Nine years ago (Jan 2014), I wrote a post about "the next big thing". The smartphone industry had blown up, the iPhone a success story that seemed unimaginable even when it launched, completely transforming the mobile phone industry (and through second-order effects, many others; apps, maps, taxis, cameras, online media - just to name a few), the iPad effectively created the 'tablet' class of computing devices. Wearables looked like it was going to be interesting - the Apple Watch was still over a year away from being launched, so there was a question about whether Apple could reinvent the category the way it had with phones and tablets. People were questioning whether old-fashioned "computers" even had a future.

In short, the technology hardware world was going through wave after wave of innovation and reinvention, and eyes were on the horizon looking out for who would be the next to create a product with an iPhone-like success story.

My 2014 take;

The interesting question is what if there is no Next Big Thing? What if the next 5-10 years of new technologies are going to be limited to niche markets — and there isn't another tech revolution just around the corner?

I think its fair to say that in a history of technological innovations and revolutions, there isn't really much in the last decade or so that would warrant much more than a footnote; the theme has been 'evolution, not revolution'.

I mean, we've got affordable VR headsets that are 'good enough' for a genuinely immersive experience - but out in the real world, its still a bit like the pre-iPhone smartphones; the potential is there, but nobody is really using them (yet...)

Wearables have moved on; smartwatches are pretty popular now - but have they changed the world? OK- we've got a better idea of how many steps we've taken or how long we've been sitting down without standing up over the course of a day - but I wouldn't call that a revolution... Wireless headphones are a nice convenience, but not really anything more. (Although I do think spatial audio still has some interesting but as-yet unrealised potential.)

We've seen a couple of new generations of games consoles, but I don't think there's really a fundamental difference between the latest Grand Theft Auto game when I wrote that (the PS3 version of GTA V) and the latest Grand Theft Auto game today (the PS5 version of GTA V). Personally, the game I'm most interested in is the next Zelda game on the Nintendo Switch (so, a 2023 game for a 2017 console built on a 2015 SoC platform) - but I'm expecting a good new game; not technical innovations.

A 2003 Apple Powerbook had revolutionary features when it was launched (USB 2! Bluetooth!), but wasn't really a 'usable' laptop in 2013; on the other hand, a ten-year old Macbook Pro is still a perfectly usable laptop in 2023.

Or maybe — and probably more likely — the Next Big Thing isn't going to be a physical thing. I mentioned the impact that gadgets had when they became more about software than hardware. My guess is that the interesting developments right now are going on inside the devices that we already have — the services that are being built for a world of smartphones and tablets that wouldn't make sense in a world of desktops and laptops.
I don't know what the Next Big Thing is, but if I had to make a bet I would say that it won't be something we buy. It will be something we do.

Well, I think the Next Big Thing is - finally - here. And it isn't a thing consumers will go out and buy. Its an abstract, intangible thing; software not hardware, service not product.

I'm still not entirely sure what to call it - "artificial intelligence" doesn't quite hit the mark; its a fuzzy term that hints at the promise of Artificial General Intelligence while also encompassing the previous generation of decision-tree based systems. 'Deep learning' feels more on-the-mark, but I think its specifically developments in large language models and generative ML where the really interesting things seem to be happening.

Around the same time, I also wrote a post about "fallen giants";

At a digital/media conference, a panel was asked a warm-up question about what major industry developments in the last ten years they had not seen coming. [...]
The best answer I could come up with was that the most unforeseeable developments probably weren't the growth of a company, or the rise or emergence of a new consumer product, category or technology. The thing that was unthinkable to me at the time was that the clear leaders in technology – Microsoft in computers, Nokia in mobile phones, AOL in the consumer web/internet – would not be able to retain their obvious leadership positions.

At the time, Microsoft was still in the Steve Ballmer era; Azure was still branded "Windows Azure" and a couple of months after I wrote that post, Microsoft bought Nokia (one of the other 'fallen giants' I mentioned) for $7.2 billion.

I think its obvious that I absolutely did not expect that Microsoft would be at the forefront of the next wave of technological innovation. The idea that Google would seem to be following a PR strategy dictated by Microsoft's press schedule was unthinkable.

In fact, I think Google's position today is incredible - if you're interacting with a large language model today, you're probably doing it through OpenAI's ChatGPT (running on Microsoft's Azure cloud services) or Microsoft's implementation of GPT4 in Bing. But if you're learning how to build language models, experimenting with deep learning etc. etc. then the chances are that you're using 'open' software frameworks and APIs that have come out of Google (Keras and Tensorflow), and running them using something like Google's Colab cloud service. Google are absolutely leaders in the technical field - but have been caught on the back foot in the world of branding/PR.

But here we are; the world of tech isn't just about incremental improvements to existing products (I don't think there has ever been a less exciting 'new iPhone' than the iPhone 14), discussion of new technology that hasn't even been built yet (which metaverse?), but new products built on actual technological innovation at a pace that is genuinely overwhelming (if you're trying to keep on top of all the deep learning products available today, as well as new launches and updates... well, good luck.)

With things like a $175 billion Search market on the line - something that seemed unthinkable 6 months ago, 'smart assistants' suddenly looking in urgent need of a reboot, Microsoft Office looking like its going to see the first meaningful updates for as long as I can remember - Satya Nadella's recent introduction made references to some of the biggest developments in the entire history of computing (and none to Microsoft's own products!) and, amazingly, didn't feel overblown.

For the first time in years, tech has got genuinely interesting again.

As a footnote - since the metaverse hype really started to build up couple of years ago, Snow Crash was often cited as where the 'metaverse' vision began - I'm guessing more by people who hadn't read the book than people who had. Perhaps if more people had read the book, they would have been paying a bit more attention to the Librarian. The idea of the metaverse remains a dream - but the AI-powered virtual assistant the central character relied on to deal with the vast amounts of data in the metaverse is much closer to a reality.

Some Random Nerd