Do You Have a Vision?

In the olden days, people with a vision changed the world. Scientists such as James Clerk Maxwell kicked off the entire revolution in harnessing electricity and magnetism to build our modern world. Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley started the silicon revolution that gave us the microchip, and Tim Berners-Lee gave us the World Wide Web. But, sometimes, you have to wonder if being a visionary is going out of fashion.

OK, so there are plenty of people still inventing technological things, but mostly its evolution now. Some people even say that we've discovered all there is to know about physics and our planet. And lack of vision seems all-pervading when it comes to things such as politics. Where are the visionary leaders (for safety and impartiality, no names mentioned) of the past? It's pretty much an accepted fact that politics these days is a case of "going with the flow." Focus groups to tell you what policies are likely to get the most votes, and sound bites to keep the population satisfied.

So what about in the world of computing, user documentation, and guidance that I and so many others inhabit? Is vision still alive and well? And is it really important? When did you last hear of a new computing device/service/product/accessory that was really new and ground-breaking?

Wearable computers? I had a digital watch with a calculator in it twenty years ago. User input devices? Touch screens and motion detection have been around for ages. Mobile phones? Do you remember the eighties and brick-sized boxes? Internet TV? Windows 7 Media Center had that as a Silverlight-based add-on, and it was hardly a new concept then. Facebook and Twitter? Just evolution of CompuServe and bulletin boards. Online shopping? See How Much Computing Power Do You Need? Quantum computing? OK, so this one is relatively recent - but it's really just about moving particles around instead of electrons because we need to do things smaller, faster, and in parallel. Something we've been doing with CPUs for many years.

Maybe we have reached the point where there is nothing really new and visionary left to be invented in the world of computing. Though there's probably more chance of actually having a vision in our industry, and implementing it, than there is in the world of politics...