Recycled Bullsh-IT

The world’s most hyped-up analyst company has released its annual “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” with the usual hyped fanfare. Full of rampant imagination and highly entertaining, you can place your bets on it making the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize.

I’m not going to go through the ludicrous and pointless list of vacuous vapourware here, as it’s just a random collection of buzzwords thrown together in different ways to amaze the gullible. Instead, here’s a list of really useful tech we could do with right now, but which is either too boring or not profitable enough for the IT vendors or anal-ysts to care about:

Bullshi-tometer

A phone app that listens in on vendor calls & presentations, and scans supplier bids & proposals, to give a bullsh*t rating for the credibility and costs stated. Can be configured to exclaim “Bullsh*t” or just laugh loudly when particular porkies are pronounced.

Personal Ownership of Private Data

A secure digital wallet that protects your personal data from thieving websites, social media companies, data brokers and shysters (i.e., all the above). Includes a Savvy option to monetise your data to maximise its value.

Standardised Voice Control

A universal voice control that works with all your tech, and without the silly names you currently need to shout (Siri, Alexa, HAL, JARVIS, etc.) Will also prevent your secret conversations being sent to Google, Apple, NSA, Facebook, China…

Cheap Computing

If technology is so good at improving productivity, why have IT costs gone through the roof, while productivity has slumped? We should ask Sir Alan Sugar to relaunch Amstrad and build cheap-as-chips computers that are shoddy but get the job done at a quarter the price. Also, dig out your Office 95 CD and save yourself a fortune by ditching Microsoft 365.

Benefits Tracking Enforcer

All sponsors for expensive change programmes or large tech purchases should wear an electronic neck tag that tracks whether their proposed benefits ever materialise. If they do achieve the promised value, the tag will loosen and fall off. If not, it tightens gradually until they either make it work or pay back the money, possibly in their next life.

Headset-less AR/VR

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have conferences with people without staring at small, jerky and fuzzy videos of them? Wearing heavy and nausea-inducing VR goggles aren’t the answer (yes, you Facebook). How about we create a shared physical space where we could meet in person and engage all our senses to fully interact with our colleagues? Apparently, they existed BC (Before COVID). Perhaps someone could re-invent a ‘meeting room’ with comfy chairs and whiteboards to share our ideas…

Compostable Apps

We know that most code written is full of bugs and impossible to look after, particularly if someone else wrote it. To prevent application lock-in or costly maintenance, all code should digitally decompose into eco-friendly compost that we can reuse in new containers. Even better let’s move to No-Code which has been around since the Eighties to create usable processes from pre-built and configurable components.

Secure Software

It should be a criminal offence to develop and release insecure software or allow systems to be hijacked by ransomware. Big fines, imprisonment and the removal of digital privileges should be imposed on the guilty for ruining our lives with spam, malware and identity theft through poor software.

Federated Computing

Rather than flip-flopping between Cloud and Edge computing, let’s build apps and data stores that are federated across all the platforms we use, so we access the services and data we need wherever we are. For this we would also need…

Open Systems

Finally, can we have truly Open Systems and interoperability, where everyone agrees on a common set of standards, so we use and move our stuff without lock-in?

You’d imagine our IT vendors would occasionally think of what their customers (i.e., you and me) want, and not just how to screw more money out of us. And the Analysts aren’t helping by writing ridiculous high fantasy in cahoots with the suppliers, selling us an unachievable future at an unaffordable price.

John ‘Hypopota’ Moe