The Internet will disappear into thin air

In just 5 years the Internet as we know it today will be no more. The Internet will drift away from the user interface to instead become the language used by mobile phones, search agents, combine harvesters, toasters and a 1000 other

gadgets to communicate with each other. And naturally the language will be wireless. When things begin to think

Deep down it’s all about doing things moreeasily. This is the newly discovered mantra for successful products - and these must be user-oriented and where possible wireless. The wireless world has great business appeal. Calculations by Cisco show that the transition to wireless communications will pay off as long as we are just four or five minutes more efficient per day.

Oddly enough, the financial management and advisory company Merrill Lynch has calculated that a wireless communications solution enhances efficiency by 105 minutes a day, since we have direct access to centrally stored information at meetings, we can synchronise calendars and check information on the spot etc. etc. So this ease of use pays off on top of everything else.

Wireless world

The graphic user interface with icons as images of applications enabled everyone to use PC operating systems, not just white-coated computer experts. Similarly, the wireless world is waiting just around the corner where the amazingly easy-toset- up wireless solutions will result in an explosion in the possible applications and product enhancement opportunities which the Internet will bring to a large number of today’s household appliances. Your car and your washing machine will update themselves with new services and repair software. In answer to the question of how long it will be before everybody’s grannies are setting up wireless solutions, Victor Tsao from the trend-setting producer of wireless equipment for the private market, Linksys, answers, “One year!”

The overlooked paradox

IT equipment such as laptops and palmtops must be increasingly adapted to the market, which can basically be divided into three: those who want things first, those who want the best things and those who just want the damn thing to work and be easy to operate. Paradoxically enough, the fact that this third category is the largest is one of the most obvious and at the same time most overlooked facts in the industrialised world.

Source: Innovation Lab; for more

information www.innovationlab.net

Fact

Innovation Lab Katrinebjerg opened in October 2002 with TDC and the County and the Municipality of Aarhus in Denmark as financial sources. Innovation Lab is directed by Preben Mejer, Senior Vice President to TDC and Chairman at the Alexandra Institute.

The 11 staff members of Innovation Lab have an annual audience of approx. 15,000, listening to talks about the purpose of future technology and they organize 4 larger conferences every year on the importance of new technology. A line of prototype projects form part of the daily work.