Anticipatory Computing: Coming Soon To A Smartphone Near You

Technology is getting smarter, constantly trying to work out what we’re going to do next. We take a look at some of the interesting things we can do with anticipatory computing.

In the future, your phone will be able to turn itself to silent when you go into a restaurant, and call a taxi for you the moment you leave. Technology will learn to anticipate what you want without you having to tell it, making life easier by eliminating the need to tap and swipe our way through numerous apps.
“An anticipatory computing system wouldn’t wait for the user to open Foursquare at a restaurant, because it knows by the time that happens it’s too late – you already ordered before you had a chance to see an awesome suggestion from the secret menu that Foursquare revealed,” Paul Montoy-Wilson, Product Manager of Yahoo Aviate, wrote in ‘FastCoDesign’. “We need to build the next generation of systems that can better support this world of probabilistic predictions.”.
Anticipatory computing is likely to be a key part of our future, but the technology is still in its infancy. We’re gathering unprecedented amounts of Big Data every day, but our devices still don’t have enough information to be truly able to accurately assess what we want. Your phone may know where you like to buy your lunch from when you’re at the office, and it may have the evidence of just how much pop rock you like to listen to on the journey back from work, but human behaviour remains unpredictable from day to day.
So what does the anticipatory computing industry look like today?
There are several interesting companies out there who are already doing interesting things with anticipatory computing. MindMeld is an application from Expect Labs which bills itself as an ‘anticipatory computing engine’. ”Our application analyses and understands the last 10 minutes of your conversation to predict the information you may need in the next 10 seconds,” founder Tim Tuttle told ‘TechCrunch’. “We call this ‘continuous predictive modeling’, and in some cases, it can find relevant information as you talk before you even need to ask for it.”.
MindMeld can run in the background of meetings, pulling up more information about what’s being discussed before users have to ask. Considering how McKinsey Global Institute estimates that so-called knowledge workers spend a quarter of their workday searching for and gathering information, this has the potential for being very useful.
Additionally, Nest has taken the remote controlling of household temperature to the next level. The smart thermostat learns your schedule, and if you train it well, the company claim it could reduce your heating or cooling bills by 20%. Part of this is because Nest knows our habits better than we know them ourselves, judging from the company literature: “Nest remembers your temperature changes, even when you don’t. … It’s not magic or a bug. It’s the thermal equivalent of checking the key hook by the door and finding it empty.”.
SwiftKey is another company bringing anticipatory computing to our lives, and its benefits are obvious. This keyboard learns how you type on your phone and anticipates what you want to write. In April, SwiftKey introduced ‘Clarity’, an experimental keyboard which doesn’t just correct as you type but also looks back at the last few words and corrects based on context. “[This] is an experimental keyboard offering a simple way to type, helping you to focus on what you’re writing and nothing else,” said SwiftKey.
But while we’re waiting for anticipatory computing to solve the problem of phones ringing at dinner, there’s a more low-tech solution already available: Dinner Mode. Simply input how long you want to be undisturbed and the Dinner Mode app makes sure you can focus on the food and the company. “Set the timer, put down your phone and voila! It’s that simple. No more checking your phone at the dinner table or reaching for your phone at every buzz and beep. Break your tech addiction starting at the dinner table,” encourages the app’s website. While Dinner Mode is a manual app for now, its function may provide a hint as to one of the real attractions of anticipatory computing – that is, to have technology that helps us change our behaviour to how we want to be, rather than succumbing to every temptation in the moment.
Have you tried out any anticipatory apps? Tweet us and let us know @VPSNET!