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Massive scale automation for environmental cleaning.

At one time of day if you said to a hardware expert you are going to be able to fit billions of transistors onto a single silicon chip they would say it’s not possible at the moment and it might be possible in ten years.   This is the kind of feeling I get when I consider this idea: Massive scale automation, humanoids, robots cleaning the entire environment down to every leaf on every tree.   These robotic automated systems work silently throughout the night and return to their charging hangar before sunrise.   These robots repair the roads, unblock drains and gutters, clean windows, clean vehicles. Customer services might get a call like ‘The overnight automated cleaning didn’t clean my Bentley very well and I’d like to complain’
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The internet killed the TV star

Amongst my varied and interesting academic life I have studied psychology and social science. When I do a comparison of the way people appear on tv and the internet I see that tv seems stale and the rising internet stars seem energised and motivated.   On a technical basis the tv is old tech and I believe that one of two things will happen to tv long term. 1. A reinvention 2. Devolution into a news service only for less technically able groups.   As my elderly mother told me recently the same thing happened to radio many decades ago.   Seems like the truer interactivity the internet provides leaves fans feeling closer to their celebrities more than tv ever could.
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The smartphone as the centre of a user’s digital world

In 2026 the smartphone is an indispensable device supporting the users digital life, messaging, payments for goods and services, entertainment, business, location and directions, some limited productivity, shooting movies for services like YouTube. Battery life used to be very limiting but no longer, screen resolution used to be limited but is now excellent, the touch interfaces work superbly with high reliability in all conditions. Even the audio is pretty strong on modern smartphones, easily producing music and sound for movies. The apps ecosystem provides extensibility for the device, along with nearfield protocols to add hardware easily. Voice recognition is quite strong as is the language translation offering. In 1990 my mobile phone could make voice calls for 30 minutes per battery charge and that was it, no other functionality. Excellent progress in 35 years!
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Flow of data

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Gen AI and SQL Server

SQL Server and relational databases have been around for many decades, with the latest generation of Gen AI, what are some of the wins for integration? Well, we can use a database to store the output of Gen AI and we can also store prompt texts in database tables to use in Gen AI at some point in the future. I also think that using SQL Server to query output from Gen AI can reveal some interesting insights in the data We can use automation from SQL Server to run many thousands or even millions of prompts and store the results. We can use Gen AI to create SQL queries and procedures etc although we must check the produced code carefully, the human has the final decision on what code should be executed.
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Computer users are becoming more proficient at using virtual meeting technologies.

Five years ago users would attempt to have meetings using software, tough to send invites, difficult to maintain stability of the meeting, difficult to have free flowing conversation and with constant technical anxiety and interruptions.   Nowadays it is smooth and capable, almost everyone knows the basics of virtual meeting systems and there are many power users of software like Teams and Zoom all together online video meetings are improving significantly in terms of user experience and I see a lot more improvement over the next five years.
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What Would a Computer-Free Future Look Like?

If computers vanished today, the world would be forced into a dramatic reset. Within the first  5 years , global systems—banking, aviation, logistics, and power—would collapse before slowly rebuilding around paper records, mechanical tools, and local communities. Daily life would feel like a modernized 1950s. By  10 years , industries adapt with analog engineering. Factories, transportation, and trade resume on slower but stable systems. Radio, print, and mechanical devices dominate communication and media. After  15 years , humanity innovates within its limitations, developing advanced analog machines, fluidic logic, and non-digital automation. Society becomes less globalized but more resilient. By  20 years , a new equilibrium emerges: a sophisticated but fully analog world. Transportation thrives, medicine advances through non-digital technology, and craftsmanship flourishes. Life is slower, more tactile, and built on mechanical ingenuity—a retrofuturistic civiliz...
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