will continue to be." And that is definitely safe bet. But the interesting work will be done by people making the unsafe bets.
Banthum 10y ago
I don't disagree with your main point but I think it's worth saying - Pen-and-paper is a computing hardware platform! And it ruled for much longer than 50 years. And to no small success - they worked out quantum mechanics and a lot of other very difficult problems on this platform. People still even make games for this platform too.
- Chinjut 10y ago
  Well, pen and paper is a memory device; the actual computing was carried out by human brains. But, yes, human brains have been successful for much longer than 50 years, and still enjoy success in many domains…
  - riffraff 10y ago
    Maybe slide rules/abacus/soroban ? "Computing" in the most literal sense :)
cc439 10y ago
The desktop PC became the dominant computing platform almost 40 years ago with the introduction of the first generation of affordable home computers (Apple II being the primary example). Even though laptop sales have overtook desktop sales around 10 years ago, the preferred form factor (15"+ screen) and intended use (sits at a desk 90%+ of the time) of the vast majority of laptop owners means the majority of laptops are nothing but desktops that happen to be easier to move to another desk. Even though the amount of time spent using desktops and laptops in a desktop-like manner is decreasing, it's still a form factor found in every home. There may be more smartphones in that home but in my opinion, any product which is universally present in people's home is dominant even if it isn't being used as often as other options. Another example of this would be the microwave versus the oven. I'm not sure which one is used more often than the other but both are still dominant in terms of their universal presence in every home.
- brcha 10y ago
  Well, imagine being able to project your "laptop" where ever you want using AR? Then you could use it as your home desktop-laptop and carry it everywhere with you. Tablets are cool and you can carry them everywhere, but you can't really work important stuff on them since they are still too small. On the other hand, even if laptops had very good battery life (which usually is not the case), they are still too big and heavy to carry around unless really needed (ie. for a meeting or something like that). But an augmented reality laptop that lives in your phone is something people might want to use. Not for gaming, but for normal office work, be it programming or using spreadsheets. And, at that point, regular users might think about obsoleting desktop PCs and laptops.
  - nradov 10y ago
    A projected AR display would only be useful for creative and business work if it can completely occlude the background. I won't be able to see the spreadsheet clearly if light leaks through it through from the window in front of me. Due to limits imposed by optics, complete background light blockage is always going to require a bulky, awkward head-mounted display. No one has proposed any way to get around this issue even in theory.
blitmap 10y ago
I think we'll struggle for a long while to make the smartphone our main computer. One that can interface smoothly with wireless displays and peripherals at home. I could totally see a smartphone hooking up to another computer for gamers - like the Thunderbolt 3 chassis allowing you to use an external GPU. Or simply when you walk into your house your phone connects to a more powerful hub giving you sensor data and processing power? Eventually I think we'll socially "shift" to allowing electronics within our bodies to augment our abilities. We can't fit everything into a smartphone and we can't keep shrinking it. We can make things more efficient but it's more likely we'll begin building onto humans. Bodies are bigger than phones. I'm more excited than terrified about an implant attached to my optic nerve for true augmented reality. Imagine everyone having a photographic memory. I'd love to see more done to store data on crystal - or on DNA. Let's get freaky. :-)
- toothbrush 10y ago
  You should watch Black Mirror S1E3, entitled "The Entire History of You". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You

erikb 10y ago

Agreed. The assumption that after one innovation the next has to follow is the flaw. It was like this for the last maybe 100 years. But it doesn't mean that it keeps going on like that. For the longest part in history innovation was a rare thing. And at some point we reach the global cool down of the innovation S curve.

eksemplar 10y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but I think someone is going to figure out a device that does what a smartphones does, minus the "carry around" bit. And I don't think it'll take 50 years. Google glass wasn't it, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.

Shivetya 10y ago
well we always can have a ST:TNG generation inspiration and use jewelry or similarly disguised devices at the communication device. Still the one point against miniaturization is how do you visually communicate something? if anything the smartphone will just become. become an everything. it will seamlessly interact with whatever device is nearby that you want to use and be the source point for your data and inquiries. get in your car, it takes over the center console. sit down at your desk and you work is right there like you left it. need to show a group something, point it at a display.

jlarocco 10y ago

> Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years? Nobody knows the future, and maybe phones really are the end of the line for computing form factors, but I doubt it - there are too many problems with phones. Tiny, hard to read screens; poor battery life; fragile and easy to break, etc. They certainly won't go away, because not even mainframes have completely disappeared, but they're already not the hot new thing, and the more time goes by the more people will be looking for shiny new devices.

Nokinside 10y ago

Innovation in saturated markets is different from growing markets. When smartphones become household items, visible innovation has turned into small tricks and gimmicks. People need smartphones for their daily activities and innovation that is directed towards low cost may be more profitable. TV, computer monitors and smartphones seem all to be riding on screen technology. If there is development VR or AR technologies that make it into mass markets, it can disrupt all these markets.

rokhayakebe 10y ago

Yes it is. Mobile phones are incredibly not user friendly. They are just the best thing we have for the moment. For consumers (not necessarily business use cases) you shouldn't have to pull your phone out every time you need direction, make a phone call, check your email, listen to a song etc...

coldtea 10y ago
>Yes it is. Mobile phones are incredibly not user friendly. They are just the best thing we have for the moment. Who said user friendliness is some inevitability? Some tasks (if not all) have some inherent complexity. Even if we had strong AI, we'd just delegate the tasks to it to handle -- we wouldn't reduce the complexity of handling them ourselves, we have just bypassed it.

naasking 10y ago

> Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years? Yes: a) dominant consumer-facing platforms don't tend to last much longer than 10 years these days, b) smartphones only really took off exactly 10 years ago with the iPhone, so it's presumptuous to think we've hit the perfect sweet spot that will last us much longer. It's almost like arguing the ENIAC would be the pinnacle of computing for the next 50 years. A lot of evolution happened, and "phones" 20 years from now will probably be nearly incomparable to phones today, just like your phone is just somewhat different from ENIAC.

panic 10y ago
The improvements since ENIAC have mostly been miniaturization. It seems like smartphones are about as small as you can make a computer before it starts to become less usable.
- eximius 10y ago
  and speed, efficiency, complexity...?
- naasking 10y ago
  A general computer you interact with via your hands, but those aren't the only kinds of computers we may use throughout the day, nor the only types of interfaces possible.
coldtea 10y ago
>Yes: a) dominant consumer-facing platforms don't tend to last much longer than 10 years these days Citation needed. Although the addition of "these days" doesn't let us check any historical precedent, as makes the claim more like "it might have been different in the past, but from now on dominant consumer-facing platforms don't tend to last much longer than 10 years". >smartphones only really took off exactly 10 years ago with the iPhone, so it's presumptuous to think we've hit the perfect sweet spot that will last us much longer. That's irrelevant, since smartphones are just the continuation of computing platforms, so they herald back to ENIAC's time too. They are more portable computer in essence (that also takes calls -- which are now of course digitally communicated) than some novel technology. >It's almost like arguing the ENIAC would be the pinnacle of computing for the next 50 years. At the moment ENIAC has developed everybody knew it was early days, and tons of innovations unexploited for improvement. Heck, computing hadn't even hit the market much yet, it was all research work. Today we already have exhausted Moore's law, and we're near physical limitations for further shrinking. It's as if people don't understand that innovations in platforms are S curved such that one see more improvement in a platform before it plateaus, before all the low hanging fruits have been implemented, and further research yields marginal returns for very expensive costs.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

> Is it really unthinkable that smart phones that you carry around in your pocket are the dominant platform for the next 50+ years? Yes it is :-). We have not yet entered the age of carbon (still in the Silicon age) and when we get there (and it will be in the next 10 years or so) you'll see a large increase in computer power per watt. Combine that with the fact that we have imagined a more interesting future than the one we're in, and it pretty much insures evolution in personal technology.

oconnore 10y ago
The world we're in is one where the dominant use of pocket supercomputers is to send pictures, video, and messages around to our friends. Extrapolating to massive improvements in computing power per watt, and the main question is still: are augmented reality UIs and neural interfaces better at snapchat and poop emojis?
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  I would expect new AR versions of those things to supplant the current iterations.

pacala 10y ago

I'm deferring so much of my details knowledge to google that's it not even funny. Even for casual lunch convos I pull the phone to google specific facts. I'd rather have a less intrusive and awkward interface.

aorth 10y ago
The alternative is to stop checking the facts constantly. See this article about disabiling "infinity apps" on your phone. https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or-why-im-happier-since-i-disabled-safari-80f8d525b0d8#.f20cehkjc https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or...

flogic 10y ago

That's really 2 questions in one. The first is "is there demand for another shift?". The second being "does the capability exist?". My inclination is to say the answers to those 2 are "yes" and "maybe" respectively. Smart phones are awesome but by their very nature they have some limitations. The slowest aspect on any computer is communication from the user to the machine. We're slow and the constrained real estate of phones only makes it worse. I wouldn't consider typing all this on a phone. The next slowest is the other direction. So if you can figure out how to improve those channels in a highly portable way people will most likely buy it. That brings us to the capability question. Voice kinda improves things when you can't use your hands but it's always been unreliable. Physical keyboards on phones are out of fashion. Smart watches are tiny and power constrained. Google glass looked neat but is expensive and again power constrained. It seems to be a serious question of how do you get a bigger device without the drawbacks of getting a bigger device.

jest3r1 10y ago
Product innovation doesn't always have to be a new feature, or a paradigm "shift" with new technology like AR. Smartphones could be due for a substantial reduction in price (there's certainly demand for that). Not just hardware pricing, but also carrier pricing. From a hardware perspective Apple must innovate (or have you believe they're innovating) to keep the product price and profit margins as high as possible. However, as the article points out, the smartphone market is mature. There's not much left to innovate in terms of the "hand held" form factor, other than price, or improving on already available features (better camera, better voice control, wireless charging etc). The iPod provided good insight into "size", and even when given smaller sizes (like the nano), consumers generally preferred the standard, easier to hold sizes, with displays big enough to read. The Sony WM-10 cassette Walkman from 1983 was about the same size! Size has been consistent for over 30 years. It must be getting harder and harder for Apple to spin each revision as groundbreaking enough to pay the same price as last year. Android capitalizes on this. But it's still a pricing monopoly on both sides, which carriers enjoy as well. When will there be a substantial reduction in price? Does the capability exist yet?
- petra 10y ago

tvural 10y ago

One possibility is that the resolution of VR goggles becomes so good that you can simulate looking at a screen. Then you might have something as easy to carry as a smartphone but with unbounded screen size.

cm2187 10y ago

Yeah, I think most people aren't keen to wear glasses, AR or not.

andrewfong 10y ago
I think something like 40% of Americans already wear glasses. Make them light and comfortable and it's not hard to see AR eyewear taking off.
- cm2187 10y ago
  So you think the customer base for AR is a middle aged to senior population?

adrianratnapala 10y ago

I don't know about platforms, but I think a shift in UI must come. The thing is that touchscreen mobile phones are terribly clunky interfaces. It's much harder to express you intent with fat human fingers than with keyboard-and-mouse device. The advantage of the phone is entirely in its mobility, and the fact that you want a telephone anyway. If some interface (augmented reality, voice, direct neural probes) becomes a workable UI that is both expressive and mobile, then it will take over.

nradov 10y ago
There's potential in building a mobile UI around gestures from the start instead of around touch on a flat rectangular screen.

mwfunk 10y ago

It's possible, but I think there's also something akin to the Anthropic Principle that affects what sort of articles get the most views and links- if the authors didn't think big change was inevitable, they wouldn't write the articles, or the much more sober and realistic articles that they would write instead wouldn't get nearly so many views and links in aggregators like HN. The nature of the medium favors people making exciting predictions (that might even come true, who knows), not people throwing cold water on other people's exciting predictions (who are more likely to be correct but don't prompt nearly as much sharing and discussion).