Remember 10 years ago? Cellphones without text messaging, TV still pouring out more quality entertainment than the Internet, gas prices only spiking once a month.
If today's culture is the flip-side of that bizarre world, then imagine what 10 years in the future could look like.
The following five technologies will reshape your world, no matter how Luddite you claim to be ("Streaming video? No, sorry, I like commercials with my Daily Show").
If you work in any of the industries discussed below, a seismic shift is already moving beneath you.
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| Illustration by Adrian Hayles |
This is not an announcement of impending changes but rather a calculated prediction of how you'll be affected by them in a decade.
The barcode now has a more powerful sibling coming to bully it out of the retail industry.
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips are essentially tiny computers that emit a radio signal, allowing them to talk over a "network" and transmit data as they move through a company's supply chain. Led by Wal-Mart's RFID retrofit, this technology is poised to affect industries that deliver any goods - almost every industry out there.
Unlike barcodes, RFID doesn't need line-of-sight scanning so cashiers may soon become obsolete, replaced by RFID kiosks. It's already happening in libraries, high-security sectors such as the Pentagon and in companies such as The Gap and Microsoft Canada. U.K.-based IDTechEx estimates that by 2016 the market will be worth $26 billion US.
Privacy concerns still haunt RFID's complete takeover, but too much is at stake for consumer advocates to block the progress.
RFID will not only make a stock clerk's job easier, but ease a CEO's concern when a shipment may be lost. Radio signals will become the next-gen barcode every business will want.
You wouldn't expect to find the robot revolution in Hamilton. But head to Charlton Avenue East and at the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery you'll be amazed by the new surgibots - robot arms outfitted with cameras, controlled by surgeons who can operate kilometres away.
Also dubbed telesurgery, this advanced technique is making health care accessible to patients in remote areas while also reshaping the actual operation.
In the United States, Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System already performs 20 per cent of all prostatectomies, making smaller incisions and allowing for shorter recovery time.
The only factor holding back a tidal wave of portable robot surgeons is cost, an understandable roadblock for cash-strapped hospitals.
Once telesurgery spreads, costs will decline and eventually patients living in secluded towns can get that triple-bypass they desperately need.
Look out, television - viewers aren't too happy with what they see.
Enter the age of consumer creation, where video visionaries are pouring content on to the web for the hungry masses to enjoy, often for free.
Sites such as YouTube.com and Google Video allow people to upload, watch and share millions of videos, with content ranging from grainy karaoke clips to fascinating short films. MTV has already partnered with YouTube, and NBC has been slyly dropping oddball skits into the same site.
The rise of this social media will make TV an antiquated joy. Sure, enhancements such as TiVo and Slingbox have jolted TV out of the 20th century, but choice is at the heart of the new current of consumer creation.
Networks will either have to join this online revolution or create some startling programming that will bring viewers back to the couch.
It's been called Wi-Fi on steroids, and the metaphor is spot on. Much like Wi-Fi, which allows wireless Internet connectivity within a limited range, Wi-Max blankets an area with wireless capabilities at a theoretical range of nearly 50 kilometres.
This technology could supplant DSL, cable and even T1 connections if reality lives up to hype. With Wi-Max rollout already occurring, analysts say demand for Wi-Max gear will grow to more than $2 billion by 2010.
Wi-Max is anticipated to re-energize industries that can best take advantage of this souped-up wireless technology. Most prominently, cellular companies are looking to Wi-Max since Wi-Max antennas can "share" a cell tower without compromising the function of cellular arrays already in place.
In Canada, change is under way: In 2005, the University of Winnipeg spearheaded a Wi-Max project called LearningCITI. And in March 2006, a national wireless broadband network was announced as a joint venture between Bell Canada and Rogers Communication, undertaken by Inukshuk Wireless.
Based on pre-Wi-Max standards, this network already covers five million households throughout Canada, with a noble goal to serve 100 remote communities by the end of 2008.
Oil-rich Alberta will be closely observing the rise of a new technology that is bound to garner more media coverage in the coming years: Ethanol fuel.
Produced mainly from corn and 15-per-cent gasoline, E85 (ethanol fuel's commercial name) has lower emissions of greenhouse gases and higher octane compared to regular gasoline.
It has become the biofuel to watch, even in Ottawa.
The government is starting to discuss with provinces about how to increase Canada's consumption of ethanol to five per cent of total fuel consumption by 2010. (Ontario drivers will begin using a five-per-cent ethanol blend beginning Jan. 1.)
Auto companies are taking notice and are already rolling out vehicles able to take E85. GM's new SUVs can use E85 and Chrysler plans to build 500,000 E85-compliant vehicles a year by 2008.
If you work in the oil business, even as a gas jockey, expect a new player in the market to nudge the old fogies out of position.
After all, the world is clamoring for a greener society, and ethanol is the harbinger of cleaner things to come.
(David Silverberg can be reached at silverberg@businessedge.ca)
