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Cringley Asking for 12 Month Predictions

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the roll-out-the-crystal-ball dept.

sckienle writes "Robert X. Cringely is asking in his pulpit this week for help in determining what's going to happen in the tech industry in the next 12 months." I expect that robots will take over the world, and openly hunt humans in a post apocolyptic landscape. This will occur in January. For the rest of the year, technology will take a vacation.

10 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Mac OS X software to copy DVDs by lamz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I predict that sometime in the next 12 months, someone will release software that lets Mac OS X users make perfect copies of DVDs. Since OS X is enough under the 'radar' of the MS-lovin' types, they don't notice until millions of people get a copy of the application.

    --

    Mike van Lammeren
    It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.

  2. Major war - RIAA/MPAA vs Usenet by bbk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder why this hasn't happened earlier - I think someone evil is finally going to notice that Usenet is 95% warez/moviez, and go after the big companies that run Usenet servers. This will probably happen after someone makes a tool that allows for easy use of Usenet, ie, a "download, unpar, unrar" tool, that keeps track of binary groups.

    BBK

  3. What about last years predictions? by gpinzone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's see how close he was... Anyone got a link?

    1. Re:What about last years predictions? by dildatron · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Damn. I'll even sumarize for the lazy:

      o better application integration, for that hyped story called Web services.

      o a variety of new players offering integrated voice and data to even the smallest of businesses.

      o the rise of corporate wireless networks.

      o The dominant theme will be the continuing battle between evil and evil as Microsoft expands its .NET strategy and the rest of the industry responds.

      o The main technical tool for this reworking will be XML, and it will probably be easy to label 2002 as the Year of XML.

      o Look for emergence of an XML industry, which is to say a rash of new startups built around XML services.

      o KnowNow is a new company backed by Kleiner Perkins, the big venture firm, and represents the resurgence of venture capital in 2002.

      o other hot IPO areas besides XML will include security (thanks to bin Laden and Microsoft's continued incompetence in this area) and an emerging niche called rich media.

      o 2002 will be a pivotal year for broadband

      o And Microsoft will make itself a part of every deal, everywhere, no matter what happens with its anti-trust case.

      (see another link here for his complete article.

      --


      If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
    2. Re:What about last years predictions? by zsazsa · · Score: 5, Interesting

      here's his 2002 [infoworld.com] predictions.

      These are the InfoWorld Robert X. Cringely's predictions, who isn't the same Cringely that does things for PBS. That Cringely is actually Mark C. Stephens, who took the pen name with him when he left InfoWorld in 1995. There have been other Cringelys both before and after Stephens writing the column for InfoWorld.

      InfoWorld/IDG has taken legal action in the past to prevent him from using the name, but Mr. Stephens continues to use Cringely.

  4. What already happens? by phorm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    what's going to happen in the tech industry in the next 12 months

    More than likely, a lot of what is happening already, just in a slight variation.

    Manufacturers of video cards, CPU's etc will bring out something that's newer, faster, etc, touting it over the competion. The CPU may be faster, but will be held down by the motherboard/peripheral bottleneck. To some extent the same will apply to the video card.

    Meanwhile, large companies will be looking for ways to take down users pirating their wares, and pirates will be looking for better/different ways to exchange those wares and or crack them.

    Hammer may come out, but again, for those who aren't currently hitting the limits of their PC's it's not really such a big deal.

    Summary: Sold old stuff, new marketing, somewhat faster.
    Oh, and chances are /. will repost many of the articles from today in the next several months (sorry, had to say it) :-)

    Skynet isn't due for another 27 years, in 2029, so nothing really exciting there - phorm

  5. I see.. well nothing much. by miffo.swe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First of all the slump in the overall economy will stop any significant new technologies in their crib. If current situation remains the only thing corporations havent saved money on is the IT departments. After they sacked half their staff and factories only IT and management is left to do any larger savings on. They will go after IT and not management for cost cuts. I presume that the biggest IT companies will have a hard time to withstand their high earnings if that will be the case.

    On the good side this would open up a new area of buisiness that i think would thrive. Companies like IBM that saves money for their customers will be very popular among corporations.

    New computer hardware wont be released with the same pace if no one is buying it. The current pace on uppgrades has been predicted to level off for quite some time now and its about time. At some point hardware is up to par with the tasks performed by 90% of people. The rest 10% cant hold the upgrade pace up by themselves.

    --
    HTTP/1.1 400
  6. Has anything REALLY new arrived in a long time? by Ma$$acre · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everything we see these days seems to be an incremental improvement or "synergy" type of product with nothing fantastic showing up.

    Of course I see the eventual "StarTrekification" [Copyright currently under attack by Paramount] of about every modern day device we have. PDA's become phones become cameras, become mobile webservers for on the go Amateur Porn actors with built in audio, video, and Solitaire.

    These Predictions are invariably insider information about products in the pipeline that were in the think tank not a long time ago and their usefulness is generally overplayed, but they are an easy, attention grabbing headline (you saw it on Slashdot didn't you?)

    With all that said, here are a few things that will almost certainly happen on the technology front:

    1) PDA/Phone/Camera combo's will do streaming video. No more lugging that mini-dv to your local Movie Pirate... just WiFi it. Hell... we could all watch a movie in real time from Mobile Pirates(tm).
    2) FINALLY something useful - fuel cell batteries for everything
    3) LCD's will big bigger and cheaper and somehow they'll figure out how to stop streaking in fast motion applications.
    4) Foveon CMOS will make it into high-end prosumer palmcorders
    5) DVDxR format will be released. Look for the DVD/R drive a year later. Oh, and the "end-all" DVD+-x/R drives from Sony should be due out about a year after that - don't get left behind, each new version is nominally more compatible than the last!
    6) Portable Hologram units (ala Star Wars). 'Nuff said.
    7) Virtual Porn on PS2/Xbox/Cube... Think Dead Or Alive X-treme Volleyball engine with a few more 'fun' features. This will be the killer app that finally brings Porn to it's intended audience in the way which we all really want - with full control, no lame acting, and in widescreen
    8) THX 9.1 Surround Sound. Get it on your PC now!
    9) Mac OS XI
    10) AMD turns things around with their monster chip (Please... I have a lot of stock!)

    I claim copyright on any and all ideas from this day forward... especially the Porn on the Gaming systems (maybe even the PC).

    --
    Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. -Samuel Johns
  7. Open desktop explosion by supabeast! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Having amazed everyone by creating a sensible, usable Linux desktop environment for the masses, Lindows will clean up the internals of the OS. Installs and post-install configuration will start getting better and better. Sales of pre-loaded Lindows boxes will spread out of the Wal-Mart niche, and the Linux desktop revolution will gain serious steam.

    Red Hat will continue their work integrating KDE/Gnome into a single usuable desktop, spurred on by the growing praise for Lindows. Mandrake, currently the king of the desktop Linux world, will go full steam ahead on matching the desktop work that Lindows and Red Hat are doing, throwing another vendor's hat into the make-the-linux-desktop-not-suck ring.

    Sun Microsystems will move into the desktop market, giving a familiar hardware name to Linux desktops, making it eaiser for IT staff to bring Linux PCs into their networks. HPQ will do the same, and Dell will rejoin the Linux desktop world to keep up.

    Apple will be keeping an eye on this, and keep refining OS X. OS X will gain popularity with the computer users who favor minimal administration. Mac users will learn the value of Open/Free software, and communication between the Mac/Linux world will grow.

    Microsoft will sit in the background, watching the TCO of Windows rise and the TCO of Linux drop, and the path for Linux domination will be ready for the world to walk down.

  8. My Predictions by bwt · · Score: 5, Interesting


    1) $100 PC

    2) Greater PC/TV integration leveraging wireless networking

    3) A Fortune 500 company will deploy desktop Linux. A Fortune 100 company will deploy Open Office.

    4) Tech hiring will pick up as corps beef up cybersecurity and integrate handhelds into core business processes

    5) IBM buys Sun and changes Java to their open source licence

    6) Boucher's bill passes, Berman's bill passes (both modified and clarified), while Hollings bill fails as the tech industry (sans MS) rallies against it.

    7) DVDCCA loses both the jurisdiction and on the merits in CA, meanwhile all Federal threats to the DMCA fail, and no major new litigation commenses even though flagrant violations become commonplace.

    8) The MS trial concludes by the judge adopting a slightly tougher final judgement than the DOJ version, and both sides declare victory. MS promptly combines innovating new forms of anticompetitive behavior and routine violations of the agreement.

    9) US based laws for open source procurement fail, but many succeed in the developing world.

    10) Spam increases by 30%. Some lawsuits succeed, others fail. Congress introduces legislation making forged headers illegal.

    11) AOL converts its users to the Netscape browser, and web-based XUL applications start to appear. The browser war 2 is declared in the media. Tech users embrace Phoenix as their browser of choice.

    12) CD sales revenue will fall by another 10% even though existing P2P networks become unusable. Semi-private, trust based P2P networks become the rage.