2014 has seen a proliferation of articles about tech trends — this is, as it were, the trend in tech trends. News outlets, consultancies, and the random web page all feel an urgency about putting their two cents in.
Even as more voices are being heard about what to expect in the near future (or more accurately, the ‘intimate future’), what is actually said seems to be getting shorter and shorter. Moreover, what is being said seems to be getting recycled year over year.
Where near future predictions used to be long and thoughtful, intimate future predictions have become terse and uniform. This process is known to economists as the process of commoditization. What was once crafted is now generic, easily digestible, and able to be mass produced: predictions in 140 characters or less.
This trend of writing about tech trends seems to be running out of steam, however. Repetition and terseness are sure signs of an exhausted meme. They are last year’s fashion.
This is a shame, as they clearly once had a purpose in informing, inspiring and entertaining us. In an attempt to revive the genre, I’ve taken the trend to its logical conclusion: the tech trend Haiku.
Surveillance culture
Watches your clicks and your votes.
— Learn to embrace it.
The Quantified Self
Takes the means of surveillance
Back from government.
Technology and
Fashion allow me to find
My socks. Wherables.
The revolution
Will be tweeted on an app
You’ve never heard of.
"Drones on leashes shoot
Aerial photos" — creepy.
Drone on, drone, drone on …
All things great and small
Will have unique addresses:
Internet of things.
New studies show tech
Cripples attention span and
A 3-D printer
Printed itself from old parts.
The circle of life.
Reality augmented
Through tinted glasses. Only
Virtually real.
Self-driving cars are
A placeholder for our hearts’
desire: flying cars.