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Cringley Asking for 12 Month Predictions
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.
Anybody with any real insight into the technology of the coming year won't post it to Cringley or Slashdot, they'll run out and get a patent.
Join the fun! patent the obvious next step and sue, sue, sue!
m00.
Developers Developers Developers
I know it's been asked before, but since it seems like Slashdot posts a news story about the Cringely column every week, there's no good reason these stories don't belong in their own category, as I'm sure many readers already read these on their own every week and don't need to be reminded of it.
Not surprising. My new robot is already chasing my cat around the living room.
The tech world was shattered today by the news that two members of the open source weblog Slashdot hooked up at a slashdot.meetup.com meeting.
Anonymously speaking, the female slashddotter was surprised that the two had so much in common "He likes anime, and thought I looked so good in my Sailor Moon cosplay, I was charmed. I was so charmed, he charmed me out of that suit later that night, giggle".
The male slashdotter commented "Well, I was 23 and a virgin, and spending the night recompiling RedHat 8.0 did not appeal to me. I was sure about *****, she was a little chunky, but when I saw that she came out of the ladies room, and not the mens, I knew she was a real women. I think we'll have sex again."
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.
Too many people have been so burned in the last few years that there's virtually no investment forthcoming in anything remotely blue-sky. If it's not safe and can't turn a profit in the short term, nobody want's to know. We're doing a lot in the broadband wireless direction, of vital long-term importance, but in the short term there's negligible buy-in :(
The over-caution is only going to prolong the depression, but for many people there's no alternative -- R&D is going to be hurting for better part of a decade.
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
in the next 12 months, I predict
1) Fully functional computerized Voting (e-chad)
2) Linux on the desktop!
3) IIS releases a fully secure, bug-free version!
4) BEOS Makes a stunning comeback!
5) Bionics are introduced widely(and banned by the NFL, MLB still pending)
6) The DMCA is overturned in the supreme court!
7) BLOG's widely viewed as the thing to go on the 'net
8) AOL Version 9, 10, 11, and 12
9) Apple releases the new iMac - in new scratch n' sniff colors
10) Slashdot wins pulitzer prize for news journalism!
I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
I expect that robots will take over the world, and openly hunt humans in a post apocolyptic landscape.
Yes, but only as retribution for the unrelenting barrage of spelling errors.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
We will continue our efforts to supplant staples, but glue will continue to be a stong player.
Oh sorry, I thought you said tack industry.
Best Windows Freeware
I expect that robots will take over the world...
Fool. Everyone knows that it is really tornados that will take over the world.
Warning: Persons denying the existance of tornados may in fact be tornados themselves.
It hurts when I pee.
Japanese toilet technology will advance to the point that nobody has a reason for ever leaving. Weeks later, people will start asking, "Hey, have you seen the Japanese lately?".
I can't find an exact transcript on the web, so I have to paraphrase the "Space" episode of News Radio. See, 'cause robots had taken over the world while Joe was in hibernation... and the baseball... ha! That show cracks me up.
I write in my journal
Sub $25 Wireless networking setup, including router and card.
No major new operating system.
-------
Chickens will come home to roost. IT departments will continue to try and recoup their huge investments in technology made
during the boom.
-------
The year of picking up the pieces and moving on....
-------
Actually, Hobby Robotic development will make great strides with several new product announcements all which will come out at an affordable price in 2004.
There's so much room for extending upon the Lego Mindstorms concept and product.
Let's see how close he was... Anyone got a link?
I predict a large company will make an existing product smaller, and double the number of features for 90% of the current price.
I also predict that 99% of the people that BUY that product will be unaware that those features exist and consequently not use them.
I preduct the people least likely to use those features will buy that product because 'It's pretty'.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
There already are... Just ask the:
- Automotive industry
- Dock workers
- anything with manufacturing that can't be done cheaper in the 3rd world.
If you can buy a robot to send to work, then your boss can buy a robot to save you having to buy one.
Tournament Management Online &
what's going to happen in the tech industry in the next 12 months
/. will repost many of the articles from today in the next several months (sorry, had to say it) :-)
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
Skynet isn't due for another 27 years, in 2029, so nothing really exciting there - phorm
Well, the obvious choises are .. XP 2 or 2003, Mandrake/Redhat Z (where Z>7), OS X.A (Where A>1).
/. story mentioned) quality audio out soon.
Now the serious stuff.
As Cringley likes to say Wifi would be more wide spread, I believe 802.11g would come out and outdate all other wireless lan technologies. Along with that, we'd see increasing number of community free wireless networks (That might or might not be connected to the Net).
America would skip the whole little-phone-philia, instead we'd be into bigger more bulky gadgets. I believe, the PDA's would get better batteries and thus would slowly start replacing phones (probably the biz ppl and young kids first).
Satellite based radio's would die and we'd see some nice shows on the sky when they fall out (just like the Iradium). This means Sirrus and XM. The cause for this would be better compression technologies and the recent opening of a spread spectrum by FCC that lets higher bandwith be sent over the airwaves. Stations would start to pump out studio (not cd as a
We'll also see a revival of the Dot com like companies, but this would be a more apprehensive revial, companies would be more conservative and we'd see most invetment into technology related with Games (console) and Porn. The old sex and violence.
IPV6 would be postponned and in return we'd see the invention of more and more firewalling/masqurading gadgets, routers would come firewalling/masqurading built in, people would start living within private networks.
Laws would be passed to ban P2P and such similar technologies, but these laws could not be enforced due to jurastiction issues and technology issues. The ppl who'd get hurt in the end would be those sharing files, they might get raided and sentenced. Those who make these software would be out of harms way. We'd see a reduction in the amount of spy ware due to community backlash.
Superman hype would create more superman games and gadgets. (Seriously).
We'll go on war, but our military research facilities would create enough products to stimulate the stangnent information market. Even though this technology would come into the commerical maket 25 years from the time it's created.
We'd see a decline in movie goers... DVD's would be released region free, but with hardware copyright devices.
Slashdot would continue to post these stories. And Cringley would be just himself and ranting like this.
"Stephen King dead at 54" trolls will need to be updated to "... dead at 55"
"BSD is dying" posts will continue unaltered.
Why do I see M. Butterfly II written all over this?
In no particular order :
1. Ph.d's will start flipping burgers again to survive while desperately hunting for a buyer for their houses. (Yes, I know for a fact this actually happened in the early nineties when IBM decimated its plant in Kingston, NY).
2. Folks who had the idea of waiting out the tech downturn by going to college are going to graduate only to find out that the tech downturn isnt over yet. Worse still, now they have to pay off loans.
3. All challenges to the DMCA, Copright laws, etc are going to be beaten down. Consumers will have no rights whatsoever unless they all incorporate themselves.
4. Symptomatic treatments of security will keep increasing. This is what I refer to as the treatment of brain tumours by prescribing aspirin. For example, the banning of nail clippers and other small personal items on flights when it is the mental state of the terrorist that is the true danger - not the everyday personal effects that can be transformed into weapons.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
Everyone will continue to not really care.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
Is your company doing especially well? Are there sectors that are especially exciting, where products are bubbling to the surface and companies feel like they are about to show the world just how good they are? Tell me about it.
Translation:
My portfolio isn't doing so well. Anybody mind helping me out here?
I'm still waiting for my Flying Car from the year 2000..
Trolling is a art,
And pigs will be seen circling overhead.
Best Slashdot Co
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
1) In a surprise move, the Taliban will announce its hostile takeover of the Disney corporation. The company's long-standing "no facial hair" policy will be replaced by a "mandatory beard" policy and animators will immediately commence work on a new flagship character, Mullah Mouse.
2) Nevada, Arizona and British Columbia will all pass legislation legalizing marijuana, prompting Bush to name them as part of the "axis of evil" and authorize a retaliatory nuclear strike.
3) RIAA will introduce a surgical throat implant that that causes people to gag and choke when they try to hum or sing copyrighted music. Marketing the device as the "iMusicFreedomSexChoicePod," they will offer it through major chain stores for $99 for a limited time only, while supplies last. After November, the price will increase to $399.
and, finally
4) Sometime in August, independent polls will indicate that Slashdot's daily readership has surpassed that of the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today combined. In response to this market pressure, all major print dailies will target a 1st grade reading level. Headlines such as "Lame Senator Says He's Rubber, Opponent Is Glue" and "Superfund Site Smells Like Total Ass" will abound.
I'll lose my software engineering job and won't have enough money to buy any technology. Therefore I won't really give a rats ass!
There's a story from a while back:
Tomorrow, Cray (or whoever) could come out with a portable computer that has 30x the performance of any desktop PC. It would cost $500, with a flat planel screen capable of 4096x3072 pixels, yet it could still fit in your pocket. It would run on AA batteries for hours and hours, perfectly recognize handwriting and voice, and have wireless broadband anywhere in the world for FREE.
First question about it? "DOES IT RUN WINDOWS?"
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
But I can tell you what WON'T happen.
Bluetooth will still be that great technology just around the corner that hardly anyone has an example of.
Cell phones will still not be good at browsing the web or reading e-mail.
Linux won't be the dominant force on the desktop (not for a few years at least).
The United States won't be finished with the job of restoring order in Afghanistan or Iraq.
PC's won't have a decent memory subsystem that can keep up with the CPU's.
The record companies won't have a good solution for distributing music on the Internet. Neither will movie companies.
Robots will not take over the world.
The fast/good/cheap trilemma will not be solved with technology.
Microsoft will still have a bunch of security holes in their OS. So will most distributions of Linux. OpenBSD will not.
NASA will not be able to keep their launch schedule.
The new Matrix movie will not live up to the hype, but it'll still be really good.
OK, to announce one thing that WILL happen in 2003: The Supreme Court will undo the Sonny Bono copyright law. Micky Mouse will be free!
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
Xbox will fail its two attempts get a fairly good Christmas sale. The only success will be near Antarctica, where penguins live.
/. will publish an article about what will happen in the next 12 monthes.
The world will be Doomed somewhere in these monthes. As people want to be doomed with the latest quality and speed, Taiwan will have some chances to revive its industry.
M$ will try to gain once again the market with Palladin, no matter the viruses, trojans, worms and the hereditary and chronical immunodeficiency desease of its OSes.
There will be several announcements of the "final version of Linux 2.5". We will see Linus yelling "and finally this is the most final of the final
versions of the final 2.5!".
We will see several distros fighting for "something else" as many approach the magic number 10 of their versions. However some will fail this, because they look at Windows and not Linux. Others may make some big surprises.
As the economy is in fallout, with exception of Open Source and a few spots in industry, the rest will be radioactive.
The world will be again in war. So the Internet will be in war too. So hackers, hackers and hackers, no matter the hats, will surely not blame the world for boreness while Pentagon will see ships passing by.
At the end of all this,
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.
Steve Ballmer will leave Microsoft to join the circus sideshow, as the only man who can put his foot in his mouth while his head is still up his ass. The Circus will generate billions of revenue, while Microsoft will be forced to have Craig Mundie scream "I Love This Company!" at this years COMDEX.
There will be at least a dozen more Outlook Worms infecting the Internet. People's Inboxes will become so flooded with viruses, that millions will quit using email all together. With the loss of a huge potential market, companies selling weightless, pumpless penis enhancement devices will go out of business, and millions of dollars will still be tied up in Nigerian banks while the King's widow lives in poverty.
Hundreds of people will be arrested for printing paychecks on their computer and trying to cash them at a bank.
The RIAA will create another method to prevent people from copying CD's, this one will be defeatable by a common stapler.
The RIAA will reveal that Hilary Rosen has actually been dead for 5 years, that they've just been propping her up "Weekend at Bernie's" style.
Scott McNealy will release several press releases over the next year bashing Microsoft.
Why are tech pundits always claiming the sky is falling?
For over 10 years I've heard that a lack of basic research is threatening to cause the United States to lose it's technological edge. As the technology industry continues to be battered, it isn't surprising that the amount of basic research that is being done is declining. Decreasing revenues and an uncertain future make new investment difficult to justify. This will change, as it always has in the past.
It's true that many of the behemouths (such as Bell Labs) have taken a beating, but other tech companies (for instance Micron) have started new research divisions. Biotech research has increased by leaps and bounds in the last few years. IBM research has had its share of increased and decreased funding, but continues to be a productive and profitable venture for IBM.
Although comercial oriented university research is something that has had an increase in the last few years, it is by no means dominant. For those with close ties to companies, the hassle of dealing with patents and trade secrets is going to be a price you pay for extra grants. Anything that stops research is bad, even if it ends up with more grant money. Fortunately, there are many universities in the US that would love to attract talented researchers. If all the big name schools mire their researchers in paperwork and IP nonsense, they will go elsewhere.
I don't want to undemphasize the importance of basic research. Deep cuts to the NSF and a _real_ decline basic research would indeed be something to worry about, as would a real, continued decrease in industry research. I don't think this is happening.
My predictions:
DRM will be gradually introduced into the core PC hardware. At first it wont do much, but towards the end of the year we will see more hardware/software that requires DRM to be present. Creative marketing pushes by DRM backers will ease any public discontent, having learned from earlier examples (ie, PIII id, DIVX).
Microsoft will start a campaign to improve it's image with Techie types by continuing to try to create a linux-like community of users/developers. They will publicaly open up small portions of code or create limited APIs that allow individuals to modify windows directly. These alterations would however be under very strict licenses, giving MS all rights to anything produced.
G3 will oh-so-very-slowly make it's way into mainstream use in the US. Cellular data services will become a lot more common in lower price-point PDA-like devices.
Linux will continue to grow in the server market, but more and more linux-targeted viruses will appear as well. Linux on the desktop will once again make an attempt, and be more successful than before, but still fail to gain a significant mainstream user base.
RIAA/MPAA will continue to make a lot of noise and wail that online piracy is killing them. The major difference is that this will start to become in a small way true. MP3 devices will continue to become more and more popular. More DRM Digital Music devices will be introduced, but because of the diversity of the companies producing these devices, will lose out to more open ones. No significant DRM/anti-digital-piracy laws will be actually passed.
Two big predictions for 12 months:
1) Cell Phone "camming" will become a rage among teenagers, who mainly use it to flash each other. Sprint (under CDMA2000) will benefit greatly from this.
2) A quantum computer will be built using a 2D array of hundreds of quantum dots using Si or GaAs. The theory is there today, all that remains is an efficient read of electron spins. The machine will factor a number in the range of 2^16, which will look much more interesting than IBM's factoring of 14 or whatever.
a) More people will use Ogg Vorbis, and like it, on their personal computers
b) A true standalone hardware player will be introduced, followed by another. Perhaps an iPod upgrade, even.
c) Just as many people as do right now will be able to name 2 audio codecs besides MP3 and Ogg Vorbis -- the same people as can right now, in fact.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
J2ME/MIDP. BREW. Our cell phones are getting brains!
In the next year, I see mobile (cell phones and networked PDA's) code usage exploding. It's already big in the corporate market, where it's running custom enterprise apps. In Eastern Europe, they lack a credit card system, so they beam money from their cell phones. China is coming into its own with telecommunications, and with a huge, unallocated spectrum to play with over there, cell phones get a lot of bandwidth, nice and cheap. Commuters on the Pennsylvania-to-NY trains have four hours to spend doing SOMETHING. Why not learn, play, communicate, or work on their convenient hand-held, networked computing device?
It may or may not be in the U.S., but there's no doubt in my mind that in the next year fully-programmable handsets using J2ME or BREW will come into their own.
Jouster
- nuclear-powered cars
- daily commuting by personal helicopter
- lunar colonies
- human control over the weather
- automated-houses with a robot butler
Dam it! I've been predicting this stuff will happen since the 1950's and I just know this is going to be the year!...and what better way to start than to help launch the tools for helping launch the research?
Stuff that's free for everybody's use should be paid for by the people who expect to benefit from it and want to be a part of it. Free software, basic research, space exploration... all stuff that could be completely funded by small donations from large numbers of interested individuals.
Sure it's awesome to get in there and get your hands dirty, but you can't actually work on every cool project. You could be an important part of each and every one through microdonations.
Here's how I responded to The /. artice about the Cringely preditions last year:
Slashdot will link to every article written by Bob Cringely in 2002. Bob Cringely will start writing for Slashdot, under a level two pseudonym. This post will receive a +5 funny.
Sadly, I was wrong about the third prediction. The second? Hard to say.
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.
My big bet is that storage is going to be the interesting area in high-tech next year...and I don't just say that because I happen to work in that area. CPUs, video cards, and memory will all get faster in not-very-interesting ways. Wireless networks will grow in not-very-interesting ways (mostly; see below). But there will be heaps of storage-related news:
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
...was about predictions. The rest was about a very disturbing trend in the industry: the death of pure research. Far more worthy of comment that a few lame predictions.