Great expectations
Phil Smith, vice president and CEO of Cisco UK & Ireland, said: "In the last 25 years, access to the latest technology has moved from being a closed specialism for the knowledgeable few to become an open and collaborative fabric of modern society. As such, tech-savvy consumers have wrenched control away from the organisational IT departments and are now shaping the future development of technology in British society."
He believes 2010 is a year for change in green technology, faster broadband, infrastructure regeneration, public sector efficiency and more, which, he said are ‘essential elements' to rebuild the UK's economy and reaffirm its standing in global politics.
"Technology has a huge part to play in preparing the UK for the future and it's imperative that we are much more ambitious about what technology can achieve for us," he added.
The report also identified the public's main expectations for technology over the next decade. Overall, it found the public's expectations lagged considerably behind reality with some of their dream developments already in use.
Public predictions:
- 69 percent of people believe they will pay for parking meters on their phone by 2012.
- 65 percent said they will start to watch more TV online than by using a standard TV set by 2012.
- 52 percent of people said they will have routine GP check-ups over video link instead of popping in the doctors' surgery personally by 2018.
- 65 percent believe they will have a 100Mbs internet connection by 2015.
- 61 percent of workers think they will conduct all their meetings by video conference rather than in person by 2010.
- 51 percent of people said (or hope) their fridge will order their shopping automatically by 2015.
- But 69 percent of people have given up hope of ever being able to teleport.
