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March 7, 2008

Gartner's top 10 strategic technologies for 2008

Gartner has posted it's Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2008.

Overall, I think it is an excellent list. Not everything is apples-to-apples, but as far as concepts go, I agree with the article "urging IT executives to think about the risk of not implementing each one."

One I was looking for that is missing is some variant of the outsourcing/offshoring theme. I think this merits serious attention as well. The other one I was looking for and didn't find is open source, which should see some significant usage increase in 2008.

Green IT takes Gartner's top spot. While I could quibble about its positioning and the naming of the item, reducing TCO in the data center is undoubtedly a business driver for 2008. Power is increasingly a limited, and costly, resource. Furthermore, most CPUs there are unused at any point in time and most programs run unaware of machines other than the one it is directed to run upon. This leads essentially to Gartner technology #5, Virtualization. There will be a need to abstract the logical from the physical in coding to effectively utilize the CPUs and reduce their overall number in achieving the same results, thereby reducing power consumption and TCO.

In Information Management, Data warehouse appliances in particular will need to show thier green creds to succeed. Datupia came out this week with a press release of thier latest model touting its energy efficiency. Kudos Datupia.

Otherwise, I really like technology #4 - Metadata Management. We continue to have islands of data, but even if/when they consolidate, understanding that data and effectively leveraging it for query or programming continues to be complex. Too complex. Metadata has suffered in the past from overblown, impractical, metadata-only projects and what's happening is shops are learning that it's really best done on a project-by-project basis. This reality will help see Metadata Management earn its place on this list.

Technorati tags: gartner, outsourcing, virtualization, Green IT, metadata

Posted by William McKnight at 9:13 AM | | Comments (0)

January 29, 2006

Wallpaper: Old "technology", new tricks

That new wallpaper going up in your office building may have a modern design, but it's still wallpaper that reminds you of the '70s and those yellow and orange vertical stripes that at one point you didn't question. Right? Not so fast. Wallpaper may be part of the answer to a problem that didn't exist in the '70s - outsiders securing access to secure wireless computer networks.

As reported in New Scientist, stealth wallpaper can keep company secrets safe. A British company has developed copper-coated electric wallpaper that can selectively block out Wi-Fi access at certain gigahertz. So network communications could be confined to the company.

BAE is working on a transparent, ultra-thin version for windows.

Posted by William McKnight at 8:54 AM | | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

Theoretical Technology from Sony

According to Linix Insider, Sony has patented a new theoretical technology based on neurological sensory stimulation of the human brain, allowing touch, taste and smell in a virtual sense. However, according to Gartner's Reynolds, it is unlikely that Sony will have a product based on the patent within its 17-year applicability!

Sony can't tell anyone what the technology really is. There's no prototype, nothing except the idea to show. The idea is that they plan to create a noninvasive brain interface for computer gaming.

Well, at least there's something to say for the flipside of the brain interface to the computer - simulated feedback to the brain. Put these 2 together, make them work and our individual ideal little worlds can become a reality.

Posted by William McKnight at 4:40 PM | | Comments (0)