Object storage predictions for 2013

Object storage predictions for 2013
Object storage is an on-again, off-again topic.  But, now it appears that object storage will be a game changer for cloud storage, big data analytics, and mobility which requires that the metadata be stored along with the data.  For object storage to take off in the corporate market, there has to be a standard interface for application vendors to write to. Object storage is the solution for organizations that deal with extreme amounts of unstructured data.

Disruption, Again, by the Automobile

The arrival of the automobile was a disruptive technology, replacing whole industries that had grown up supporting horses and buggies.  A recent post in Wired byThilo Koslowski suggests that the automobile, aka, the car, has become the ultimate mobile device. 

"“Connected vehicles” are cars that access, consume, create, enrich, direct, and share digital information between businesses, people, organizations, infrastructures, and things. Those “things” include other vehicles, which is where the Internet of Things becomes the Internet of Cars."

One might ask when such vehicles might become available?  The prediction is that within the next few years companies will begin announcing plans for advanced automotive technology products.  Google has received permission from the State of California to test autonomous vehicles.

What type of disruption could one expect?  If we look backwards and see that the automobile replaced the requirement for one horse per person.  One automobile also replaced the requirement for several horses per buggy.  With the American love for the automobile, we have regressed to one or more cars per person.  But, the younger generation may change this.

"These tradeoffs are even more important to younger vehicle owners (18- to 24-year-olds) than older ones (54+ years). The younger group is more likely (30%) to choose internet access over having a vehicle (compared to just 12% of the older group), and about the same percentages are likely to use a car-sharing service as an alternative to vehicle ownership. "

So, car ownership may change.  One can envision that taxi cabs may not disappear, but become autonomous vehicles that are called when needed.   One can envision a tiered transportation system from individual autonomous cars at the high cost end, multiple person shared vehicles, such as Vans, in the middle, and busses with fixed routes as they are today, but moving autonomously.

If one spends a few moments thinking about the potential, there will be a large shift in the types of services available to the public.

The Comming Disruption of Big Data

The predictions have been coming for some time that Big Data will make a tremendous impact in our Digital Universe.  I made a presentation back in 2008 to an FFRDC that suggested to them that this was an area they should start looking into for their government clients, but it didn't get much traction then (may it was just me?).

Steve Todd recently posted that a recent issue of The Economist indicated that three technology trends are enabling machines to become more prevalent:

• The new version of the internet protocol (IPV6), with an address space of 128 bits, provides for 340 billion, billion, billion, billion unique addresses.  The current protocol, 32 bits long, supported only 4.3 billion binary addresses.
• There has never been enough bandwidth to support wireless M2M data streams.  Over the past year, new 4G networks have rolled out to accommodate smart phones and pads.
• Cloud computing has collapsed the unit cost of storage.

The interaction of these trends are what disruption is all about. These trends, along with the growth in analytic visualization, will allow any organization to mine the data that collected an an accelerating rate and quickly respond to nascent indicators of interest.  New product and services will meet the immediate needs of crowd-sourced requirements.

Security In Your Digital Life

Let's talk about a different kind of disruption today - how your digital and personal life is disrupted by those who might attack you in some way, whether physically or digitally.  We recently had some friends who live in a retirement setting in a gated retirement community.  This facility has the type of security you would want people to have who might be less able to protect themselves.  But, they were robbed.  If you have ever been robbed you know how invasive and disruptive that can be.  But, they were robbed not just once, but twice.  Treasures acquired over a life time were taken.

The second robbery took all of their important papers that contained their wills, etc.  The potential for ID theft is now very real to them.

Physical protection is relatively easy - locks, alarms, protective services - but none are foolproof.  To protect my property I only have to worry about access to that property, which is usually located in one place, maybe a few places.  But digital protection is much harder.  Much of my identity information is scattered around the country depending on someone else to protect that information.  I have no control over how, or if, they do anything to protect that information.  I can implement digital protection on my computers and servers, but even that depends on the manufactures of those devices and software to have a system that works and is kept up to date against the rapidly changing methods used by those who would digitally attack you.

Information Assurance (IA) is a hot topic these days.  Standards have been developed by NIST and others.  But, these are only lacklusterly followed by many, leaving them easy targets.  But, like physical security, digital security is not foolproof.  If you want to be absolutely secure, then you have get rid of anything that someone wants to take from you.  Digitally, that mean unplugging your computers from the grid.

Most Disruptive Technologies of 2012

So, on this last day of 2012, what technologies are people saying were the most disruptive?  Christopher Mims put together a list of 5 that seems to be the most reblogged and quoted list around, but there are a few others that are proposed.

The list proposed by Mims includes the following:

1. Controlling computers without touching them.
2. Fusing the virtual and the real;
3. The world’s most cost-effective energy storage;
4. The end of cars as we know them;
5. 5 billion people with internet access.

A good discussion of each of these can be found here.  If you want to know more about Christopher Mims you can find a short bio here.


The MIT Technology Review has put together a different take on disruption by publishing a list of 50 Disruptive Companies.  They define a disruptive company as "a business whose innovations force other businesses to alter their strategic course."  Their choice of companies is based on the following: "As a group, the companies on this list represent our best judgment of the commercial innovations most likely to change lives around the world."

Do you agree with these reports?  What technologies do you think should have been included as disruptive for 2012?  What companies should be included in the MIT Technology Review list that are not there?

Trend of Trends - Are Any Disruptive?

It seems like every year more and more people, organizations, cognescenti, and others either provide or are asked to provide their predictions of the hot new trends to expect in the new year.  This year is no exception.  Just google "Trends for 2013" and you will get 833,000,000, yes million, results.  Trends in technology, fashion, social media - you name it and some is predicting the hot new trends for that domain.

Here are just a few pointers to some of the more interesting technology trends:
1. The Top 5 Tech Startup Trends of 2013
2. Experts Predict Top Trends for 2013
3. Broadcom Predicts Top 10 Technology Trends in 2013
4. 7 Top Information Security Trends For 2013
5. Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2013
6. Top 10 Technology Trends for 2013
7. Daniel Burrus’ Top Twenty Technology-Driven Trends for 2013
8. 20 Tech Trends for 2013 
9. 11 Big Tech Trends You'll See in 2013
10. Tech Trends 2013 Preview
11. Top Trends for 2013


As you read through these and other predictions, certain trends appear to be common to all of them.  The other thing you will notices is that all of them focus on incremental extensions to existing trends or the beginning of what the writer believes will be a new trend for the future.  Almost all of these predictions are predictable by those who follow technology.

But none of the predictions are suggested to be game changers.  No disruptive technology predicted.  The challenge for entrepreneurs is to understand these trends and think outside the box and think about how the interactions of some of these trends might provide some insight into totally new ways of doing something that people only dream about. 

Smart TVs Are Not Disruptive

Smart TV has not fulfilled the promise of disruption of the early hype.  Why?  Some say it is a problem with the interface - it is too complex and awkward.  The interface involves at least the following items: the layout of information on the screen, the interaction device, such as a keyboard, remote control, mouse, etc.  Using such interaction devices from 10 feet away is a problem in itself.  Newer devices are including voice recognition and control.  This in principle should solve the interface problem.  Some devices provide control from your iPad (or, generically, your tablet).  This also solves a lot of the interface problems.

But, is the interface really the problem? What can you do with a smart TV that you cannot already do with your dumb TV, or your computer sitting at your desktop?  It appears at present that the reason there is no disruption created by smart TVs is that they are just incremental extensions of the trend in TV ecosystems.  They integrate internet with cable capability.  Certainly, in the future, cable may lose to Internet access for all that it provides, but this is just a different way of delivering the same stuff.  In fact, Internet access often comes on the same cable that the cable company provide for you TV.  So, what's the difference?

For disruption to occur, we really need to identify another trend that when it interacts with the TV ecosystem trend one can do something you could not do before.  Tablets were introduced about the same time as smart TVs, and tablets have so disrupted the desktop PC market that they threaten to become the PC of choice.  The two trends of mobility and PC systems allowed this disruption to occur.  No one is going to carry around a 50 inch smart TV to accomplish what you can do with an iPad.