Tuesday, December 16, 2008

MOBILE PHONE TO BE MAIN WEB TOOL IN 2020: SURVEY

Washington
The Economic Times

Mobile devices will be the primary tool to connect to the Internet in the year 2020 and voice-recognition and touch-screen interfaces will be much more prevalent, according to a new survey on the future of technology.

Artificial and virtual reality will also have become more embedded in everyday life, according to the survey of hundreds of Internet leaders, activists and analysts by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The experts were asked in an online survey conducted with Elon University in North Carolina to predict advances and the role of technology in 2020.

They agreed that advances in mobile phone technology would be among the most significant developments in the years to come.

"The mobile phone -- now with significant computing power -- is the primary Internet connection and the only one for a majority of the people across the world, providing information in a portable, well-connected form at a relatively low price," said the Pew survey, "Future of the Internet III."

Seventy-seven percent of 578 experts surveyed said they "mostly agree" with the statement while 22 percent said they "mostly disagree" and one percent did not respond.

Asked whether "talk and touch are common technology interfaces in 2020," 64 percent said they mostly agree, 21 percent said they mostly disagree and 15 percent did not respond.

Fifty-five percent of the experts said they mostly agree with the statement that in 2020, "many lives are touched by the use of augmented reality or spent interacting in artificial spaces."

Thirty percent said they mostly disagree while 15 percent did not respond.

The experts did not think copyright protection would make major advances on the freewheeling Internet in the years to come.

Asked whether "content control through copyright-protection technology dominates" in 2020, 31 percent said they mostly agree while 60 percent said they mostly disagree and nine percent did not respond.

Asked whether "social tolerance has advanced significantly due in great part to the Internet," 32 percent said they mostly agree, 56 percent said they mostly disagree and 13 percent did not respond.

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