5 Technologies that will shape the future of Linux

Posted March 17th, 2009 by kaikokan

Predicting the far future is not possible, nobody could have foreseen the rise of the internet or what gigantic part communications would play in today's world. The not so far away future is also not predictable with absolute certainty. Many people do take a stand on the technology of the future though, and I think some things are just an add up of the technologies invented today. I like to contemplate the technology of the future and there are some things I think will be very important in the future of Linux.

Following a small list of 5 technologies that will in my opinion shape the future of linux.

1. The rise of the MID

The Mobile Internet Devices (MID) will eventually merge completely with the personal computer, the personal computer and ultra mobile pc's are already coming closer to each other in usage possibilities. There are predictions for the global MID shipments to rise to 416 million units in 2012. This is a very diverse market which has no common interface defined yet. This is a big change for Linux. While Linux doesn't have a strong history when it comes to interfaces, being extremely flexible and modular it is a best fit for this devices.

2. 3 Dimensional screens

The interface which is one of the big reasons keeping people from linux (although not recognized for that by many people) will be replaced by a 3D interface in the future. There is already technology making it possible to show 3 dimensional images without goggles, the only problem is you have to be right in front of these screens. Using a personal device like a umpc your in front of the screen already, so if the technology becomes cheap enough and someone builds a usable interface, it will probably find wide adoption quickly.
The great thing is that with Linux it's easy to create a different interface, because that's not an integral part of the OS.

3. 3 Dimensional touch screen

While still in it's infancy the 3D touch screen demonstrated by mitsubishi electronics at interaction 2009 in tokio looks very promising for the future. I think this will be an important part of the interface of the future. While at this moment distance can only be measured at 20 mm, imagine the possibilities in combination with 3D projection. Imagine a desktop cube floating above the screen of your MID and interacting by touching it! In the future there's a big change compiz will be a very useful part of your life.

4. Cloud computing

Many people believe cloud computing will eventually replace the PC. While I think it will be a big part of the future of computing, I don't think the PC will ever be "replaced" by anything. In my opinion the PC will merge with future technology and a new combination of MID, personal computer and cloud computing will provide us with the best of all worlds. Part of calculations will be done in the cloud big data collections will be kept in this cloud, while providing ultrafast mobile internet access anywhere the MID will connect us to our video, music and other data collections. Still a big part of the processing will be done locally in real time. Linux is flexible enough to provide for the cloud operating systems as well as the clients OS you'll carry around.

5. Virtualization

While an old dog already, virtualization technology is improving at enormous speed. There is just no good reason to think of for using anything not Linux as your base server for virtualization and while the technology improves it will get easier and easier to run everything on your linux machine. In the future it will probably be completely transparent which virtual machine is executing the currently running legacy windows app on your desktop. You can just start everything and the OS will take care of choosing the right environment for execution, seamlessly.

my view

This is just my view on the future of Linux, if you want to share your thoughts please feel free to leave a comment. Comments are checked before they are published. It can take up to 10 hours (different timezone)

Point of View

Anonymous 2 years 47 weeks 1 day 9 hours ago

"the personal computer and ultra mobile pc's are already coming closer to each other in usage possibilities"

I use my Linux 9GB SSD 3G Modemed MID as a better mobile phone, Google map direction finder, video VoIP, Google Docs note taker, photo store and ad-hoc snaps, and music player. I transfer any useful data to and from my now desktop laptop.

There is a trend in Asia to make even cheaper MIDs as low as $100 for exactly these uses. It is only the static versions Windows market that needs so much more resources than Linux, that is forcing the merge with PC laptops.

I'll wait for large Laser 3D displays and 3D cameras to arrive before I invest in this technology.

Touch screens, even large 27" ones where one could see past one's hands, have already been tried and failed back in the latter quater of the last century when there were a lot more adventurous people around than there are today.

But I suppose the sheep will follow Balmer's lead and spend their money on his next best thing without realising the visual problems until they've bought another useless device.

Why do you think XEROX, who invented the WIMP, used the keyboard independent 3 button optical mouse, instead of the touch screen? You could perform every XYZ operations with it, as well as minimal movement menu functions, and fine point, line and tracing work, that was why. Try doing all of that with a large finger on the end of a large hand.

Actually I should point out for historical reasons that there is an interesting SIGGRAPH video circa 1979 about an INGRES large ship world wide monitoring system I think was called SHIPS, where one can see the practical use of a large touch screen.

Virtualization: Solution In Search Of A Problem

Anonymous 2 years 47 weeks 1 day 11 hours ago

Virtualization is primarily useful for Windows shops. People donâ€™t tend to run multiple Windows Server apps on the same machine at the same time, because when something goes wrong, itâ€™s hard to determine whose fault it is.

Whereas Unix/Linux servers regularly fulfil multiple roles at once, and still remain stable. So thereâ€™s less wasted hardware resources that virtualization might save.

virtualization

admin 2 years 47 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago

virtualization has many benefits, at my job we run almost all linux servers in linux-vserver.
This gives tremendous benefits to administration and security.

You know what I do if I want to move my mailserver to another machine? I tar my complete vserver while it's running, copy the tar to the new machine, untar, start it and update my firewall with the new ip.
that's it!

Limiting of resources, limiting of access to a virtual environment and what about clustering a host to make one virtual machine run on multiple hardware machines?

I see a lot of uses for virtual machines

Good

Anonymous 2 years 47 weeks 1 day 17 hours ago

Not sure about 3D screens and touch screens, but I totally agree that virtualization and cloud computing are ways to go. I myself, I'm using old PC (about 5 years old) and sometimes mac x mostly to connect to virtual machines using vnc, that run in a server room.

Views

Anonymous 2 years 47 weeks 2 days 2 hours ago

While I think that some of these are bound to happen, I'm not so sure about the touch screens and 3d displays.

While there will always be people that want the most cutting edge technology and flashy displays, many other people are quite happy using fairly simply interfaces for everyday tasks.

For example, writing emails and text messages doesn't require 3d graphics or a touch screen and even hinders it. While the underlying devices may support it I very much doubt that a 3d email client will every catch on in a big way other than as a gimmick.

I think overall it comes down to what output format is best for the task in hand and the trend we are moving towards is more choice, rather than any one specific direction.

3d touch

admin 2 years 47 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago

let's assume you have a small device, and let go of the way your used to think about interacting.
A 3D interface could provide for completely new ways of interacting and using your device.
The difference between a command line interface and a point and click GUI
For instance you could have virtual buttons on the side of your 3D interface, or manipulate something by touching the inside of your interface. I see a 3 dimensional game controlled by a virtual joystick, the only problem would be force-feedback :-)

I think this will be more than a gimmick. But there might be something even more imaginative for a interface in the future, like mind control or something.

About the Cloud A

Anonymous 2 years 47 weeks 2 days 4 hours ago

About the Cloud
A home/normal/gaming computer might be used as the cloud for MID's and other peripherals

Long distance cloud computing for personal use really doesn't makes sense.

Why storing anything on servers far away (which makes transfer slow)
when there are already hard drive disks of 2TB!

It's slower and more unreliable,
and no matter how good it will be.
The cloud will always be slower and or more unreliable than storing stuff on some (external) hard drive.

The Cloud is useful for projects where resources need to be globally available.
And most companies who afford to get decent connectivity will certainly be able to buy
their own servers.