At the end of each year, IBM examines market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s global labs, to develop a multi-year forecast called The Next 5 in 5.

IBM predicts that over the next five years technology innovations will change the way we work, live and play.

Do you think these predictions have come true? Let’s take a look at what IBM’s predictions were five years ago in 2006:

  1. We will be able to access healthcare remotely, from just about anywhere in the world
  2. Real-time speech translation—once a vision only in science fiction—will become the norm
  3. There will be a 3-D Internet
  4. Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance
  5. Our mobile phones will start to read our minds

Of those 3 out of the 5 have come true  (that’s incredible for any standards – 60% hit rate):

  1. Because of advancements in the internet, the cloud, and virtualization almost anyone with an internet connection has access to information, and in this case specifically health care information.
  2. Real-time speech translation has become true as well, one example would be the product from NTT Docomo, cell phone carrier in Japan, it is a service that works in person and over the phone.
  3. 3D Internet has not fully come true, but Google for example is experimenting with 3D technology with Google Maps on the computer and on some Android phones.
  4. Yes it has, because research and usage of nanotechnology has greatly increased. Even transistors have shrunk to around the size of an atom.
  5. Mobile phones do not have the capability to read our minds yet, let alone computers.

Now let’s look at what IBM is predicting for the next five years:

1. Energy: People Power will come to life

This means that we can generate electricity from anything in motion, so electricity will become cheaper and more abundant.

2. Security: You will never need a password again
Instead of having to create passwords with characters, retina scanners or voice detection will be used for identification.
3. Mind Reading: No longer Science Fiction
I’m guess that because even Cell Phones haven’t been able to read our mind yet, for 2011 they made the prediction that ANY electronic device will have the capability to read your mind.
4. Mobile: The digital divide will cease to exist
Around 80% of the worlds population will have a cellphone by 2016, also your cell phone will become more than it is today; your wallet, banker, fitness trainer, cell phone and more. Your phone can help you make decisions based on your own situations, for example when you order something to eat on your phone, it can take your health information and tell you whether or not what you are eating is healthy or bad for you
5. Analytics: Junk mail will become  priority mail
Programs will be able to filter through junk mail more efficiently and give you information that will interest you. It will sometimes make decisions or suggestions for you based on your previous actions and information it has gathered.

We just have to wait and watch, how in the next five years technology advances.

What do you think about these predictions?   Which one do you think will really happen?  Why or why not?  Please share your comments and join the conversation.

-MacMusings

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