Slashdot Mirror
Tech Predictions for 2004
Quirk writes "The Independent has the predictions of Charles Arthur for 2004. 'The ubiquity of the iPod, the return of the Mac, and the simplicity of the portable memory stick are just some of the developments that could change our lives in 2004.'"
# Moore's Law will be deemed "obsolete". Despite this, faster computers will still be produced. We will also see x86-64 chips proliferate the market.
# Linux becomes ready for the desktop (they've predicted this every year).
# Doom 3 still won't be released.
# The total destruction of Microsoft's monopoly due to the utter, complete failure of their upcoming retarded product lines. Bill Gates' Ring Of Power tossed into the fires of Mt. Redmond and becomes molten slag. The towers of Microsoft crumble and all rejoice. (Note to Microsoft apologists : If you find this offensive, you need a sense of humour. If you're still unhappy with this, well, you suck.)
# BSD finally dies. (Note to BSD snobs : See above about Microsoft apologists)
# KDE and GNOME merge into one project. Supporters from both camps become outraged and civil war breaks out.
# Linux 2.7 will be forked, ported to run on vending machines and kitchen appliances. 2.6 becomes truly stable, and nobody will care.
# The RIAA will hand out more lawsuits, some of them for toddlers and livestock.
# Darl McBride follows the RIAA's footsteps, and starts suing toddlers and livestock too for unauthorized use of SCO intellectual property.
# Martians recover Beagle 2, reprogram it and send it back to to conquer Earth.
I don't agree with everything he says, but I like this prediction:
* If you're buying a computer in the coming year, don't get one that uses Windows. It's simply too insecure. (Did you know there's a secret "administrator" account and password on every machine? You didn't? Every hacker does.) Get one with the Linux operating system installed (Evesham does them, for example) or an Apple machine running OSX. Both systems are fast, stable and secure. With Windows XP... well, sometimes two out of three really IS bad.
Practically the entirety of business now relies on computers for just about everything, yet few, if any, can find careers working with computers?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
The ubiquity of the iPod, the return of the Mac, and the simplicity of the portable memory stick are just some of the developments that could change our lives in 2004.
So, if I buy these Apple products and flash memory, my life will change and this gaping chasm which plagues my existance will be gone forever?
To hell with new years resolutions! Where's my credit card!
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Picture phones will become pervasive; it'll be unusual not to have one.
Dear God, no: I think it's dumb to have one device that does two things badly rather than own two devices that do each thing moderately well.
But, then again, I'm a dreamer, eh?
Actually, information would like a turkey sandwich.
Irrelevant ramblings, false prophesies and old wife's tales. I don't trust ANY prediction unless said prediction is backed up by a) cold hard facts or b) senior, decision-making employee who can actually influence the fate of his/her own prediction. For the rest, all predictions are worthless. In fact, let's have a completely random top ten predictions from Seth for 2004!
Hate me!
After reading the no so well thought about Forbes advice, this guy has some great advice for Joe User. I've been saying this for a coule of years now, but maybe now they'll finally "get it":
* If you're buying a computer in the coming year, don't get one that uses Windows. It's simply too insecure. (Did you know there's a secret "administrator" account and password on every machine? You didn't? Every hacker does.) Get one with the Linux operating system installed (Evesham does them, for example) or an Apple machine running OSX. Both systems are fast, stable and secure. With Windows XP... well, sometimes two out of three really IS bad.
[...]
* If you're still using Windows, stop using Internet Explorer; instead try Netscape, Mozilla or Opera. IE has too many security holes for comfort.
* Ditto Outlook Express; try programs such as Eudora or Opera or Mozilla.
Or will these comments never reach the uninformed users?
Draw your own conclusions about the RIAA
There will likely continue to be an increase in crime due to several factors, such as increasing poverty because of neoliberal economic policies, and also due to importation of poverty from 3rd world, which also lowers wages.
I predict that this increasing poverty will cause a boom in home and auto security devices which are linked to personal computers in order to provide more sophisticated theft deterrents. For example, motion detectors which transmit detected motion signals to a personal computer via serial port or USB interface via either wireless transmission or signal wires.
The motion detected signals will be detected by software that will be able to be configured by an unsophisticated user to take actions that will scare off burglars. For example, play useful sound files output to speakers outside. The sound files might be randomly selected files that sound like a security officer talking to a dispatched about an intruder.
Also the computer could communicate with relays and stepper motors via via serial port or USB interface to turn on and move in a random, jerky manner an outside floodlight.
There are some products currently out now that can provide these deterrents, but they typically too expensive, unreliable, or too hard to use right now.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
* At least one other download store will join Apple in using the Dolby "AAC" encoding format, because that's the only way to reach iPod owners.
Um, hello? What? MP3 works perfectly well on iPods. Always has. Why is AAC the "only way" to reach iPod users?
Actually, information would like a turkey sandwich.
I just can't buy it. I have a perfectly nice MP3 player that's really small, and only cost me about 180 dollars, as opposed to 300 for the smallest ipod. Sure that big 40 gig ipod is cool, but I'm not paying 500 dollars for something I'll carry/drop while jogging.
For a lot of Mac products, the extra quality is worth the extra price, but I really don't see it for the ipod.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Return of the Mac? Mark Morrison is singing again?!
Noooooo!!!!
Some of the music download stores which opened in 2003, and are set to open in 2004, will "consolidate" - that is, close or merge, because it's not a great money-making market.
This year is the year we go 64 bit! Which is actually quite a big thing (remember when we went 32 bit?)
The rivalry between AMD and Intel is getting pretty intense, and they're level right now. Who do you think will end up on top by this time next year?
It's going to be down to If I had to say, I would vouch for Intel. They have the money and tech. I do love AMDs inexpensive chips though. It will be good to see who brings the world into 64-bit and who screws up.
Who on earth posted this?? "The ubiquity of the iPod"? Where? Just because Macheads are gobbling the things up doesn't make it "ubiquitous" except within Mac circles. One can argue that cheapo MP3 players are far more "ubiquitous" than anything that Apple sells.
"The return of the Mac"? Does that mean 4.1% of market share instead of 4.05%?
Memory sticks as life changing? Sheesh - if my life was that pathetic I'd find a new life or take up raising sea monkeys.
All in all this is about the most pathetic list I've seen yet. But then I haven't looked at the other four or five that were posted last night...
Three Squirrels
What is wrong with this picture (paraphrasing) "in 2004, the cost of 256 MB USB memory will cut in half from it's current $223 (125 pound) price". What planet is he buying flash memory from?
"Spam will get worse"
"Apple won't release a tablet, phone, or camera"
These are some of the most amazingly crappy predictions I've ever seen. Easily half of them have already come true. The rest are obvious enough that my 5-year-old already knows they will happen.
---gralem
USB "flash memory" sticks will become very popular, and applications will be released that can be stored on them to run on any computer without altering its settings.
These things are hard to part with once you get them. They're so nice to have, being able to carry around documents or what have you, but the only thing that stinks about them is that you can't just "hand them off" to others like you can do with floppy disks or CD-Rs. When something like that costs $40 or $50, it's hard to let it go.
The other disappointing thing is that, unlike Floppys / CDs, if your system goes to hell, the BIOS isn't equipped to automatically boot or mount a USB memory stick, leaving you shit outa luck if Windows is behaving badly (reminds me of the time I thought I could help someone install a service pack on an XP machine by keeping it on my memstick...turns out that he needed the service pack to help fix a problem he had with USB devices (downloaded and installed a USB 2.0 driver fix for his motherboard that needed XP SP1, which he didn't have) and it left us both high and dry until I got back and burned it onto CD...he didn't really want to wait four or five hours to download the 50MB file from his modem).
But you know, I'd LOVE to see a bootable pendrive option...it would be so sweet and easy to help someone fix their computer by just plugging your handy-dandy USB memstick right into a USB port and have everything right there at your fingertips, rather than carry around bulky CD-R media.
Camera phones will never be that big. I work at a cell phone store, and the only people interested in buying one are people too young to sign on a contract. Sure, we sell some here and there, but most people see no need for it, because there isn't one. My thinking is that PDA phones and smart phones are the next big thing. They have the benefit of actually having added functionality.
The ubiquity of the iPod, the return of the Mac, and the simplicity of the portable memory stick
Haven't all these happened already ?
This guy isn't going out on a limb at all.
A few picks from his list:
"Spam will get worse before it gets better",
Well..... yeah!
"legal music download sites will arrive properly"
already happened
"The majority of the download stores will keep using Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format, but Apple won't support that on the iPod."
Of course.
" Picture phones will become pervasive; it'll be unusual not to have one."
This is not going out on a limb. It'll be hard NOT to buy a phone with a camera in it, since that's the trend already.
"Neither the Windows Media Center nor tablet PC formats will take off. Both will grumble along in background sales, but won't ever become mainstream products, nor even significant in sales terms."
Already happened. In fact, MS already sent out letters dumping the tablet PC within the last week.
It's not root he's talking about, he's alluding to the secret "administrator", the one that has powers any root can only dream of at best. The greatest of these superpowers is perhaps the power to create a rock so big that even God can't move it. But even though every hacker knows about this, noone has yet managed to crack the password (There's one group called the Kabbalists who have been trying to break it for more than a thousand years but still haven't had any luck). The Windows operating systems, however, seem to have holes that make cracking it much easier (think ten years of hard work instead of a million). This is also the reason why some tend to associate Windows with Satan.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Have a look at this. You can boot Knoppix (or a stripped down version) from a USB memory stick. Cheers.
DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
I agree with what he said about viruses - that there will be more viruses out there that send spam, steal credit card info, steal passwords, ect. I'm not sure about his claim that those virus writers will be members of organized crime, though.
However, he also says that viruses won't be that destructive because people who have made recent viruses didn't have them destroy hard drives when they could have. What he ignores is that a virus that destroys it's host is pretty much useless, because it no longer has that host. Viruses like Blaster and Sinkin are dangerous and destructive because they continue to spread for months while the user does not know they are infected. If the virus killed it's host quickly it would not spread nearly as much.
I have blog like everyone else
>>reinstalling and reconfiguring crashware
What if that's your job?
If Windows actually worked as advertised, A LOT [more] of us would be out of work.
This is sad, but true.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
I don't see Apple surviving past 2005.
I don't see you making much headway as a fortune-teller, let alone a business analyst. (I know, "same difference")
I have decided that the "Apple is dying" thing is a disease. It has to be some sort of brain-inhabiting virus that just keeps moving from host to host. No matter what you do to stamp it out (facts, figures, lobotomies), it has already moved on to the next susceptible (i.e. apple-bashing, close-minded) brain. I guess we will have to live with it. It almost makes me wish Apple did die, just so these people will finally *shut up*.
(By the way, in between the PPC, iMac, and G5 you have things like the Titanium Powerbook, iMovie and all of the other amazing iApps, OS X, and, of course, the iPod and iTunes Music Store. So, yes, your theory is a bunch of garbage.)
Boom Shanka
yeah. sure.
did anybody actually click on this? You have to pay to read the 2003 article...
very kind of him to explain "consolidate"
oh, btw what does "galvanise" mean?
is this really noteworthy? all download stores use mp3.
yeah. sure.
aka "files"
on the computer there will be a general software framework that can "read" these "files" and enable you to "work" with the "contents" independent of the OS and hardware: document files, excel files, image files, html files, audio files.
can anyone imagine normal users doing that?
I don't use the Mac, but I can't imagine that to be true: document and email macro viruses?
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
That's something I'm looking into and it is very interesting. 256M, though, is not enough. A 1G USB stick could be the sweet spot for having both apps, data, and (optionally) an entire OS. At current prices for 1G sticks, though, I can't see many people doing it so development will be stalled.
Most apps need to be installed or require a runtime environment that has to be installed
To boot a USB stick currently requires BIOS changes or a boot diskette/CD and waiting. The alternative is to have a VM of some sort 'run' the OS as a guest.
Fixing either of these issues seamlessly will take awhile...probably won't happen in 2004.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
They've been a bit down and not that special for a while in the past, but they've come back up I reckon they're gonna keep going up now. For the first time since Win 95 the world at large is just beginning to look at alternatives. OSS has it's inherent problems in the eyes of the companies who may use it (both founded and unfounded worries). Apple has released OSX in a few incarnations, all of which are pretty damn nice, filling the gap nicely when companies want to update their infrastructure.
When high capacity MP3 players are bulky and ugly they come out with iPod series 1. After the hype goes away they swoop in again with more capacity and Windows compatability. Finally they tie it in with the ITMS placating the music industry while locking people into paying them for music rather than any other download service. They don't even get hate mail for this lock in because, quite frankly, their product is good enough that people don't really want to bother with the inferior alternatives. How many people have you heard grumbling that they can't move from ITMS to Napster 2?
When 64 Bit is coming to be not only the next big thing but also buzzword of the day, the G5 comes out and holds its own because, once again, its a damn good product.
Next year the iPod moves into the low end arena and stands to smash the competition if it's priced right and done well (which it probably will be).
... can be found here.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.