In the future it will be less about technology and more about content. Right now as it stands everything is focused on technology and the products that encompass them, rather than on the human factor. We have a myriad of products all of which having to have their own preferences set, their own differing complex interfaces that need to be releanred for each individual device. Reading an article on our mobile devices and then continue reading it where we left off when entering our office, the same with movies, or music, having a seamless experience from car to home to office, all of which with an easy intuitive way to get to it, recall it, and share it is not part of our reality. All these pieces of technology take so much away from our daily lives, when all they were meant to do is improve our lives. Frankly I am tired of having 5 remote controls at home (and then always losing the smallest one).

Honeymoon
We get swept up by gimmicky empty effects of contentless technological toys, yet in the end a mobile device for example is a communication tool, and if technology gets in its own way, with all those snazzy features that marketing thinks will help sales, design has failed. As the technological honeymoon wears off and the consumers sober from the flashing lights, the realization kicks in that underneath that technological whizbang, content is a far second. Our real needs are not being met, and feelings of frustration, confusion and disappointment creep in. And in the end we once again hunt for the next best thing continuously being disappointed, in our "hunt for emptiness."

Garbage In Garbage Out

Invisible Technology
Good technology will come to a point where it becomes transparent, almost non existent in our reality, namely invisible. The less we have to think about it the more successful it will be, the more it gets out of the way of content the more innovative it is. When it comes to a point that we don't even think about it, and it barely exists in our minds, that is the point at which it has become what the idea of technology was meant to be, namely a tool to make our lives easier. I think this is something we always forget in forging ahead in our quest for the latest technology and in turn for a better tomorrow. One of the factors we will have to overcome if we want to indeed get to the next level of sustainable technological advances, is our greed. I am talking about the chase for a quick buck, driven by the ubiquitous marketing machine, which creates a multitude of "me too" products, which simply are old products rewrapped, and in the end does not spearhead any advances what so ever.

Massimo Vignelli once said, "Marketing is the cancer of good design," well I take it further and say, "...and the evolution of good technology."

In the end technology should get to a point where it caters to us. You should not have to learn about it (how to use it what preferences to set, reading countless manuals only to be confused at the end, always feeling like and idiot each time you buy a new toy) but rather it should be so transparent that it feels it is learning about you.

Small example of what considerations need to me made:
View the video from Adobe MAX