A friend's son who was graduating from college recently asked for my thoughts on what would be growth sectors in technology over the next 5-10 years. I started by telling him that if I could predict the future, I'd be in another line of work, but he insisted ...
The three areas I came up with (leaving aside cleantech and biotech, which I know nothing about) were:
- mobile
- the connected home
- rich, brand-focused online advertising - where are all those offline dollars for brand ads like "Drink Coke" going to go online? No one has cracked the code on how to engage users with ads that yield offline dollar levels yet.
It looks like the first two are coming via Google Android, even faster than you'd think:
The New York Times reported in April that T-Mobile plans to sell a home phone and a tablet computer early next year, both running Android. Now, microprocessor company MIPS says it is moving forward with plans to help design Android-based set-top boxes, digital TVs, mobile internet devices, and home media players. In an interview with the Times, MIPS vice president of marketing Art Swift described Android as a “great platform” for connecting home electronics to the internet. The first non-phone Android devices could ship as early as this year, he said, starting with digital picture frames.
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