General Discussions

**JeremyMiller** · 01-15-2008, 02:13 AM

In another thread, I said

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

I'd love it if a lengthy, detailed thread like we have here were started regarding the future of the web as that's my field.

I think this would be an awesome topic, so I decided to create it. What do you think? I have my own views and I will express them, but I'd like to hear a few of yours first.

As a prompt:

The technology of the web is constantly advancing, especially with the general knowledge of Ajax growing. Where do you see the technology of the web going? What new aspects, features, methods, etc do you foresee in the future for the web? Now, to be clear, I'm not talking about the structure or future of the web qua the web, but the interfaces and features available via the web. A couple of examples which are already in existence would be auto-suggest as done for google's search, click maps showing popularity of clicking for various links using color (can't recall where I saw that), page transitions where only the changed part is loaded (like the yellow highlight -- again, can't recall the name, but it's where a part of the page turns yellow for a brief second after being updated via Ajax), etc. A couple examples of what this would NOT be about is whether China will ever open up the web to uncensored access within their country; whether cheap labor will ever overtake quality labor; etc. -- The point is changes for the web programmers will jump on and not structural or political.

**Cheshire_cat** · 01-15-2008, 08:36 AM

This is an interesting topic; I have to say I am a student of the web and all its languages and still have much to learn, I will be interested to see what more experienced programmers have to say on this matter. One thing that I have seen of late that car companies are doing that I think is rather fascinating is they are giving complete breakdown of your cars’ diagnostics via email (such as tire pressure, oil longevity, etc.). I have often thought it would be interesting to expand on that line of thought; They could make a page where you could upload music directly to your car, or change car settings, kind of like your cars home page. I don’t know its just a thought.

**Cheshire_cat** · 01-15-2008, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iwantyou

^ wow. dude your thinking light-years before your time. [/sarcasm]

Alright. I was just sharing my thoughts.

**JeremyMiller** · 01-15-2008, 12:21 PM

Trying for post count iwantyou?

Cheshire, I think that's a great point. Controlling remote devices via online applications is definitely in the future. Probably a more distant future for it to really take off, though, but it's definitely there.

**Learning Newbie** · 01-15-2008, 03:05 PM

I bet its not so different after all. My wife wants me to get a treadmill and lose a few lbs. They have ones that keep track of how far you went and what speed and even how many steps, plus your heart rate and how many calories you burned. You can USB the data into Excel and get a fancy graph.

Heck, they already have black box data recorders in cars since at least 10 years. The challenge isn't computerizing devices, it's making them talk to each other. My refrigerator doesn't have wifi to my home network, and that just doesn't seem useful. But how many people's cell phone doesn't have a voice recorder and camera, if not Pocket Excel, that they can email themself?

Pardon the blatent self promotion, but I wrote a blog post about part of this question yesterday.

**JeremyMiller** · 01-15-2008, 05:24 PM

Instead of couching everything in "I think" or other conditional expressions, I'm going to write this up as "The web will." Hopefully that doesn't offend anyone. This is 100% conjecture on my part.

The future is very dynamic for the web and will take it far beyond simply being available as flat screen interfaces. Browsers will become more advanced in 3D manipulations, allowing users to move things into the page along a z-axis and not just in x-y coordinates. Website visitors will also be able to rotate things about axes -- all linear transformations will be supported (for the non-mathematical, that's scaling, rotating, and translating [moving]). We've seen some of this in VRML, but it will become easier to work with and browser-based as is the XMLHttpObject. This will also allow a single browser instance to show multiple webpages and allow dynamic ordering of the pages for maximal viewing ease.

Dynamic algorithms will be employed which will process the user's behavior and alter the nature of the interface to automatically adjust to the user's needs. An example of this would be a user mousing around the screen searching for the navigation and the browser popping the navigation up where the mouse is currently at, but if that proved to not be what the user wanted, finding alternate solutions. Another example is a browser remembering your zoom size automatically by simply "noticing" that you zoom in frequently on sites. This behaviorial data will be aggregated to anticipate where an otherwise-unknown visitor will receive the greatest benefit or be more likely to make a purchase. For example, as split market testing tries to do now by increasing the frequency with which a more effective page is shown to users, but the user will not be shown only a page with higher success rates, but appropriate navigation and more effective coloring. Browsers will also be interfaced with services which allow users to easily find and navigation to other websites the current website to facilitate more effective web navigation and trolling -- much like an automated brainstorming engine.

Pages will allow notes to be added and, optionally shared. Sections of the page will be able to be highlighted or otherwise emphasized with automatic citations generated. This will not be a site-by-site integration as is currently available on some sites, but a direct browser integration.

Users will be able to easily redesign sites to suit their visual preferences. This is partially available on some sites, but will become browser-based, storing information locally.

Cross compatibility/integration of sites will be inherent -- like that one chat program that registers accounts at numbers of IM providers and brings them all together into a single interface.

Search will be enabled for sites you've visited and SEs will allow visitors to block certain sites from showing up in the result sets (the converse of now showing only those sites desired.)

Browsers will be natively equipped with a universal translator, opening the web up for viewing to all in virtually any language.

When shopping, users will be automatically presented with the best "deals" around the web substantially increasing competitiveness. Direct advertising will become more obsolete as ad blockers negate the effect of current, popular strategies, so advertisers will have to reach out to audiences by providing services, potentially not related to their business, which attract their audience thereby bringing their audience to themselves instead of bringing theirselves to the audience.

That's a start, anyway, to what I see for the future of the web. This won't happen directly. First, there will be an explosion of technologies, each taking just a portion of each of the above and the web will grow in complexity by an exponential factor. Then, a conflux will occur as a result of the popularity of certain aspects. Once this conflux has occurred a settled period of the web will occur before a new technology is discovered which will then result in another explosion of technologies. During the period of growth, controlling governments will attempt to crack down and increase prohibitions on internet activity. This is likely to result in browsers passing a unique computer identifier as part of the header information. Ultimately, however, they will fail as a means is developed to fake the identifier and the architecture of the web is redesigned to traverse around govt managed servers. This will take a significant new development, however, as the govt will try to implement controls at the ISP level -- adding the headers there, so the direct connection of computers, not through ISPs is likely to reemerge from its slumber. This is more likely as infrastructural components and knowledge become cheaper and more well known, respectively.

**cbwm** · 01-15-2008, 05:40 PM

VR vis a vis MMORPGs. Traditional print media has already found its way there. It won't be long before you'll be buying things in a store in Second Life that gets delivered to your real world address. Entropia Universe is already using a game currency directly tied to the U.S. dollar. I can only imagine the web savvy money launderers are already there, practicing their trade.

**dansgalaxy** · 01-15-2008, 06:56 PM

This isnt strictly related but i think a big leap will be the internet become free to all or at least amazingly dirt cheap so that everyone can use it.

Also i completely agree with what was said above, with the car thing i think thats a very cool idea and is very possibile today with just a simple server ap running and using satalite to provide a internet connection direct to the car.

i wish i had a car i would love to try and rig that up!

anyway, i think a big step is makeing the web better on mobile devices and haveing it in everything.

Also i think that a new way to transmit wireless should be thought about and prefected, because of all the associated health problems with people with the condtions

(for those who dont know, there is a condition, dotn know the name, where wireless signals cause massive headaches and nausia to sufferers this has been reconised in some countries and their goverments pay to have sufferers houses full painted with a very special and very expensive paint which protects them from them.

The US and UK Goverment amung many others have yet to reconise this as a condition.)

a little more on topic, (ish)
Has anyone seen the film "The First Twenty Million is the hardest" where a group of people get together and as a joke were told to make the $99 computer and what they eventually come up with was basically what looked like a torch with a 3D virtual desktop.
the computer had no hard drive no software and everything was hosted remotly via the internet.

i know this wasnt real but this IS possible. and would be fantastic once it is done.
the benifits would be fantastic, if it was done properly it would mean that people could have no worries about space problems or software installation, it would be simple and fast, especially as our internet connections becom faster and faster.

Another thing i hope developes form the web (this i doubt) would be complete copyright freedom with music and video.
so that music and video can be freely shared and distributed throughout the internet.

**JeremyMiller** · 01-15-2008, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iwantyou

You fools! You are no better than the freaks who actually believe that the force could exist.

What the hell!? Where did this person come from?

**dansgalaxy** · 01-16-2008, 06:03 AM

no clue...
But if hes saying these things because they are "impossible" in his mind he is very stupid as i dont thinks there is much which has been said which isnt possible with todays tech given enough money and time to adapt it a little.

anyway i think he is on his way to a good old banning if he doesnt stop and think...

**JeremyMiller** · 01-16-2008, 06:10 AM

Couldn't agree more, Dan.

I've been trolling around and got asked to install MS's Silverlight. Being a MS product, I'm naturally nervous. What do you all know about it?

**cbwm** · 01-16-2008, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iwantyou

You fools! You are no better than the freaks who actually believe that the force could exist.

Of course the Force exists! You weak minded fool... I MADE you post that and you don't eve know it!

**dansgalaxy** · 01-16-2008, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

Couldn't agree more, Dan.

I've been trolling around and got asked to install MS's Silverlight. Being a MS product, I'm naturally nervous. What do you all know about it?

not a amazing amount, from what i understand its basically like flash i have it installed like one the fancy MS sites they user it to create the fancy bits ad far as i know its jsut like a plugin to make it work :s

shouldnt be too bad not had it do any harm..

**JeremyMiller** · 01-16-2008, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iwantyou

I'm sorry, I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread.

Well, I'm glad to hear that! I gave you bad TP for that, but wouldn't have had I known it was simply an error.

@dan: Thanks for that feedback. I've been wondering if I should add it to my repertoire, but it's MS so I'll probably wait a bit. I also don't know what added features it has which would make my sites better and then I wonder whether people will even be willing to install it, but everywhere I seem to go on the MS site I see them trying to get me to install it.

**dansgalaxy** · 01-16-2008, 12:13 PM

i havnt seen it being used on any other site but MS and have yet to come across any info on how to make them or anything like that.

Anyway isnt this slightly off topic?...

hmm has anyone heard about this huge TV? i read about one of the big companies makeing this tv which is 6ft tall and was like 150inch

imagine that as a desktop moniter

**JeremyMiller** · 01-16-2008, 01:33 PM

I don't think it's off topic. They say it's the future of the web and I figured I'd investigate it. I'd like to see others chime in on where they think the web will go.

**tripy** · 01-16-2008, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

I've been trolling around and got asked to install MS's Silverlight. Being a MS product, I'm naturally nervous. What do you all know about it?

They say it's never too late, so:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...37227&from=rss

Quote:

"It looks like Microsoft is getting desperate about the dismal rates of Silverlight adoption by consumers and developers since its release earlier this year. According to NeoSmart Technologies, Microsoft is preparing a fully Silverlight-powered redesign of their website, doing away with most HTML pages entirely. With over 60 million unique users visiting Microsoft.com a month, Microsoft's last-ditch effort might be what it takes to breathe some life back into Silverlight. The article notes: 'At the moment, very few non-Microsoft-owned sites are using Silverlight at all; let alone for the entire UI.'"

It comes from /. , so it's automatically biased against MS, but I do tend to believe it.
Look at my avatar Jeremy, I did a series of post, and scratched a bit of the surface of silverlight, flex and javafx.
Honestly, between the three, flex looks like the most successful until now, even if I'd prefer javaFx to succeed.

**JeremyMiller** · 01-16-2008, 02:40 PM

Thanks tripy. I about messed myself drinking a soda when I read the first reply on /. I'll definitely check out your blog, though most likely tomorrow as I have way too much to do today.

Thanks again! TP coming your way!

**serandfae** · 01-16-2008, 11:39 PM

This is a slightly different direction, but I think that we'll see the first generation of neural interfaces in the next twenty years. Thing is, it won't be what you see in popular sci-fi. Thanks to DARPA, we're already seeing prosthetics that can be controlled directly by the brain, but for a direct neural interface to a computer I would think would involve something like template matching. Once you get the link down (probably a wireless transciever at the base of the corpus callosum) you still have to teach the computer how to speak brain, so the computer has to learn how you learn Chinese, for instance. Much like the internet, it will start as defense research and spread out in different directions.

**JeremyMiller** · 01-17-2008, 06:03 AM

I think you're right on, serandfae, especially given the intense recent study into ANN.