Computers & Gadgets

The pace of change in technological progress has been rapid, not just in the last ten or five years, but even within the last twelve months. Since last year we have seen the iPhone revolutionize the mobile phone and Twitter gain the approval of the masses, it is a clich© but things are constantly changing, it is difficult to predict what shape the digital landscape will take in a years time, let alone ten.

Let us rewind to the early 2000’s and talk about the major trends that were forecast in the pre-social networking era. Convergence was a major buzzword and there were a number theories circulating that separate pieces of media hardware would converge into ‘one black box’, a device which formed the centrepece of living rooms and would provide internet, television, gaming, music and the ability to look after the dog. That last one was a joke by the way!

We can confidently confirm that this is not the case today. While home entertainment devices have diversified to provide a more rounded experience, it is not quite what media theorists had in mind when they professed about the ‘box’. What we have seen however is quite the opposite, software being designed from the ground up as ‘multi-platform’ programs. Take the aforementioned Twitter, this is available in some form or another on mobile devices in the form of an ‘app’, on games consoles as an intuitive version of the site optimized for joy-pad style controllers, and of course in it’s original form on the web. This certainly is convergence, though not as it was concieved, I would tend to call it unified communications.

Of course, hardware devices have moved towards ‘multi-functionality’ but not to the extent where a single device can take the place of many, some may even argue the amount of hardware devices we own has increased. Take the iPhone, this has many features such as browsing, GPS and video playback, but if you own one, chances are you have not binned your home computer, sat-nav console or DVD-player. Some devices are spawning extra features making them more usable, Business Telephone Systems such as the Avaya IP Office enable video calling and multiple conversations, meaning they turn the phone into a much more useful device from a business perspective.

Thus we can see that convergence is a much more complex process than was originally forecast, rather than disparate devices merging into one to delivering multi-media channels we have seen existing hardware transform and diversify, as well as media channels adapting to enable themselves to be delivered via numerous different pieces of hardware. Who knows what the next the next ten holds?