Coming Soon: Preview of the future

Over the last semester, we have all been learning and discussing what the Internet has in store for us now.
But what about the future?
The future of the internet may not be written in the stars, but from the technology and station that we are at now with the World Wide Web, we can sort of predict the anticipated development of the Web.

According to an article entitled 10 Future Web Trends by Richard MacManus, there are 10 aspects of Internet usage that we should look out for in the next 10 years:

1. Semantic Web:
With millions and trillions of information being avaible and constantly updated on the internet, it builds up the Internet's database of facts about life and everything else that comes with it.

2. Artificial Intelligence:
We are empowering our own machines in making them just like us; giving them a mind of its own to carry out tasks just like how we do--or better, faster, stronger and harder.

3. Virtual Worlds:
Making our lives more digital than it already is--at the forefront of this revolution is Second Life, which has everything we do in real life, except oxygen. Google Earth is also playing up in the virtual context: mapping out the world and the stars and the planets accurately and proportionally.

4. Mobile:
Yes, we all know that the Internet is going mobile--probably the best thing that has happened so far in this century (apart from President Obama, that is). Information is literally accessible at our fingetips! Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericcson, LG and iPhones are making life so convenient and complete for us all. However, in order for this to happen, Wi-Fi and routers should be available wherever we are..which may pose a problem for some societies--especially during this economic crisis.

5. Attention Economy:
Subscribing to RSS feeds to whatever we are interested will change how we do business and see the world. News is instantaneously updated to bring us the freshest, live & kicking, data that we need.

6. Web Sites as Web Services:
Now we have web sites>>tomorrow, we have web services! With scrapers and mashups converging the sites into a contingent whole, we can find all the information and service that we need in one complete source.

7. Online Video/ Internet TV:
Online streaming has become very popular, especially in this YouTube generation. People like to be entertained at work, school, on the bus or on the sea. Movie-goers don't need to go pay ten dollars to go watch a film anymore, forget the cinema--there's streaming movies online! But as all this hype may seem fine and dandy, copyright and piracy issues may come into the loop...

8. Rich Internet Apps:
RIA's are taking over the world moving into "a level playing field where video, sound, images, animations, and full interactivity with your computer are all standardized" (from Wikipedia.org). Adobe's AIR platform is one, and so is Ajax, though experts say that they might not last for long...

9. International Web:
Since the beginning of the Internet revolution, the United States has claimed the name to developing the most popular websites. It is true that America is the trendsetter and leading country in global media, but eventually, other countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and even possibly Singapore (possibly, but don't count on it) will catch up, making the world more international.

10. Personalization:
Search engines and all that will be able to predict our preferences and interests whenever we do anything such as THINK about a certain topic. Google is obviously the King of Websearch, boasting their Adsense and Adwords even in our Gmail accounts. Nowadays, humans don't need to think anymore...

It is so inspiring to see that the Internet is becoming greater and better than we could ever have imagined to be in the beginning of computers...

On the other hand, I'm convinced that, if we aren't careful, computers are going to rule the planet, and robots will rock the world.