Future of Email

[The_Big_K]

I'll keep the first post short & sweet ( ) -

What according to you is the future of email? Will it be replaced by something else or we're going to be happy with it for decades to come?

[mahul]

well maybe we must have something more secure that can be used as official proof or even as courtroom evidences( like we have those court notices and such stuff) . in short currently email is not used in any official notification( e.g- u still get ur joining letter and sign ur resignation letter all over the world). someday we shall sign our resignation emails maybe, who knows??

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by mahul

well maybe we must have something more secure that can be used as official proof or even as courtroom evidences( like we have those court notices and such stuff) . in short currently email is not used in any official notification( e.g- u still get ur joining letter and sign ur resignation letter all over the world). someday we shall sign our resignation emails maybe, who knows??

Mahul, you've a very good point about having something more 'secure' & something that can be used as official proof. However, today, email CAN be used as a 'proof'!

Btw, I had resigned from my job by sending an email and I did not have to sign it !

[kidakaka]

Yep! Sames here .. my email was take as my resignation letter as well!!

What I would want is a uniformly accepted PGP signature, which will have some sort of biometric input. That should work as a personal signature, eh?

As to the future of email, I can speculate as a more livelier media to communicate ... a video maybe?

On a more realistic note, what would be desirable in an office environment would be a wiki-like structure for my emails. Where the email client would automatically link up related mails in a format which is very user friendly. It should ideally also link up to the various documents that I choose to collaborate with respective people. Ok, I will stop now

[mahul]

oops didnt know so many of you resigned using email. yeah i was thinking of some kind of signature too

[friendster7]

the future of email must be it must be free from virus stuff and the security of email is must.

[gohm]

I think voice recognition will advance to where all e-mail will be written by speech. Also, you will not need to be in an e-mail application. You could be doing anything on your computer, pda, etc. and just say send a message to ___ ...". It would be fast transmission like text messaging and you would receive it anywhere. Your computer,pda,cell phone,vehicle would all be seemlessly linked. next, Items like pda/cell/gps etc. will all be condensed into one unit like a wrist band that via satelites will allow connection to your home pc anywhere in the world. After that, maybe wireless real-time holograph video?

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by gohm

I think voice recognition will advance to where all e-mail will be written by speech. Also, you will not need to be in an e-mail application. You could be doing anything on your computer, pda, etc. and just say send a message to ___ ...". It would be fast transmission like text messaging and you would receive it anywhere. Your computer,pda,cell phone,vehicle would all be seemlessly linked. next, Items like pda/cell/gps etc. will all be condensed into one unit like a wrist band that via satelites will allow connection to your home pc anywhere in the world. After that, maybe wireless real-time holograph video?

Good thought, however I think we won't go the voice way. Simply because you won't get the privacy that you get while typing! Even if you are in the professional environment, imagine everyone talking to their computers/PDAs, dictating what the computer should/shouldn't do.

[gohm]

True, that is a concern & you do have a valid point. Although look at the widespread use of bluetooth & hands free cell phones, far from private! Wasn't too many years back anyone walking down the street "talking to themselves" was given a wide berth, now it is commonplace. E-mail can be mass reproduced without the author even knowing. Privacy is a weird personal concept in that way. The noise cacophany of many people talking in the office though, hmm, very good point. Maybe voice recognition will monitor the vocal chords via a mic resting against the neck or jaw, thus allowing the formation of speech to be picked up with little to no actual voice volume?

[ash]

I think its a bad idea to go from voice to speech, simple because the speech-to-text engine wont be able to distinguish homonyms well (words of the same sound but different meaning.. eg reed and read). Its better to just send the voice file to the recipient

Perhaps if algorithms are introduced where it can recognize contexts of words, maybe the errors would be reduced.

If you want to advance even further, you might as well hook wires up directly to the brain so that "thought" can directly be outputted! Since MRI scans are so common these days, it might be possible.