Yes, well I don’t know about changing everything, but a few days ago, Glenn Fleishman wrote about 3D TV, HTML5, video over Wi-Fi, superfast USB, and mobile augmented reality as being key breakthrough technologies emerging over the next few years. While there are certainly many such lists to be made, I think Glenn’s done a nice job detailing this particular set of five technologies for us.

He rightly dubs USB as one of the “least-sexy technologies” built into present-day computers and mobile devices, but speeding it up by an order of magnitude is a game changer. And in fact, USB 3.0 (a.k.a. SuperSpeed) should deliver more than 3.2 gbps of actual throughput. The results will introduce major changes in device connectivity, computer backup (coupled with coming advances in flash drives), and video (replacing HDMI?).

By 2012, two new WiFi protocols–802.11ac and 802.11ad–are expected to handle over-the-air data transmission at 1 gbps or faster. Glenn does a nice job of pointing out that the high speed transfers will work well “moving data across short distances between devices in the same room.” He quotes Allen Huotari, the technical leader at Cisco as saying “home networks won’t result from “any one single technology in the home, but rather a pairing of technologies or a trio of technologies–wired and/or wireless–for the backbone and the wireless on the edges.” With one foot firmly in the G.hn camp, Rainier concurs.

Then we come to 3D TV. Could the makers of the old red and blue cardboard eyeglasses ever have envisioned the coming active-shutter approach to 3D simulations? What Hollywood has historically called “depth enhanced movies” are now moving more toward the promise of real 3DTV, an immersive, true-to-life experience that’s nothing like anything we’ve seen before.

Augmented Reality?

My favorite part of Glenn’s article is his discussion of “augmented reality.” First of all, the phrase itself, with or without quotation marks, pulls us immediately into the philosophical domain. I personally think that until we can artificially stimulate our cranial neurons to have choreographed experiences, reality is still reality.

Technologies like heads-up displays, etc. are terrific tools for enhancing safety, efficiency, etc., but they are still tools (is a compass – once an exceedingly innovative high-tech device, “augmented reality?”)

Glenn’s final breakthrough, HTML5, sounds a little dull until you consider it might may do away with the need for audio, video, and interactive plug-ins, and will let designers create Websites that work essentially the same on every browser–whether on a desktop, a laptop, or a mobile device. Yeah, actually, that would be kind of awesome.

Read Glenn’s article in its entirety here.

Lost in the media swirl around Sigma Designs’ acquisition of home networking chipmaker (and Rainier client) Coppergate is the exciting news that last week the ITU-T approved the key Physical Layer and architecture components of the G.hn home networking specification. The holy grail of home networking, a unified standard that drives broadband content over “everywire,” is now one step closer to becoming a commercial reality.

With the ITU-T approval, the G.hn standard is now deemed stable enough to allow silicon manufacturers like Coppergate to move forward with their development programs and bring products to market.

The approval marks another step in the steady adoption of G.hn and reaffirms a longstanding desire to unite a fragmented industry which currently uses a variety of incompatible technologies that typically address only single types of household wiring options – coax, phone line, or power line.

Having played in the home networking silicon market since the 1990s when we launched Enikia, and having worked with HomePLUG, as well, we’ve had a front row seat to a decade of wrangling over home networking standards. I’m as excited as the next guy (well, as the next guy who cares about such things) to see G.hn coming closer to fruition.

Imagine when connectivity and content routing inside our homes becomes as easy as electricity is today.