年7大热门技术预测

1. Web Video On Your TV: We’ve already seen many attempts to turn the Internet into a video-delivery pipe to rival cable TV: Google TV, Apple TV, the Boxee Box, Roku, and a slew of “Internet-enabled” TVs. None of them are quite yet cable killers, but they are seeding the market with simple ways to bring Internet video to your large-screen TV in the living room. The more cable-quality video that becomes available over the Web via streaming services such as Netflix, Vudu, or iTunes, the more that people will turn to Web when they are looking for something to watch. This trend is not about surfing the Web on your TV. Nobody wants to do that. It is about using the Internet as an alternative way to deliver movies and TV shows to your flat-screen TV. Even the cable companies will dip their toes into the Internet delivery waters (or plunge deeper if they already have their toes wet). What looks like a pale competitor to cable today will be a lot more viable in a short, twelve months.

1、在电视机上观看网络视频

2010年期间，美国市场已经出现数项将互联网视频内容与传统电视机相结合的技术或服务，如Google TV、Apple TV、Roku以及一批“具备互联网接入功能”电视机。就目前而言，这些技术和服务尚不足对美国传统有线电视市场构成实质性威胁。但无论如何，这些新技术为将网络视频带入大屏幕电视机开启了新道路。

预计2011年期间，随着Netflix、Vudu及iTunes所提供网络视频画质的提高，更多公众将成为网络视频消费者。当然这并不是说公众将使用电视机来浏览互联网，没有人会这样做。我们所说的电视机网络视频消费，是指公众可以选择将网络视频转移到大屏幕电视机上观看。可以预见的是，2011年传统有线电视服务商也会杀入网络视频服务市场，届时网络视频服务的竞争程度将加剧。

2. Quora Will Have Its Twitter Moment: Social Q&A site Quora may be the current darling of Silicon Valley, but not a lot of people beyond the insular tech startup world actually use it yet. That will start to change in 2011, which I believe will be the year Quora has its Twitter moment and start to really take off. Quora represents a bigger technology trend, which is the layering of an interest graph on top of people’s social graph. On Quora, you can follow not only people, but topics and questions. It defines the world by your interests, not just the people you may know or admire. This is a powerful concept and is not limited to Quora (both Twitter and Facebook also want to own the interest graph), but Quora is designed from the ground up to expose and help you explore your interests. It is addictive, and as it reaches a critical mass of early users, this will be the year it emerges from its shell much like Twitter did in 2007.

2、Quora问答服务受到追捧

Quora由数名Facebook前员工于2008年6月创建，其中包括Facebook首任首席技术官(CTO)亚当·德安杰罗(Adam D’Angelo)。Quora服务的大致模式是：任何网民成为该网站的注册用户后，可使用各自真实身份回答其他用户提出的问题。这种问答服务与维基百科 (Wikipedia)颇为相似。更为重要的是，Quora引进了诸多社交网络的元素，如用户可对同一个问题的多个答案进行投票、可成为某一用户的“跟随者”等等。

2010年1月，Quora开始提供内部测试服务。该网站去年6月称，鉴于Quora已通过内测服务获得了大量问题答案，因此已做好了让更多用户参与使用该服务的各项准备工作。舍恩菲尔德认为，2011年Quora将迎来自己的“Twitter时刻”，即该服务将受到美国主流网民的欢迎，原因就是Quora服务是基于“兴趣相同”社交层，而非基于地理位置。

虽然Twitter和Facebook也重视用户兴趣，但Quora服务更注重将兴趣相投者聚集到一起。与Twitter在2007年受到关注一样，Quora也有望于2011年“破壳而出”。

3. Mobile Social Photo Apps:The end of 2010 witnessed a spate of mobile photo apps including Instagram, PicPlz and Path. They all take advantage of several massive key trends: the growth of iPhone and Android, the ubiquity of decent cell phone cameras, GPS, and existing social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. Each of these apps is built for mobile first. They let you take a picture, mark your location, and share it with your social network (sometimes public, sometimes private). With Instagram and PicPLz, you can choose a filter to make humdrum pics look more exciting or capture a mood. By building on top of existing social networks like Twitter and Foursquare, they are making popular new ways to use those services. Instead of simply checking in, now you can do a photo checkin (even Foursquare lets you do that now). Already Instagram is one of the most popular photo apps in iTunes. Sharing photos is pretty much a universal impulse, and these apps make it easier and more fun.

3、移动社交图片共享应用程序兴起

2010年底，Instagram、PicPlz和Path等移动社交图片共享应用程序已开始受到欢迎。此类应用程序之所以能够受到关注，是因为它们及时看到了市场变化：苹果iPhone和谷歌Android手机市场影响力的提高、绝大多数手机已配备了摄像头并具备GPS导航功能、Facebook及Twitter等社交网站图片共享活动非常活跃。

上述移动社交图片共享应用程序最初都是针对手机用户而开发。利用此类应用程序，用户可拍照、标记自己当前所在地理位置、将图片上传到Facebook等社交网站。对于Foursquare用户而言，利用移动社交图片共享应用程序，他们不再进行简单的“签到”(Check in)，而是进行所谓的“图片签到”，从而使签到活动更为生动有趣。

4. Mobile Wallets: If you could use your cell phone as a credit card, would you? Everyone from Apple and Google to Nokia want to make that a reality and tap into the mobile payments market. Both Apple and Google are exploring this opportunity. Google bought mobile payments startup Zetawire to gain experience and the latest Android phone, the Nexus S, comes with an NFC chip—the same kind that is embedded into credit cards and lets you pay by waving it over a wireless reader. The iPhone 5 also may come equipped with an NFC chip, and Apple was sniffing around mobile payments startup BOKU last year for a possible acquisition. It is going to take more than just NFC chips in every phone to make mobile payments a reality, but efforts by the major players this year should begin to move the needle.

4、移动支付业务迅猛发展

在手机已经接近全民普及的今天，如果手机能够具备信用卡的功能，无疑将受到手机用户的大力欢迎。正是看到了这一点，苹果、谷歌、诺基亚及其他厂商都在积极进军移动支付市场。谷歌此前已收购移动支付业务创业公司Zetawire，以将后者技术整合到Android及Nexus S手机当中。

此类手机安装了一个近距离通信(NFC)芯片，该芯片整合了信用卡支付功能，用户可将手机对着一个无线阅读器，就可完成支付过程。预计苹果iPhone 5手机也将安装NFC芯片。去年期间，苹果已同移动支付创业公司BOKU接触，并希望同后者达成收购协议。当然，要使移动支付产业得以全面发展，首先需更多手机配备NFC芯片。但无论如何，谷歌和苹果两家公司已开了个好头。5. Context-Aware Apps: Whether it’s search, mobile, or social apps and services, the most useful apps people will keep coming back to are the ones which help people cut through the increasing clutter of the Internet. Apps that are aware of the context in which they are being used will serve up better filtered information. When you search on your mobile phone, that means you get local results and local offers served up first. If you are on a service like Quora that understands your interest graph, it means that you are only shown topics that you care about, sorted in realtime. If you are on a news site, you will see the most shared links from people in you follow on Twitter or are connected to on Facebook. Music and movie services will similarly surface social recommendations. In a world of information overload, context is king.

5、情境感知应用程序

在上月初于法国巴黎举行的2010年度LeWeb技术大会上，谷歌地理位置和本地服务副总裁玛丽莎·梅耶尔(Marissa Mayer)透露，谷歌正开发的下一个重要产品为“情境发现”(contextual discovery)，即根据用户浏览习惯和所处地理位置，主动向用户推送最有价值的信息。

其实无论是搜索、移动业务还是社交网络，情境感知(Context-Aware)都将成为一项非常有用的服务。通过该服务，用户可实现信息过滤、找到兴趣相投人群等目的。举例来说，利用情境感知服务，Quora用户可对大量信息加以过滤，而要求Quora仅显示自己感兴趣的内容，且此类结果还具备实时特征。如果你阅读一条新闻，还可通过情境感知服务，以查阅好友在Twitter上的共享链接等内容。音乐和电影服务网站也可提供类似推荐服务。

6. Open Places Database: Every mobile app, it seems, taps into the geo capabilities of phones to pinpoint your exact location and show you what is around you. (Incidentally, that is another example of a context-aware app). But there is a lot of duplication going on, with everyone from Google to Facebook to Foursquare creating their own database of places. It would make much more sense if there was an open places database that any company could both pull from and contribute to. While we are not there yet, we are making progress towards a more open places database, or at least a federated one. Factual is providing some of the data for Facebook Places and creating a places database is a major focus for the company; MapQuest (owned by AOL, as is TechCrunch) is adopting OpenStreetMaps (which could very well become the central places database with more resources and development); and Foursquare lets other apps pull from its places database through its API. There are economic reasons why some companies don’t want to participate (controlling the places database makes it easier to serve up local offers), but expect to see this movement pick up steam in 2011.

6、开放地理位置数据库

目前每款移动应用程序都具备了地理位置功能，并能够向用户返回其当前所在位置附近的相关信息。然而这些不同移动应用程序所提供的服务中，有大量地理位置数据实际上已经重叠，原因是谷歌、Facebook、Foursquare都通过相应服务创建自家数据库。

由此可见，如果上述服务商能够对外开放各自地理位置数据库，无疑将给用户带来更多便利。事实上，已经有人在这样做。如Foursquare就允许第三方移动应用程序通过应用编程接口(API)来收集其相关地理位置数据。现有服务商不愿开放地理位置数据库，自然是出于自家利益考虑，而非技术因素。但2011年期间，外界对于开放地理位置数据库的呼声将日益高涨。

7. The Streaming Cloud: As all media moves to the cloud, more and more people will stream their movies and music whenever they want to any device. I’ve already mentioned the forces that will bring Web video streaming to your TV, but those movies and TV shows should also be available on your iPads, Android Tablets, or even mobile phones if you want. Expiring downloads will still make sense for plane trips and other places where the network is spotty, but you will manage your subscriptions and collections in the cloud. Think Netflix streaming applied to all media. If Google or Apple can convince the record companies to come along for the ride, the streaming revolution will hit music as well, with both working on jukebox-in-the-sky services. Why would you want to bother with managing all the download rights for the songs you buy from iTunes between your iPhone, iPad, laptop, and your wife’s computer, when you could just sign in form anywhere and start streaming? Plenty have tried with varying degrees of success and failure (Rhapsody, Rdio, Spotify), but it will take someone with the negotiating muscle of Apple or Google to finally bring streaming music to the masses.

7、流式云计算服务

随着所有媒体都转向云计算服务，越来越多的公众希望能够随时随地在任何一台设备上观看流视频或收听流音乐。这些设备既可为电视机，也可以是iPad平板电视、Android平板电脑甚至智能手机。如果谷歌、苹果能够同各大唱片公司达成合作协议，无疑将引发网络音乐服务的新一轮变革。换句话说，通过云计算服务，用户不再需要下载电影或音乐，而只需登录自己的服务帐号，就能在任何一台设备上观看电视或收听音乐。