Phil Smeeton's Tech Thinking Blog

The main measure of usability of an app is about how intuitive the app is, how easy it is to accomplish the objectives of the user in this particular session. High quality apps are free of bugs and security flaws, they are stable and operate without consuming too much cpu/memory and in the case of mobile apps, battery resources. The user cares about these qualities and not so much about the tools used to develop the code, what the user does want though is a finished, fully functioning app and if agentic coding helps with this aspect then that is a big win.

The idea here is to leverage the enormous success and popularity of Windows 95 for the benefit of the tech industry by making Windows 12 a version of Windows called The New Windows 95.   Several wins are available using this approach. 1. It reminds users of the huge success of Win95 2. You can embed the original windows 95 OS look into the package for nostalgia and educational purposes, probably accessed through an Easter Egg. 3. It re-enforces the reason Microsoft became massive in the market and the minds of the users.   It could be called Windows 95(2027 edition)   Enjoy!

With Gen AI the web is technically advanced enough for 2026, what we should be doing is making the web a more visually beautiful place with big GUI updates and more innovation in the front end. In short, I think web 4.0 should be mostly a visual update. People buy Apple devices because they look great, people will love web 4.0 if it extends web pages visually to new heights, good luck.

That you would deploy a mission critical system made using agentic tools controlling a hazardous resource without examining every line of code by an human expert? Agentic software development promises faster coding, automated testing, and increased productivity, but it comes with important tradeoffs. AI agents can introduce subtle bugs, security vulnerabilities, and technical debt while confidently producing incorrect solutions. They often lack the architectural understanding and business context needed for long-term maintainability, making human oversight essential.  As organizations adopt autonomous development tools, the focus shifts from writing code to verifying it. Success depends on strong governance, thorough reviews, and clear accountability. Agentic AI is a powerful accelerator, but treating it as a replacement for experienced engineers can create more problems than it solves.

Agentic development is transforming software engineering by enabling AI agents to rapidly design, write, test, and deploy applications. While this dramatically accelerates innovation, it also creates a significant security challenge: an exponentially growing attack surface. As organizations use AI to generate hundreds or even thousands of applications, maintaining consistent security becomes increasingly difficult. Applications may be built using different frameworks, third-party APIs, open-source libraries, and cloud services, each introducing new dependencies and potential vulnerabilities. Without strong governance, security reviews can quickly become a bottleneck—or be skipped entirely. The speed of agentic development also means that vulnerabilities can be introduced and deployed faster than traditional security teams can detect them. Misconfigured permissions, exposed secrets, insecure APIs, and outdated components can all become entry points for attackers. When multiplied across ...

I recently attended an agentic developer conference that posed a few philosophical questions: Humans use a lot of software; humans have traditionally been associated with the software development process. Can agents produce better software for humans than humans themselves make with older tools? Is agentic software development dazzled by the promise of software improvement even though the real measure of quality is arguably a human judgement rather than a machine one?   Are human developers in the strongest position with hand crafting tools like classic IDEs or does having agents improve software quality, is the answer subjective and will it depend on the client’s preference?   Time will tell, keep in mind that the final preference is likely to come from users.

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’

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.

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!

 

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.

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.

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...

Everyone has either tried or heard of Gen AI by now and many users are obtaining splendid results. My vision of the edge browser for business is custom designed extensions using Gen AI intermingled with other assets. The developer can also connect to a cloud database storage to augment the functionality of the Edge extension. The secret sauce of Edge extensions is Cloud storage/DB, Gen AI integration and Glass-like GUI

Although the tech industry has produced a number of different humanoid robots powered by AI we do not see them intermingled with humans in society yet. I think that users would enjoy robotic servants and helpers/assistants and we are now nearing a time when this is really viable. One American idea that I like is using a barriered off controlled space in public to exhibit the humanoids allowing the public to come and observe the humanoids until they are ready to buy them for their own applications. 

I like the idea of exploiting the Qubit in Quantum Computing as a software developer, the increased number of potential states appeals to me, however I am aware that creating a stable Quantum hardware is non-trivial and a difficult thing currently.     What to do, what to do, I thought that embedding a very stable quantum simulator into a personal computer operating system would provide a good user experience for those wanting a quantum computer now.

  This offer ‘Goes away’ after a certain date I like the psychology of goes away, it seems to me that users have become very dependent on internet services so it might be time for stuff to go away, like time limited offers, deadlines on discounts etc.

A product or object has a newness associated with it; software is the same it has newness and oldness qualities. The mobile phone app has been around for a long time, whilst it still has some relevance it feels old and worn as an object in software. Thanks to the use of generative AI a new name is available, the smartphone Tapp. Tapps are like apps, except they probably launch quicker, do more stuff and might use AI. You open a Tapp or launch it.

  Is there any particular reason why humanoids are not commonplace within our society? Is it because they are a new technology and we have yet to place them and accept their place in society? Or is it because we feel that the humanoids currently lack intelligence and capability and therefore would not be of sufficient use to us? Is it because humans do not want rival-like objects in circulation potentially confusing or interfering with our human lives? What would a world with intermingled humanoids look and feel like? One positive implementation would comprise of humanoid helpers carrying stuff, helping people find things, providing prompt medical assistance, guarding people’s possessions, caring for vulnerable people, maintaining , cleaning and tidying in any environment.