Saturday, March 29, 2014

What's next?

FTLapps has been growing for over two years now!  We have five product lines on the App Store, and thousands of fans around the globe.  We've built apps for the iPhone and iPad... and, soon, hope to have TrackDay for Android out at last!  And, we're aiming to have a sixth product line (a new game!) out on the App Store next month!

But, this update is inspired by consideration of some of the greatest (or at least, most visible) technological advances of the past decade or two.

In no precise order, virtual technologies:

  1. The Internet and the Web (and email and HTML5 and JavaScript...)
  2. Google Search
  3. Blogging in general (and Blogger in particular)
  4. Wikipedia (and within the movie information space, an honorable mention to IMDB)
  5. Facebook (sorry... MySpace, didn't make the cut)
  6. Open Source in general... Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, jQuery, WordPress and all the other thousands of amazing projects and everyone who has ever contributed
  7. YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk)
  8. Google ...everything... Maps, Gmail, Analytics, AdWords... (just to get started...)
  9. "Meritocracy Portals" (e.g., Amazon, eBay, App Store, Google Play, Kickstarter, Kiva, TopCoder, shapeways)
  10. Apple Xcode and iOS (in spite of the chaos the iOS 7.1 release has caused in Sprite Kit!)
  11. Learning Portals (http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education)
  12. TED (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NENlXsW4pM)
  13. Facebook (again?  ...yeah, but now, with Oculus Rift and internet laser drones...)
  14. Twitter (...referenced by TV commentators like it actually counts as a news source!?)
  15. Netflix (...in 1999 they belonged in the list below, but today, they are increasingly virtual...)
  16. Stack Overflow (...redefining what it means to be an "isolated" software developer)
  17. Microsoft Visual Studio Express (...haven't actually used it, but kudos to MS for putting it out there for free!)
  18. Epic Unreal Engine Technology (...C++ source code too! ...for just $19/month...)
  19. Minecraft (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn2-d5a3r94)


Physical technologies:

  1. iPhone and iPad (...is that a super-computer in your pocket?)
  2. GPU-based rendering in PCs and Consoles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit)
  3. GoPro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31PCfO8zZQ)
  4. Wing suits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CQFYqzyPd0)
  5. Jetman (http://www.ted.com/talks/yves_rossy_fly_with_the_jetman)
  6. 3D Printed organs (http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney)
  7. Google's Driverless Car (http://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_thrun_google_s_driverless_car)
  8. Bionic legs (http://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance)
  9. Bionic eyes (http://iq.intel.com/the-future-of-wearable-devices-will-be-human-centric/)
  10. 3D Printing (The Diamond Age begins with... The Plastic Age?)
  11. Industrial Robots (https://www.google.com/search?q=industrial+robots&tbm=isch)
  12. Hobbyist Robotics (http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/)
  13. Personal Robotics (http://www.ted.com/talks/cynthia_breazeal_the_rise_of_personal_robots)
  14. MotoGP Premier Class motorcycles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsPu9SWflCA)


...don't like my lists... share your additions here!

The question remains.... What's next?

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