A few weeks ago, London’s Westminster Central Hall was used for Le web, Europe’s illustrious two-day internet conference. This year the focus is on next-generation digital products that are “faster than real-time”. So the conference tried to show us what the future will be like.
Robert Scoble, Silicon Valley’s most ubiquitous observer of the digital future, was one of the speakers at the conference. His explanation of “faster than real-time” is that a server can for example bring you a beer before you even asked one just because she already knows what you drink. So in the future, the server in the bar and the computer server will be indistinguishable and they both will know what you want before you even asked or said anything.
Loic Le Meur, Silicon Valley based Franco-American impresario, founded Le Web. He is also the architect of the “faster than real-time” theme of the conference and he shares Scoble’s faith in the power of the internet. He explained that we live in the future today with as example the online apps that are getting to know us so well that they can know things before they happen.
Paul Davidson, CEO of Highlight, also spoke at Le Web. Highlight is a social location app which offers illuminating data about nearby people who also signed up for the network. Davidson agrees with Le Meur’s theory that “faster than real-time” will revolutionize not only the internet but also the real world. This was only to be expected since we are living in the digital 21st century. It’s a century where smartphones and mobile sensors allow us to see things we’ve never been able to see before.
Apps like Withings and Runkeeper are also enabling us to predict the future. These apps are medical lifestyle and fitness apps that can for example predict our weight in advance because they are able to map out patterns by collecting massive amounts of personal data. It can collect how much we run, it can measure our sleep and much more.
“Faster than real-time” is also shifting the behavior of consumption across the internet. This is a business but also a consumer revolution. Another speaker of Le Web was Nick Halstead. He is the founder of Datasift, a platform that enabled companies to interpret a huge amount of data that comes from social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. It are these sort of companies that make it possible to know the future.
Companies can start making decisions based on data from the past. Halstead explained that we live in a social era, and the social stream in the world tells us what is happening now, and what will happen. But we have to be careful with this information because not every user is thrilled with the idea of companies being able to predict our future buying habits in advance.
Sam Shank, another speaker at Le Web and CEO of HotelTonight, said that tomorrow’s technology will know what we want before we know it ourselves. His vision for HotelTonight is also to get the service so personalized that it can book a perfect room at the perfect hotel for you, before you even know you want or will need a hotel.
Although “faster than real-time” is creating some privacy concerns, it offers extraordinary opportunities to improve our lives. Le Meur also said that we have no other choice than to fully embrace today’s technology. But not everyone shares Le Meur’s opinion and not everyone is happy about the fact that in the future we will be able to know everything about everyone.
Real Time Cities 