Technology Predictions for 2006?

OffTheLip writes "As 2006 fast approaches it's time for some to gaze into the crystal ball of technology and predict what will be hot, what will make a difference in our lives or make someone rich and famous. The Mercury News takes a shot at predicting the coming year of technology. No great revelations but it nice to see clean technologies make the list. The list is light on pure technology and big on trends. Perhaps killer apps are not as important as they once were thought to be." What would Slashdot users put in their top 10?

Comments

Video and all-in-ones

[Diordna]

I think that most innovations will come in video and handheld form. Things will get more consolidated very quickly, and the handheld will become even more central than it is now. I hope to see something like an iPod Video that can store movies at screen sizes creater than 320x240 just so they can be hooked up to TVs and played back anywhere. Also, the outcome of Apple Intel machines should be interesting - one place for OS X, Windows, and Linux to all run at the same time.

Nothing new under the sun (this year)

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the odds of a new technology coming out of nowhere and becoming popular? Look at 2005 -- just an expansion of existing tech. Torrents become more popular, more bandwidth means people exchange more videos, bird flu will continue to be overrated and containable and there will continue to be few deaths, wifi will be more popular, more telephony, and so on.

It's evolution baby, not revolution, and that's the way I like it :)

Re:I Want My Personalized Entertainment

[tomstdenis]

Problem with e-paper ...

1. Monthly service for radio link servetude: $30
2. Airtime charges to download the news: $10
3. 911 access fee ... on a piece of paper ... : $1
4. License fee: $7
5. Newspaper subscriptions: $15
6. Knowing you'll be leached to death by yet another inadequate technology: Priceless. :-)

[yes this is a rant about how cell phones cost too much and do so little]

Tom

Predictions

[ackthpt]

• 1. Someone will challenge Moore's Law as not being true any longer.
• 2. Cell phone batteries will need longer life as people listen to music and watch video on them.
• 3. Nano physics will be all the rage, but nobody will still have made anything practical with them.
• 4. RIAA will continue to hound people who really don't affect their bottom line, then blame the loss of music sales for the expense.
• 5. Howard Stern will not have the new customer draw Sirius is betting on.
• 6. Red Wine will be found not to actually have any real impact on reducing heart disease when they find a bunch of drunken italian doctors made it all up.
• 7. Video Games will continue to be ballyhooed as more realistic than ever, but movement will still look terribly wooden.
• 8. New processors, mother boards, video cards will all come out and amazingly the top of the line will cost what the top of the line has cost for the past ten years.
• 9. Moore's Law will be reaffirmed.
• 10. Cheezy Poofs and Coke will be declared heart-healthy by firms in Plano, TX and Atlanta, GA, and the media will not question it one bit.

Predictions for 2006

[Animats]

1. Saudi Arabia finally admits the Gawar field has peaked. Oil passes $70 per barrel.
2. US interest rate spike. "Homeowners" with adjustable-rate interest-only loans default and are foreclosed.
3. Housing prices crash as foreclosures glut market.
4. Congress finally starts investigating some activities of the Bush administration.
5. No real change in Iraq. Neither side can force a decision, so both sides keep bleeding.
6. China announces major progress in their space program.
7. Micropayments flop, again. Goodbye, Bitpass.
8. A Cat 4 or 5 hurricane wipes out another southern US city, or New Orleans floods again.
9. One of the big three US car manufacturers goes bankrupt.
10. Total number of active blogs decreases.

Re:Painkillers

[NixLuver]

I can't believe that this thread is treating this stupidity as if it were a good thing. The piles of red tape and bullshit that people have to go through to buy scheduled drugs are not because of the abusers, it's because of the War On Drugs. How can someone consider themself free if they don't have basic sovereignty over their own body? Good god, people, the only difference between abuse and use is whether or not a Doctor wrote you a prescription. As long as you don't get stupid, there are a million doctors who will prescribe basically whatever you're smart enough to request and provide basic, rudimentary symptom support and insurance for.

The real technological advance would be a free society, not newer and better ways to fuck up people's days.

Re:Painkillers

[lysergic.acid]

Adding an opioid antagonist like nalaxone doesn't do anything when you snort it, only when you inject it. If you add enough of it that it has any effect when you take it orally or when you snort it, then you're blocking off just as much of its analgesic effects. Same with trying to remove the psychotropic effects of ecstasy--its the psychotropic effects that also make ecstasy theraputic (it's not really a pain killer).

Our drugs laws are just dumb. People are always going to take opiates and other drugs recreationally because it's fun. It's like trying to prohibit the recreational consumption of alcohol (a societally accepted recreational drug which we have a double standard for) just because there are alcoholics. The funny thing is, before opiate dependence was made a crime, it was seen by Americans as less of a nuisance to society than alcoholism--people could also support their opiate habit on pennies a day and still be functional members of society. In fact, you'd be suprised at how many well known people in history used opiates such as opium/heroin/morphine regularly.

What we need to do is just reform our drug policies and most of the societal problems related to drug abuse will simply go away--like people ODing on "ecstasy" because it was cut with more dangerous substances, or the prohibition style crime-wave which has sweeped the nation, etc.