The equivalent to Skype, 15 years ago, was...

[halbpro]

I think one of the biggest changes will need to come in battery tech. If we can get decent battery technology it will solve so many issues not just for our phones, laptops, cars etc... but it will hugely change energy generation. We have this problem where many renewable energy sources don't generate 24/7 like a fossil fuel or nuclear plant could. If we could dump excess electricity into battery "farms" that have a good capacity and life span then we could become more reliant on renewable energy.

 

[Trufflehound]

They'll be stacking these 10 high outside the Amex in 5 years' time:

 

[Bad Ash]

Fax machines are still widely used in some circles.

The hotel website booking.com may look like a fully automated internet system to the user, but part of the chain is them sending a booking confirmation to the hotels via convetional fax, as they say this is a more secure way of transmitting a third party's credit card details than via email.

The hotel I'm involved with had to go on a tiresome hunt to track down an old fax machine last year just so we could take guests via their site.

Other hotel booking sites just use email.

Sounds like there's a huge potential for overbooking if there's not a live interface between the various booking sites and the hotels? By sending an email or fax there is surely a delay before the hotel acts upon the booking and updates their system, in which time another booking could have been placed?

 

[Kumquat]

If movies have taught me anything, it's that we're going to have hover boards in three years time. Back to the Future 2 clearly showed them using hover boards in space year 2015. I can't wait.

I bet hover boards were the first things to be cut by the coalition!

 

[keithbeaky]

Have you seen Black Mirror

 

[pigbite]

Sounds like there's a huge potential for overbooking if there's not a live interface between the various booking sites and the hotels? By sending an email or fax there is surely a delay before the hotel acts upon the booking and updates their system, in which time another booking could have been placed?

Might be wrong but isn't it don't on an allocation basis where the third party agent has a block of availability? For example, I've been having to make regular trips to the midlands and normally book the same hotel through late-rooms. The other week it was showing as full but I phoned the hotel direct and they said it was just the LR allocation that was gone and they got me a room no probs.

 

[Trufflehound]

Sounds like there's a huge potential for overbooking if there's not a live interface between the various booking sites and the hotels? By sending an email or fax there is surely a delay before the hotel acts upon the booking and updates their system, in which time another booking could have been placed?

Overbooking is a problem, especially for small places with not that many rooms. To such an extent that we have been trying to remove ourselves from booking.com's database. It's not always as automatic as it appears to the customer.

 

[Trufflehound]

Might be wrong but isn't it don't on an allocation basis where the third party agent has a block of availability? For example, I've been having to make regular trips to the midlands and normally book the same hotel through late-rooms. The other week it was showing as full but I phoned the hotel direct and they said it was just the LR allocation that was gone and they got me a room no probs.

Larger hotels can do it on a block booking basis. But smaller hotels can't afford to (we only have 11 rooms). You need to advertise all your rooms with everyone, and have someone on the ball at reception so that when a booking comes it from say booking.com, it also gets blocked off from Agoda, Exp*dia or wherever else.

 

[middletoenail]

Where I work they have recently built a Cisco purpose built auditorium for video conferencing, my god it is good and very high tech!

 

[Sussex Nomad]

To be fair 15 years ago ICQ was extremely popular as was/is email. Probably closer to 20+ years ago the fax was king.

 

[withdeanwombat]

Fax was too much for me.

What is Skype ?

 

[SeagullSongs]

The same in Canada. I couldn't believe how widely Fax Machines were still used.

MSN Messenger seems old hat now.

This. I used it virtually non-stop 6 or 7 years ago. Now hotmail is just for emails in my case...

 

[beorhthelm]

we've just gone through a quantum leap in technology, dont expect it to happen again in the next 15. think about what was the equivilent 30 years ago - yep, still the fax.

Actually, the technology leap i mention has already passed. Skype's been around nearly ten yaers already, i remember using it for training with americans about 6 years ago. its been fairly incremental with nothing ground breaking for 5 years or more. (before anyone says it, smart phones and ipads are reimplementations of older ideas, the cost/size/performance has got upto mainstream acceptance).

 

[pwlr1966]

Don't forget the humble pager, it was portable too!!