The future of collaboration

Computers and software have changed how people take photographs and buy music, but other industries will be affected just as much in coming years, Microsoft Bill Gates chairman predicts.

• The coming decade will bring even more advances in software and computing than the last 10 years
• New ways to watch television will emerge
• How we are using mobile devices

Computers and software have changed how people take photographs and purchase music, but other industries will be affected just as much in coming years, he said.

I agree with that. Television will be married with Internet. Speech recognition will become mainstream technology. Telephone sets will increasingly be able to handle video, e-mail, and other digital media. I share the idea that the era of collaboration is in its infancy. There are millions of applications.

• Search your nearby restaurants with voice.
• More and more software will be delivered as a service over the Internet, instead of residing on individual computers.
• Speech and handwriting recognition software will gain in popularity.
• Computers will move off the desktop, with speech recognition and motion-sensing cameras allowing users to control screens embedded into desktops or whiteboards.
• New types of textbooks will increasingly contain video and other media.
• We will embrace three-dimensional computing, giving new ways of interacting with virtual worlds. Students will increasingly use software to simulate experiments.
• Information workers are not yet empowered to collaborate in the way that they should.