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2006 is heading for the finish line -- hope it's been a good year for all of you. To all our readers, thanks for your continued support and interest. And especially to the consultants who make up our talent communities, our special thanks for making it a great year.
Happy New Year and best wishes for further success in 2007 from New Equities and Analysts International.
Wired Magazine boldly gives its predictions for 2007.
In his now-classic 1981 short story True Names, author Vernor Vinge imagined a worlldwide virtual reality network in which users could assume alter egos and manipulate data with techniques similar to wizardry and magic. Many computer users, particularly gamers, embraced those concepts wholeheartedly, as attested to by the success of Second Life and other online environments (including World of Warcraft and similar MMORPGs). Now a non-profit group is building a new type of internet specifically for VR games and applications:
Neuronet, which is separate from the Internet, "will evolve into the world's first public network capable of meeting the data transmission requirements of emerging cinematic and immersive virtual-reality technologies," according to a Wednesday announcement from the Vancouver-based International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies.
The first-generation Neuronet is scheduled to go live in 2007, the group said. Consumer applications are expected as early as 2009.
Virtual reality generally refers to environments with visual and audio information that makes a person feel immersed in a computer-generated realm. The growth of environments such as Second Life has spotlighted such efforts, and IBM believes that virtual worlds will open new doors to e-commerce as well.
The group promises that Neuronet will have high-speed communication, a key constraint for virtual reality, which requires transmission of large quantities of graphics and other data, as well as fast responses to give users a better illusion of realism.
Although the full impact is still years off, it's not much of a stretch to imagine the impact of such a VR network on project management and collaboration among remote team members. Online meetings and webinars, once a novelty, are now a staple in the business world. In 10 years, will it be commonplace for project teams to collaborate in simulated meeting rooms, solving problems by manipulating shared data models in 3D? IBM's endorsement of Second Life, and now Neuronet, is an indication that it may be.
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen offers an amusing take on the movie industry's 10 most egregious UI bloopers. You've seen them in film after film: the hero walks up to a completely strange (or even alien) computer console and, after guessing the password in 3 tries (the screen flashes "Access Granted" in overlarge characters), masters a complex user interface within seconds. In particular, Nielsen singles out one of the all-time great LOL moments for techies:
In the film Jurassic Park, a 12-year-old girl has to use the park's security system to keep everyone from being eaten by dinosaurs. She walks up to the control terminal and utters the immortal words, "This is a Unix system. I know this." And proceeds to (temporarily) save the day.
He also observes:
Films are littered with so many other unrealistic plot details: you'd imagine, for example, that the ability to shoot straight might actually be a primary job requirement of Imperial Stormtroopers.
Yes, it's just entertainment, Nielsen should just lighten up, etc. etc. But his actual point is how unrealistic depiction of technology in TV and films creates expecatations on the part of end-users, and whets the public's appetite for user interfaces that look dramatic and cool, but are not all that practical.
Read/WriteWeb weighs in with predictions of the important Web technologies and trends of 2007. Topics include, Microsoft vs. Google, enterprise collaboration, the proliferation of Amazon-like Web services and the rise of rich internet and mobile apps.
Information Week looks ahead to the 2007 IT job market.
