Future mock

redictions about the future of computers have almost been invariably wrong. Thirty years ago, we assumed that the turn of the century would see giant talking computers with a strong sense of self-preservation and a willingness to kill astronauts. Instead, we find an unstable operating system named after holes in a wall.

But for what InfoWorld is paying me, I'm willing to be wrong too. What follows is an overview of the technologies most likely to affect the way we crash, freeze, and lose data during the next 20 years.

These predictions are based on the basic rules that govern computer technology today.

• Moore's Law: The speed and power of integrated circuits doubles every 18 months.

• Spector's Law: The time it takes your favorite application to complete a given task doubles with each new revision.

• Murphy's Paradox: Every new technology intended to make computers simpler results in more complex computers.

• Gates' Absolute: Microsoft gets everything.

WHAT DID YOU SAY? There's nothing really new about speech recognition. People have been doing it since cave dwellers first discovered that it was socially awkward to type on another human being. But computers, like cats and teenagers, have proven to be reluctant to listen.

We've certainly wanted computers to listen -- every time we've shouted obscenities at them. Besides, speech recognition would give thousands now suffering from repetitive strain injuries a whole new experience called laryngitis.

"We've gone from the DOS prompt to the mouse and icon," says Heywood Floyd at IB-1-2 Technologies' Perpetual Motion Group. "Next will be a vocal user interface where our computer will understand spoken commands like, `Copy report dot doc a colon return.'"

In an interesting parallel development, Motorox Labs is working on the next logical step after voice recognition -- a computer that talks back to you. As of press time, all the company had was a crude prototype, although it hopes to go to market as soon as it can clean up the computer's language.

THE INCREDIBLY SHRINKING BRAIN. New interface technologies require more powerful computers, which means packing more and more transistors into smaller and smaller areas. Scientists have dubbed this new branch of computer science VSIMRRTI, or Very Small -- I Mean Really Really Tiny -- Integration.

According to Clayton Forrester, director of Diminutive Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Perpetual Shrinking, "In 20 years' time we will be able to pack more computational power into a device the size of a Fig Newton than can now fit in the entire Nabisco bakery."

Such an achievement would go beyond what we think of today as computer science, crossing the lines into chemistry, biology, alchemy, necromancy, and wishful thinking.

"At some point, Moore's Law will require us to build transistors that are smaller than electrons," points out Dr. Edward Morbius, vice guru and executive zealot at ConArt's new and useless technologies department. "This will force us to redefine the universe."

INFORMATION AT YOUR TOENAILS. In the future, the amount of data readily available will be enormous. But how will we deal with it?

For the most part, we will handle it as we do now. We'll ignore it.

But there will be times when we will be forced, usually by an employer or government agency, to actually read something. How will we find it?

One promising new paradigm for gathering information is the hyperbole tree, an object-oriented, 3-D, hierarchical, curved, twisted, inverted tree designed to obscure the forest.

Hyperbole trees, like hemorrhoids, can best be understood through experience. Try to imagine a screen display of a lot of labels tied together with sticks. When you click on one label, things rotate so you can clearly see other labels. Every time you click on a label, you get more labels. It's possible, in 15 minutes on a hyperbole tree, to scan more than 2,800 labels and never encounter a fact.

THE ULTIMATE TERROR. We have no way of knowing for sure where we'll be in 20 years. But this much is certain: 8,000 years from now, programmers, network administrators, and the galactic government will be in a panic over the year-10,000 problem. Aren't you glad you'll miss it?

Computer humorist Lincoln Spector (lincoln@dnai.com) speaks professionally and writes a widely-syndicated humor column, Gigglebytes. His work is online at http://www.dnai.com/~lincoln.