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Intel conducted a survey of 1,000 consumers and 102 "tech elites"* to celebrate the 50th year of the company's existence:
Americans are excited about the future potential of technology, but 40 percent believe emerging technologies will introduce as many new problems as solutions in the next 50 years. This finding comes from Intel's "Next 50" Study of 1,000 consumers, conducted with research firm PSB, to determine prevailing perceptions about the future of technology.
"Emerging technologies have the potential to transform many aspects of our everyday life," said Genevieve Bell, director of the 3A Institute, Florence Violet McKenzie Chair and distinguished professor at the Australian National University, and a vice president and senior fellow at Intel. "Studies like this remind us about the diversity of human experience. When we talk about the future of innovation, we're talking about a range of ideas, technologies and attitudes that will impact our lives in important ways."
Even as consumers anticipate new technologies, they remain most excited about those that are most familiar. The survey revealed that consumers expect to rely most on smartphones (87 percent) in the future. Consumers also ranked PCs (84 percent) and smart home technology (84 percent) among the most important technologies in the next 50 years.
I thought the PC was dying.
Some highlights from the PDF include: much more excitement (56-71%) about "smart home technology" than gene therapy (43-55%) (page 10), little excitement (10-14%) over full automation of jobs forcing governments to issue a universal basic income (page 13), fathers being much more excited about "AI" than mothers (page 14), and Intel highlighting the worry of social isolation caused by technology when the top concern was robots and AI destroying jobs (page 24).
*All technology elites are aged 25 years or older with at least a college education, have a household income of at least $100,000 and follow news about technology closely.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday August 24 2018, @04:25PM
Yeah, for DIY hobbyist projects, sure a raspberry pi is a wonderful thing.
But if you base a an iot appliance off the pi, and sell it by the thousands, and you attach a mic and camera to it then its likely going to get pwned eventually.
Basically, for anything appliance-like (ie IoT) related to the security or privacy of your home, if it has a camera and mic to it, or it controls access to your home (door locks) it shouldn't be attached to the internet.
On the flip side, a voice controlled device that isn't attached to the internet is fine. You want a voice activated toaster... fine, but ideally don't make it an internet connected toaster, or at most make it a LAN connected toaster that's firewalled from communicating with the internet in both directions; and this kind of functionality works for the DIY enthusiast who is willing to and able to manage their own network and set it up and troubleshoot it. But you can't really mass market such a thing -- for mass market it needs to be easier to use and that's incompatible with being secure.
Finally, your smartphone, your laptop etc. Is a compromise -- that you should be actively aware of, unlike an IoT device. So you should prefer cameras with physical lens covers; and mics with physical off switches or that can be disconnected where possible. You should keep them up to date with security patches, and running supported software you trust. You should keep them away from secure areas or private conversations. etc. Its reasonable to 'manage' this for laptops and phones.
But it's untenable to do this for every light switch, door knob, and gizmo in your life.