Granted a universal app for a product that would allow a user to use just that app without updating 3 or more apps so many times a year may echo the word "socialism", or "end of competition", or whatever else. Perhaps though, there are a few items, apps out there that could be developed into a universal state for universal usage. Apple and Microsoft may both hate this blog entry, but so be it.
Between the number of sites that offer video watching, audio listening, etc, it becomes clear that there are more than one program for audio and video. I find for web surfing, accessing audio and video online my favorite set ups are that of Youtube, Vimeo, NPR, WRS (World Radio Switzerland). The worst... I would say Parliament TV, and anything else that requires that you have an up to date version of Microsoft Silverlight, or Quicktime. I get that probably these programs are useful for certain features, but for the use of complete cloud access sites such as Parliament TV should go the way of Youtube, Vimeo, etc. A video format that allows one to access the information without first having to download Silverlight, or keep updating it.
In this case a universal feature would be ideal, a universal video feature, a universal audio feature, even a universal photo feature, though that is not as pressing. It just would be nice to access some of this stuff, like Parliament TV on my smartphone that doesn't have Silverlight programmed into it. I'm not advocating however that these programs give up in existence, they serve a purpose for some. I feel even that these companies should compete each year for a better version to replace the universal version, thus if Apple wins the 2012 competition of a universal version, their version is the universal version used on the internet through that year. No one needs to download or update since the video programs would be similar to that of Youtube. Companies compete and make better universal versions and a better cloud accessing video format and audio format is developed.
On to other things that need perhaps not to go universal..but needs to have it's borders removed. Sites that allow users to ask questions and others to answer are fairly decent sites. I can ask a question in Google and more likely someone has asked that question or a similar version of it. Yahoo Answers and Wiki.Answers seem to be the most prominent of these sites. Yahoo Answers is really the only reason why I ever go to Yahoo these days. Another question asking site, Quora, fairly decent. Google had an Answer site too, till they closed the new entries down. It would be ideal if there was a site out there, that umbrella'd all of these sites. That had a program of sorts that found similar questions and was able to route out the best answers, with the most adequate citations for sources. Instead of getting 20 of the same questions with hundreds of different answers, you got 1 question that is the best asked, with the best answered with the best citation. The site would sift from Yahoo, Google, Quora, Wiki, Ask.com, and others out there to analyze and interpret the best selections. The user could then look at the back log and see all the other questions similar to the finding with such answers. The user would rate the umbrella's sites findings so the company who owns the site could make tweaks as it grows.
Along with answers and questions comes the need for an umbrella site to look at reviews of movies, music, and books. That sucks in the reviews of Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Powell, Allmusic/movie/games/books series of sites, blogs, news sites, and published reviews in media outlets, etc etc. That would deliver the most up to date published product with all it's previous published editions as back log, and reviews from written, audio, and video. All so the user can have the best, more well round set of reviews out there available to him or her. To see, hear, read, listen...smell (?) all reviews from all sides.
I guess all this leads up to my conclusion. Hopefully in 2011 we get closer to a better analytical system that can umbrella the results so one can compare and contrast what is all on the web in that topic. Hopefully universal software for audio and video become more widely used all over the internet so one can access....Parliament TV while commuting via train using their smartphone. I look forward to the tech things that are to come in 2011, I'm not a computer scientist, but I have a vision that I believe we all share in the internet usage world. Some organization, less need to go from one web page to another, less need to update programs constantly. I hope Chrome OS grows to what Google hopes for it, I hope Chrome OS will become available on smartphones. I hope Chrome OS becomes available on laptops over netbooks with the ability to rip a CD or DVD in the cd-rom drive and have the ripped files go directly to the users cloud just as it goes to a user's hard drive, but instead to...the cloud. Less updates, and less need to have 2 or more video and audio programs loaded onto my laptop. Have a good new years interwebs.
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