2007 Tech Wishes

2006 was a good year for technology — web 2.0 is practically a household name and "blog" certainly is. However, there are some things I’m hoping to see in 2007.

1. Free online storage. I don’t mean the introductory gig or two or five. I mean storage. C’mon, storage is cheap! Show me some ads, I don’t care. Gdrive? Google, get on this!

2. TV on iTunes: Why can’t I download the show onto my iPod at the same time as it goes on the air? Or an hour later? Why do I have to wait until the next morning for it to show up, just in time for me to leave for work? Also, note to all the networks: to those of you that haven’t got on board or haven’t put your top shows on iTunes (ABC - Ugly Betty? Fox - House?) or have only released the first season when you’re on season 3 (Showtime - Weeds?) or haven’t bothered to put all your seasons online (Bravo - Project Runway Season 1?), COULD YOU PLEASE GET WITH IT? I’ll pay you. Seriously.

3. An online calendar that is easy to use, automatically syncs with anyone else’s (anyone who gives you permission, of course), automatically adds holidays by default, and…here’s the kicker…lets you add your own, customized layers you can turn on or off, too. I want to layer my to-do list over my calendar; turn on and off my "meevee" layer, so I can see when my favorite TV shows are on; turn on or off my theaters’ movie listings; turn on or off the weather forecasts, etc.

4.  I want to send text messages on my phone that post to others’ MySpace comments page.

5. More mobile apps…a lot more.

6. Less DRM…a lot less.

7. Job boards - what’s with the text resumes? Why do I spend so much time working on a beautifully formatted Word version when you just want me to copy & paste a plain text version? Don’t we have the technology to do better by now?

8. del.icio.us 2.0 — okay, I’ve been tagging and saving and sharing, and now I’m on bookmark overload! I need to be able to "google" them, not just type the tag I want. How about my own, customized piece of the net via a del.ico.us search feature. Once the results display, I could narrow down the list by clicking on another tag (maybe a "related" list on the left?) to narrow and filter my selection.

9. Google docs & spreadsheets - integrate yourself with desktop search and automatically sync and upload my docs & spreadsheets on any computer I have desktop search installed on. Oh, is this Gdrive again? Well, heck, integrate with Picassa while you’re at it.

10. Surprise me. There was a time before Gmail. I didn’t even know what I was missing, but now I can’t live without it. I haven’t been amazed by something like that for a while; I want to be blown away by something I haven’t even thought of yet!