ABSTRACT
Predicting the future is never an easy task. Alan Kay put it succinctly: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” In this final chapter we offer a few informed predictions on what the future of information processing might hold. We base much of our predictions on the study of the history of computing and information processing. The central discourse for much of our discussion in this book has been the idea of cybernetics. Norbert Weiner, Claude Shannon, Vannevar Bush, John von Neumann, Alan Turing, John Ash, and many others have contributed greatly to the field of cybernetics, which was developed as the science that led to the development of the current information processors. From the early days of large mainframes to the current slew of PC gadgets, the concerns for computing have been to increase performance (that is, improve the quality and speed of feedback) while making the machines more ubiquitous and pervasive (that is, reducing the size and cost) in our society. Market expectations will continue to feed this trend, focusing first on the convergence of telephony and computing. We are currently at the stage where desktops have the power once belonging to the exclusive domain of mainframes. In the future, machines will appear more like flexible sheets of lightweight portable plastic to be unrolled when required, and their power will be derived from the signals they receive. The driving force for development at this stage is entertainment, as the majority of PC users employ their machines for a variety of tasks, many of which are not directly related to “computing.” But for organizations that will become more information-dependent in the future, we anticipate the immediate future in the following sections. Before we consider the future, we should first quickly review the current past.
