The ICE Web

According to Jerry Bautista, Intel's Director of Technology Management, there is another Web coming that will take us beyond Web 2.0 and 3.0, this is the 'Immersive Connective Experience' (ICE) web where devices will 'overlay the digital world onto reality.'

He said that applications like Second Life were merely the first generation of virtual worlds and the situation was going to get more immersive. Intel has been using software modelling techniques to render 3D more effectively, including making computer generated environments obey physical laws of movement and building in behavioural intelligence. He pointed out that there were plenty of virtual worlds bigger than Second Life, (15 million users, with 88,000 users online simultaneously) with teen site Poptropica pulling in 21 million users and Neopets getting over 45 million. Over 50 per cent of all virtual world users are aged between 4 and 12 and as they grow up the idea of interacting in virtual worlds would be normal and natural.
Intel’s laboratories have also invested in researching visual computing, using computers in conjunction with cameras and GPS in a smartphone. For example, users could take a picture of a sign on their smartphones and the handset would check GPS to see what country the users was in, get a translation of its meaning and give directions from a mapping application overlaid. He estimated that the techniques of using the camera to produce visual searches for data of photographed object would come online in 2010, with information overlay on camera views by 2012 and a 2D and 3D visual overlay available by 2014.

This would also open another door for location based advertising, on the basis that someone has to pay for all this wizardry.

I'm a great believer of this 'free content in return for advertising' model, as it will ultimately create opportunities for customised printing. When we have that level of data granularity, we will be able to target so precisely that print, particularly in conjunction with QR codes and the like, might come back into its own as 'message clutter' on a mobile device will render some forms of messaging ineffective.

BUT 'you have to be in it to win it'

Another reason why now is the time to take your printing business online.

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