The screen is dead, long live the screen

Over the past two decades, we have become so tuned to the screen, whether during work or leisure-time, that many of us spend in excess of half our waking hours staring at it.

What began as an extremely slow connection (particularly for those of us who can remember dial-up) for our desktops and the lame excuse for the internet on mobile phones pre-2006, when the iPhone made its debut, has evolved to the point where you can get download speeds over 10 MAPS on your mobile. Over Time, all of these innovative technologies & products have become commoditised, even as they have grown to become behemoths, with valuations exceeding GDPs of most countries.

The commoditization of the screen interface means that the war-chests of those trillion-dollar companies including Google and Apple are cheap and user-stickiness and sustaining an even-increasing ownership of their Time is increasingly precious. Even as a majority of humanity is staring into their mobile phone screens at this time, the screen as we know it is dead. This is a pretty bold prediction, but this is because there is little superprofit to be made by companies like Apple & Samsung if a $20 smart phone can provide a similar experience. In reality, the screen is likely to get a lot closer than at present, for those who can afford it.

In the next 12 to 18 months, the screen will begin to become virtual and wearable. There are many benefits of this, both to the user and to the provider. For the user, this can provide far better info, since the screen effectively knows what the wearer is looking at. When was the last time you looked at a familiar face but couldn't remember the name. Or when you bumped into a potential client but don't know his interests. The possibilities are endless. There's also an opportunity for the user to track his health far more effectively. A prime example of the increasing recognition of this value is the recent announcement by Google stating that it can track 100 k points in the eye. This can enable the user to be able to track all kinds of diseases as well as precursors including cardiovascular, diabetes and several types of cancer. More importantly, the user can track ongoing health and impact of certain kinds of treatments in managing health and disease tracking. This health tracking would then provide the first indication of an imbalance or early diagnosis of diseases, which in turn can dramatically improve the patient's prognosis.

For the provider, this solution would provide incredible stickiness both for looking in as well as looking out. Looking in would include health tracking by having a camera to track points within the eye. Big data collected by millions of users would enable deeper insight into possible health challenges. But looking at the same points within the eye & linking changes with stress by tracking pulse & blood pressure for the same user over time would enable fully personalised health tracking, which products like Apple watch and Fitbit have only superficially begun addressing.

Tracking eye movements would enable the wearable device to know exactly what the user is looking at and the user's reaction. This would be a dramatic shift from the status today where the user looks at the mobile screen only sporadically & the app has no tactile user-feedback. A wearable virtual screen would provide full-immersion and a view of the world and everything they see via these rose-tinted glasses.

But there are risks. 

The major risks are around privacy, since there is a risk that apps built into its virtual screen may be capable of facial recognition and degrade privacy. Some argue that this concern may be misplaced, since entities like Google and Facebook already have incredible personal information dealing with our preferences and interests while genetic data banks like 23ANDMe and AncestryDNA know more than you can imagine about your genetic makeup. However, there is one major difference. Today's technology is passive and unidirectional, since apps like Facebook only show users different visuals on the mobile phone app & hope they click on something. The risk of the always-on screen that you wear & through which you see the world is that it can know everything you see & your reaction to it. This is insidious as it would outsource the value of all your time & enable the app to monetise all your waking hours.

But the bigger risk is the ability of such technology to completely isolate us and consider those who don't agree with us as the enemy. Seeing how social media apps on our mobile phones have limited our view where we see those who have a different opinion on view of the world as enemies, the ability of an always-on screen through which we see the world can indeed be enormous.

The titans of our time cannot afford to miss this transition of the screen. At the same time, countries which don't have these companies risk transition of personal information and external influence into their politics & policy, with incredible national cost, as we saw with the 2016 US election.

We are fast approaching this screen transition. Whether we decide to take the blue pill or the red pill will determine everything that follows.