I regularly see technology that makes me wonder what we’ll have five years or ten from now—Wikipedia, 3D MMOs, smartphones, calculators, all the stuff you can buy online. I’m generally disappointed: today, World of Warcraft is the most popular MMO, as it was five years ago. The top-of-the range calculators (TI 92) are the same as when I was in school, when they just came out, etc. Wikipedia is neater than it was five years ago, but not extraordinarily so. But still, when I ask my parents, it doesn’t seem that in their time they had brand new nifty impressive stuff hitting the world as often—they weren’t wondering “damn, what will it be like in 5 years!”.
I think that when it comes to technology, our “foreseeable future” has been shrinking. So I’d say “probably accelerating”, but I’m open to evidence.
I regularly see technology that makes me wonder what we’ll have five years or ten from now—Wikipedia, 3D MMOs, smartphones, calculators, all the stuff you can buy online. I’m generally disappointed: today, World of Warcraft is the most popular MMO, as it was five years ago. The top-of-the range calculators (TI 92) are the same as when I was in school, when they just came out, etc. Wikipedia is neater than it was five years ago, but not extraordinarily so. But still, when I ask my parents, it doesn’t seem that in their time they had brand new nifty impressive stuff hitting the world as often—they weren’t wondering “damn, what will it be like in 5 years!”.
I think that when it comes to technology, our “foreseeable future” has been shrinking. So I’d say “probably accelerating”, but I’m open to evidence.
World of Warcraft would be better if it looked more like their demos do:
“Cataclysm Cinematic”: http://vspy.org/?v=Wq4Y7ztznKc
It’d also be markedly less popular, since it wouldn’t be accessible to people with 5 year old computers.
I agree with the elsewhere statement that “it’s the best technology that matters, not what is accessible to most people.”