Important tech trends in 2006
GCN online magazine covers their version of the eleven important technology trends from 2006 that portend the future. I like the way they lay out this article by providing a very short description of the trend and then listing several links to past stories that cover the subject in more detail. From the chatter I've seen on GCN and from other sources, it looks like they pretty much got it right. Here are the highlights:
GIS
Geomapping is indeed become faster and cheaper, and it's not just Google Earth. It's the richness of open source products out there that accelerated this application into the mainstream. Our local experts on GIS can be found at hostGIS.com
WEB 2.0
While this has received way too much hype, the bottom line is that the Web is become more interactive and contains a lot more applications and communication tools. This is especially good for government websites that are starting to provide a lot more services online. We need look no further than my own annual Top 10 Court Website Awards at Justice Served for excellent examples of Web service delivery. A related trend is vastly expanded government web search functionality.
BOTNETS
These automated tech bugs used by hackers to crawl around the Internet to gather information and plant viruses have found a commercial niche with spammers posting ringtone, prescription drug and sex ads on web sign-up pages like robot salesmen from hell. The result is exponential expansion of this cybercrime and resulting loss of productivity and web functionality. Ask any local blogger about this phenomenon and they'll tell you it's a constant battle just to stay ahead of these creeps. I just deleted 74 false comments on this blog in 5 days. All of them were posted by Botnets.
VIRTUALIZATION
This seems like a subtle issue, but it has a profound affect on how technology is packaged, deployed and presented to the end user. In a nutshell, software and applications either "live" on your computer, or they "live" on someone else's computer and you merely access them using your computer as a gateway. In the old days we labeled "dumb terminals" as monitors that accessed mainframe applications but did nothing else. Today, your computer can do lots of cool stuff AND access a lot more cool stuff through virtualization.
PERSONAL IDENTITY VERIFICATION (PIV) & PUBLIC-KEY-INFRASTRUCTURE (PKI)
PIV is now used by Homeland Security to identify who you are and will very likely move into the PKI realm as a means to identify who you are for authentication purposes on the Web.
MORE
The rest of the list includes:
Loose data that is stolen or left lying around and used for fraud or identity theft;
Open source expansion into the mainstream of corporate computing;
Internet protocol changes; and,
Reduced power consumption.
I spend a great deal of my time trying to stay current with technology and related trends, and teaching these to court professionals worldwide. Some of these predictions work out and others don't, but it doesn't keep us from trying to foresee the future and be prepared for the likely changes.
Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com