Which products, used by few today, will be essential in five years?

Question

Think about how much technological innovation has changed our lives in the past 5 years…and what products we use every day now. What's the next big thing that will change the way we live?

Answer 1

Online Television. Not many people use it currently, mainly because it is just beginning to develop, but soon TV will be replaced by the internet. People will be able to just watch any show they want on their computers. And soon, as technology advances, people will be able to carry their TVs anywhere they want. So that stationary TV at the home will no longer be acceptable because it is too limiting. TIVO revolutionized the TV, but Internet TV will replace the TV in general. There are many details that i cannot discuss, but all i can say is that TVs are going to be this generation's VHS.

Answer 2

Gaming Technology Will Become More Essential In The Coming Years..

It May Not Seem So Now, And May Already Seem Like It's Big Already, But Do You Know Someone Who Never Played A Video Game? Probably In Your Own Family, Right?

With Games Now Going Main Stream, Like What Nintendo Is Doing, Finding A Person In The Coming Years With A Portable Game System In Their Pocket Would Be As Common As A Person With A Phone In Their Pocket.

Lives Of Many Will Change When The Pick Up On A Little Puzzle Game Or On A Self-Helping Game On The Transport To Work Or Home..

Answer 3

In only five years? The electric car is still one of those things that is more a gimmick. Unless there's some major breakthrough in power storage, I doubt we'll see pure electric cars on a major rise any time soon.

Hybrid cars, while a more 'sane' choice at present, are still exceptionally expensive. So unless their price goes down, the masses will not change over.

The concept of thumb-print systems, is very sound and has a myriad of uses. But! There's one innate flaw: Human hands are dirty, and thus the reader would get dirty and misread even more often than a credit card reader.

Microchip implants. Only 5 years? not a large enough population shift for that.

My personal opinion is that the 'all in one' home entertainment system is what will become more common in 5 years.
Where instead of having your TV with a DVD player, a game console, and your sound system hooked to it. And then your PC sitting in some corner. There will be a tower sitting there, with an LCD moniter (or a nice HD TV), and speakers running from it. Want a game consol still? Well, you already have a TV tuner on the PC.

Up untill recently, systems like this were only custom jobs, however, I do believe it's Microsoft that just released a 'living room PC'. So it's only a matter of time before the prices of a PC with the required components becomes cheap enough to take the place of the sound system, DVD player and TiVo system. Presently such a system will run you in the neighborhood of $1500, not counting your moniter (That's for a rig you can also run some decent games on.) and has the advantage of also being able to store and download your media.

Answer 4

With the advances in broadband networking and the increases in fiber-optic network capacity, my guess is that 5 years from now, interactive IPTV, IP based telephony and 10+ Mbps internet access will revolutionize the way we live and interact.

I say this because 5 years is a small step in the course of technological change. There are many products that 5 years ago we all thought would be essential today- be it HDTV or Hybrid-Electric vehicles.

The products that HAVE become essential or commonplace, in past 5 years time, however are the 2+ GHz microprocessor and 2+ Mbps internet connections to the home.

This would lead me to believe that these same types of products will be more easily accepted by a the public than more drastic types of changes in the next 5 years.

Answer 5

I believe that in the next five years, that it will be essential, for everyone to have a wireless laptop. Espeacialy in the schools, if each student has access to a wireless internet laptop, in their class room. It would save time from having to move all the students into the computer lab. With this product, it will be easy to get up and leave and just go to another hotspot. It could be the end of the desktop PC's, as we know it.

Another prodoct that will become essential is a web camera. Many still don't have one, even I don't have one. But within five years, it could become an imporant asset to buisness. People won't have to travel long distances or go on trips, just to attend an important board meeting. The meeting could be held over the internet and use web cam's as a way to communicate with the other board members.

One other product, that will come essential very soon, will be the flash drive sticks. With disk drives, becoming a thing of the past and more and more computer, no longer being built with one. People will need to starting relying on the flash drives, to hold important documents and pictures.

These are the three products I believe will become essential in the next five years.

Answer 6

Portable media/communication devices.

We're not going to see anything big or innovative within 5 years, thing take time. Maybe we will see more practical consumer electric cars, and even electronic chips implanted in people, but those things will not become essential nor really change how we live our lives within the next 5 years.

However, portable media/communication devices is something that has been developing and growing for quite some time now, and we are on the brink when such devices will be absolutely essential. Like the indoor plumbing and the electricity in your homes, you're going to wonder how'd you get by without them.

It's only a matter of time until everything, cameras, phones, games, internet, movies, music and all the rest of that good stuff is combined into a CHEAP, PRACTICAL, ACCESIBLE, device.

These devices are that will change the way we live our lives in the next 5 years.

Answer 7

Well,

The Question:
Which products, used by few today, will be essential in five years?

Totally Electric cars in 5 years? Not a chance.

In 5 years most homes will have a dvr (digital video recorder). With the push from satellite companies and now most cable companies offering dvr's as an upgrade to service this will be in most homes in 5 years where it might be in 5% to 10% now. This is the last nail in the vcr's coffin.

I also see the addition of the dvr achiever. A dvd recorder that will back up items stored on your dvr.

Computer integration will continue to evolve over the next 5 years. Flash drives will be used for everything.

BOLD STATEMENT:
The next Media format to replace Cd's is Flash cards. The current problem is that there are so many shapes of flash drives, there is not a universal format. I thought it might just go to a usb connection but I think there will be some smaller and faster type of connection.

There will be more car stereos that play mp3's off of flash drives. The 1st ones that I have found are made by JVC.

The current disadvantage of Flash is the cost per gigabyte is 89 times higher than a CD.

CD 700 Mb = $0.20 that is $0.28 per gig
Flash 1 Gig I found for $24.99 and that is very cheap.

Advantages of Flash: Can't be scratched, Recyclable, Compact in size, Fast data access, Universal among computer languages.

Answer 8

I think hybrid or alternate fueled cars will be essential in the near future. Technological inventions have dramatically changed our lives, for the positive and the negative. While we may have new ways to have more of the things we want and sometimes need, it is not always so simple. Many times the very inventions that help us so much have very risky side effects. I think one of the biggest inventions that has really come around is the cell phone. While it wasn't invented within the past five years, it certainly has made its way mainstream and affordable enough for most people to own. Off hand I can't think of a family who doesn't own at the very least, one.
Very recently there was a machine invented that can keep hearts pumping outside the body for extended amounts of time. Such an invention is sure to make a huge change in the way we look at medical technology. Hopefully it won't send the message that it is okay to trash your body because you are guaranteed a heart, lung, or whatever to replace what you have.

Answer 9

There has been nothing technological in the past 5 years that has totally changed our lives except the universal use of the internet. That said, there are no products, used by few today, that will be essential in five years..... they either haven't been invented or introduced yet.

I think the next big wave of invention that will be essential to our existence is the advent of human identification via technology, i.e., ways to manage our daily functions through the use of a brain or eye chip or something else for identification which will increase human time management as our lives speed up even more than now. It goes without saying there will be even more people left behind in this technological wave.

Also, be on the lookout for "animated celebrities" to replace human newscasters and famous icons in our daily lives. We can already see this in some product commercials. Be looking for copyrights on famous faces as this trend continues.

Answer 10

Okay, seriously, many of the people that answered this question gave ridiculous answers. Lets get real. Oxygen Tanks? Why on Earth would more people need to use oxygen tanks in five years? Or microchips in humans, I really doubt that is going to catch on, just one more way for the government to keep tabs on everyone, I don't think so. One guy said microchips for medical purposes, that you can just call the doctor, hook up, and then there you go. . .the medicine or whatever is in you. How does that even make sense? Do you know what a microchip is?
Or those few people that gave answers of things that we already use on a regular basis. One person said calculators, because math is getting harder. Right, well many people already use calculators and math isn't getting harder, people are getting dumber. One other person said computers. Pretty much EVERYTHING is run on computers. I don't really know anyone (excpet maybe some elderly people) that don't use a computer at least once a day. Come on.
The majority of answers on here are about hybrids, electric cars, different fuel sorces, or GPS. Those are the only reasonable answers that I saw. I'm sure in 5 years we will have many new toys, cars, computers, etc. I don't even think we can fathom what is to come in the future as far as comfort and convience are concerned.
I just wanted to make those comments about the stupidity of some people, good job everyone!

Answer 11

Honestly, I think that it will not only be hybrid cars, but complete solar cars as well. Four years ago, my science teacher had a hybrid car. One of the first few. It was amazing that she was getting 66 miles to the gallon. Another advancement would definitely be the use of synthetic organs and limbs. The limbs have already made a big impact as it is but I feel that the organs are the next to come. It won't be as procured as Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams but it will be stepping into that area. Last but not least, I think that scientists will be using superior technology to study and graph out space stations for people to live in while orbiting about earth and maybe even try to create atmospheres on other planets or live underwater, close to a Red Planet style theme. I truly think that our contribution to global warming has created a huge problem. A large wake up call for such a think would be the movie "An Inconvient Truth" that can be seen in independent theaters. It's hosted by Al Gore. Now for those of you who do not like him, forget he's even a part of it. It doesn't matter who presents the information, because the problem is still there. There may even be a huge use for cloning, but it has to be taken into careful consideration due to the problematic outcomes that it could be something along the lines of Galactica.