Next decade: Gadgets , Web = Desktop, HTML 5

Right now I’m in the middle of an existencial crisis, I’m about to finish university and I don’t know what to do. I have worked a little in the past, mostly web development in python and java. I enjoy working on the web, and I would work on it, but I don’t find it that interesting.

For my thesis project I’m designing an embedded system along with some friends, it is designed for the ARM architecture. It’s going pretty well, we have an ARM  simulator, some code and ideas for a microkernel (mostly taken from the Fiasco microkernel), and a basic hardware platform.  This is what I really  really like, but… I need a lot more experience to build high quality things… so the question is… what to do the next few years?

So it’s natural that I’m curious about what is going to happen in the near future…

I think that we are going to see more portable devices which run UNIX systems, like iPhone OS and Android, I think there are two main reasons why this will continue to happen.

• UNIX is a very well known and tested architecture.
• LINUX has been ported to nearly every machine architecture, because it’s Open Source.

But that is not the only thing, prices on computer processors are dropping so.. I think we are going to embed a computer on everything we can, or wouldn’t you like your internet fridge to order food from the supermarket when it knows you’re running low on something. Or imagine if you could get updates for your microwave, so it knew how long it takes to defrost some kind of meat (ok this one is very stupid). Your car could connect to google maps to show you the best route to get home.

And what if you could accomplish all of this with the same technology that drives your phone? Why not? a simple ARM processor costs about 15 dollars! (ARM is important here because it’s an open standard which the iPhone, Motorola DEXT and many others happen to use).

The problem with all of this? we need to train a ton of new programmers to create apps for your iPhone, your DEXT, your microwave, your fridge, your car, your firefly, your TV….. blah blah blah blah.

Well… it won’t be that bad… all of that runs on UNIX doesn’t it? Well, I think we could get most programmers to do stuff for our gadgets.. how?

Ok this may sound stupid and it probably is… but what about HTML?

At least for the GUI based gadgets it would be nice… we have tons of  web programmers, we could bring them to the desktop and beyond, and HTML 5 is the key.

HTML 5 has databases, and interaction it is seen as a replacement for Google Gears, and XUL, and I think it can be seen as a direct competitor for Java’s SWING, Adobe’s AIR…

And think about it, part of the HTML 5 standard is how things are displayed on mobile devices.

With this we are leaving all processing in the cloud, we don’t need the fastest processors.. at least not for the front ends, at least just in theory we need just a web browser (and whatever is needed to run a web browser). Sounds like Chrome OS doesn’t it?

The interesting is that we can build our standard java/python/php/whatever backend, or in the case of your microwave you can interact with your C program that drives the motor….

I don’t really believe all of this, but it would be really nice… don’t you think?