There’s no doubting that this generation will be connected to the internet and documenting all of their lives on it more than ever before. The idea is, if you combine these technologies with NFC and cloud computing, what sorts of combinations might it all lead to in the future?
Facebook as History
Facebook is documenting so much of people’s lives these days, it begs the question: what will history make of Facebook? It’s possible that Facebook will be seen as a sort of an unbiased historical account of an entire time. There have actually been books before in Science Fiction that have changed the meaning of the word “prehistory” to indicate the time before cloud computing and the Internet, since the massive onslaught of data could have a radical effect on society similar to the current version of prehistory, which measures the time before the written word.
Cloud Computing in the Future
In Science Fiction author Vernor Vinge’s Ranbow’s End, for example, pre-history was thought of as being before the Internet where ancient data was written on organic matter (paper and books). Something very similar to NFC technology was used for any point to point communication for people in the same area. This means that you could use it as a way to send quick text messages to people you could see by literally beaming it to them on a laser.
This could also be used for any kind of monetary transaction as well for example. Technology using NFC for money is already out there. Basically, if you have NFC in your phone, you can sign up with different apps so that you can buy things by just hitting a few buttons on your phone. It’s possible that in the future you’ll go down to the grocery store with your phone in your pocket after having already keyed in what you want to buy, and simply walk out with the items you’ve purchased.
In a society like the United States, convenience is often key so it’s likely that all of these technologies will be moving in this direction. Many futurists are predicting that the coming years will feature wearable clothing computers, for example. Cloud computing will become so wide spread and so efficient that the only computer you’ll need will be the shirt on your back. You’ll then use NFC for local communication, and cloud computing for everything else – the Weclapp Software is a good example for how versatile cloud computing can be from a business point of view, while other services such as Dropbox mainly focus on making our personal lives easier.
Either glasses or contact lenses will be all you need for a display, making monitors completely unnecessary and a relic of the past. You’ll do all of your input with either voice, or some futurists have speculated that you might even be able to do this with just gestures. For example, if you have gloves that have tiny computers in them, you could simply point at an object a certain way, and then you’re contact lens computers will identify the object and list a series of options for you regarding how you want to scan and learn about it.
Maybe it will connect you to Wikipedia, maybe you’ll want to open up Amazon to buy it from a local store using NFC tech where you can just walk in and grab one. Or maybe it will look up similar objects that have been stored on Facebook throughout the new Internet-recorded history.