Any day now, I could get a phone call from my wife, telling me we need to go to the hospital for the birth of our son. I am of course both very excited and nervous about that impending call, but this isn’t a post about fatherhood, rather a question about the technology that awaits young Harrison as he grows up.

If you think about it, the technological advances in the last 20+ years are amazing, if not shocking. I remember in high school hearing about the Internet and Web sites and chat rooms. Never mind we logged onto the Internet using the extremely high-tech AOL service that called up Netscape slower than molasses on a cold winter day. Seeing a Web image appear on a site was almost as exciting as Christmas morning or a guessing game on a cheesy game show - you couldn’t tell exactly what you were looking at until it fully downloaded.

The last few years has seen the Web go from a one-way platform to this crazy new Web 2.0, where anyone and everyone can contribute with blogs, wikis, social networking, etc. Cell phones have moved from the brick phones a-la Zach Morris to small handheld computing devices. We are getting closer to searching for just about any information indexed in digital form. So, what is next? What will Harrison and his peers be geeking out about when they are teenagers? Will a 3-D interactive Web take over the user-generated Web? Cars are already able to park themselves – will they be able to drive themselves, too? Or, will we finally get those flying cars I have heard so much about? Will JCrew know precisely when I need a new pair of chinos and a new white dress shirt because a little RFID tag relayed that information to them?

I am excited to see what the next 20+ years hold for my son and me. Afterall, someone is going to have to test out these devices. Will we be living the way of the Jetsons or will it be more like Back to the Future II?