Changes To The Web
Will 2013 mean the beginning of Web 3.0? If
so, what would that entail? The internet has seen a few major shake-ups in the
past few years - the shift to IPv6, for example; the rise of high-speed
broadband that meant video streaming became commonplace; and the dawn of social
networking. Undoubtedly, things will change again. The fact that so many people
now access the web via mobile devices will mean web developers will have to be
able to create mobile friendly versions of websites, and there’ll be even more
focus on apps than there already is.
HTML5
is the newest iteration of Hypertext Markup Language, the back-end coding
system that dictates how Web pages should appear.
We’ve already mentioned HTML5 in passing,
and while the World Wide Web Consortium reckons it won’t be fully ready until
at least 2014, it’s going to become a bigger deal over the course of the next
year. HTML5 is the newest iteration of the markup language used to present
content on the internet, and there are some pretty big changes on the way.
Browsers will need to get ready to support the new standard, and although most
of the big names are nearly there, not every browser is prepared (you can check
out how well your browser supports HTML5 here: html5test.com).
For the average web user, assuming they’re
using a browser that can handle it, HTML5 will mean a faster and smoother web
surfing experience, particularly where video content is concerned. There are
still some issues with HTML5, and some sites (like Facebook) have expressed a
distaste for it, preferring to develop their own native platforms, but those
wobbles will probably be worked out over the next year or so.
More Online Developments
While we’re on the topic of the web, we’d
also bet that more print publications will start to move online, that
e-publishing will continue to be popular, and that cloud-based storage will
become the norm. Location-based services seem like they’re here to stay, and
it’s a safe bet that there’ll be a truckload more apps that can find things for
you (restaurants, petrol, etc.) based on your real-world location.
As for the big social networks, well, it
doesn’t look like Facebook or Twitter will be going anywhere anytime soon.
Concerns over Facebook’s privacy and security settings will push some people
away, but it’s become one of the default communication channels for all sorts
of people, even those who aren’t particularly tech savvy, and that’s an
allegiance that’ll be hard to break.
In
the US, Facebook and social media management technologies will top marketing
dollar investments for 2013.
Nevertheless, the recently relaunched
MySpace might attract a bit of interest, while niche networks like Instagram
and Letterboxd look set to grab people who are interested in communicating
through one specific medium or about one specific topic. Expect more
single-area networks to pop up this year, since we seem, as a society, to be
becoming more and more comfortable with recording and sharing every minute
detail of our everyday lives.
Maybe the biggest thing that’ll change
about the web in the UK next year is the number of people using it and the
speed at which they can do so. Superfast fibre broadband is still being rolled
out, and some parts of the country don’t have access to broadband internet at
all. Hopefully, that’ll look a lot different in 12 months’ time. Mobile
internet is set to get a lot faster too; we’ve already seen the first 4G
network rolled out in some UK cities, thanks to EE, and more companies will be
launching their versions next year.
Other Stuff To Look Out For
2013 might be the year that 3D printing
becomes mainstream too. In other countries, some shops, theme parks and
shopping malls have started to get 3D printing kiosks, and that looks set to
happen here too. With a 3D printing booth in your local stationery shop or
outside a department store, the technology will become more well-known, and
it’ll start to be used in more industries.
Most people’s first experience of 3D
printing is likely to be buying a customised toy or doll, maybe with their own
face printed on it, but with the development of more complex 3D printable
materials, that might start to change. This next year probably won’t be the
year that 3D printers become common household items, though. It’s still a
little bit too expensive for that, but only time will really tell.
Hopefully, 2013 will be the year that
Google’s driverless cars are introduced in the UK. Laws were only passed to
allow them on the roads in Nevada in mid-2012, so if you’re currently learning
to drive, it’s probably still worth carrying on - you’ll still need those
skills for a while yet - but we reckon they’ll at least make an appearance over
here this year.
Google’s
driverless cars
And this should also be the year that
Virgin Galactic finally launches its first commercial space tourism flight. The
company originally reckoned it’d be able to take tourists to the edge of space
by 2009, but that date got put back a couple of times, and the last we heard,
Richard Branson said he’d be on the first commercial flight in 2013. Will it
happen? It’d be quite an exciting event if it did.
And Beyond
12 months isn’t a particularly long time in
the technology world, since many products and new ideas take several years to
develop. There are a few exciting things being created right now that,
unfortunately, we won’t see until at least 2014. Those include memristors
(memory resistors), which will lead to the creation of ultra-efficient computer
memory and 14nm chips, which will blow Moore’s Law out of the water. Both of
these developments will have implications for the computing industry, but just
not quite yet.
Also, fans of virtual or augmented reality
may be disappointed to hear that Google’s Project Glass isn’t due to launch
until at least 2014, and while Microsoft also has a patent for ‘smart glasses’,
it also doesn’t seem to be in any great rush to get anything onto the market
before at least 2014.
Even so, that means there’ll still be
plenty to think about and look forward to by the time Christmas 2013 rolls
around assuming, of course, that the world doesn’t end this year after all.
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Things We’d
Like To See The Back Of
There might be lots of new and exciting
tech products on their way to us, and technology might be about to
revolutionise the way we live our lives, and all that might be positive and
lovely, but there are some things we wish we could get rid of. In 2013, it’d
be great if we could see the back of all of these things:
QR codes
Those weird little boxes of black and
white squiggles seemed quite interesting, at first: you could scan them with
your phone and they’d link you to a website! How exciting - except that URLs
already exist and are much more memorable. Okay, maybe you have to do a tiny
bit of typing to reach them, which is mildly inconvenient on your phone, but
it’s ultimately a system that works, across any platform.
Printer jams
Printers have been around forever and yet
they still don’t work properly. They get paper jammed in them. They run out
of ink at inconvenient moments. Or they stop working for any one of a million
other ridiculous reasons. Printers really don’t seem to have become any more
useful or reliable in the last decade; they’re definitely the most
frustrating piece of office equipment the average person has to deal with.
Spam
No matter how good your spam filter is,
occasionally, a spam email will get through. And it’ll be exactly the same as
the last spam email you saw, because spam basically never gets any better.
It’ll be incomprehensible gibberish with a hyperlink in the middle or, if
you’re really lucky, it’ll be a fake PayPal notice or a Nigerian prince with
money to give you, and they’re such clichés but still, still they arrive in
our email inboxes.
Leaky headphones
There’s no sound more annoying than the
muffled, tinny rumbling from someone else’s earphones (except, maybe, the
loud, tinny rumbling from someone’s mobile phone). Noise-cancelling
headphones exist, non-leaky headphones exist, so it’d be great if the crappy
old ones could just be scrubbed from the world.
Proprietary USB cables
There is no reason in the world why all
USB cables can’t be the same shape and size. That way, you could just keep
one cable next to your PC and you’d be able to connect all your gadgets when
needed. But no, your iPod, your phone, your printer, your external hard drive
and your digital camera all demand their own specific cables, and you can
guarantee the one you need is never to hand when you need it.
Rubbish batteries
The problem with relying on mobile
devices instead of desktops is that they need batteries. And when you’re out
and about, those batteries will inevitably die just when you really need them
not to. It’d be great if someone could invent longer-lasting batteries next
year, or at least make sure everything has an easily swappable battery so you
could replace it as necessary.
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