In the near future as processing power gets cheaper and developing software gets harder Back in Time debuggers will become much more prominent. Back in time debuggers allow you step a program backwards just as you would forwards.
The debugging benefits to going back in time are huge. Normally when finding a problem in computer code you run the program over and over again tracking down where the bug first occurred. Sometimes running the program can take several minutes. Sometimes the bug does not reproduce when you re-run the program. With a back in time debugger these problems largely go away. All you have to do is get the bug to reproduce once, and then step backwards to where it first occurred.
The idea of backwards debugging has been around for a long time. However due to recent improvements in hardware and growing complexity in software their time to shine is really coming.
Next, I'll try to come up with a list of the major players in both the academic world and industry.
