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Tech Punditry In 2005
Wired has an article looking back at some of the most obvious, some of the most topical, and some of the least accurate predictions for 2005. From the article: "Wireless will continue to replace land line at a faster pace: Internet telephony pundit Jeff Pulver's prediction seems somewhat obvious, but nonetheless accurate. In 2005, personal calling on wireless phones in the United States exceeded that on residential land lines, even though 35 percent of the U.S. population doesn't have wireless, according to the Yankee Group."
...is the link to Art Bell's predictions. The man never found a conspiracy theory/alien abduction/perpetual motion scheme he didn't like. But for laughs, here it is - it does illustrate the principle that if you guess wildly about enough crap, by sheer luck you'll get something right.
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http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/aspie/trueorfalse/newy
Yeah right. Wake me up when wireless is faster than gigabit ethernet. :P 802.whatever is great for web, streaming video and other reasonably lightweight tasks, but just try pushing a a few hundred gigs over a wireless link and see what happens.
Serious amounts of finger-tapping, that's what.
Conversely (upside!), in my experience, wireless isn't replacing land lines, it's creating new networks where land lines would be inconvenient, inadvisable or flat-out stupid Coffee houses, bars, etceteras - I can pop open my laptop in my WAP-free house and at the right time of night pick from three different WLANS. Do you really think the local bar and the houses on either side of me would be willing to run cable? No. So Zee Wahrluz is creating networks, not replacing them. My laptop can talk to the bar WLAN while staying tethered to the home LAN - it can pr0n off of the bar and still ing the media box and the workstation without the bar ever being aware of either of my G4s.
Woot, yay, doom, etc.
That statements of the obvious with respect to perceived technology trends will continue throughout 2006. More daringly, I foresee the emergence of recursive self-referential statements of the obvious with respect to technology trends.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
1. The EU Commission will make a new attempt to introduce software patents in Europe.
2. They will lose, again.
3. The top gadget of 2006 will be the portable video player, specifically aimed at TV downloads.
4. Music sales will fall and the RIAA will blame piracy.
5. Apple shares will rise by 100% over 2006.
6. Neither Linux nor Apple will make much inroad into Microsoft's PC market in 2006. The public has learned to live with viruses and spyware.
7. Apple will announce deals with several more broadcasters and become the premier online distributor of TV shows.
8. Microsoft will not buy Google.
9. Google will not buy Sun but at least one Industry Pundit will suggest this.
10. The big Internet technology of 2006 will be Ajax applications.
11. The big Internet business of 2006 will be spyw^h^h^h^h Personal Data Security and Collection services.
12. Someone will say, "the Internet is a terrible system but it's better than all the alternatives".
13. Oil will hit $75 per barrel and there will be minor riots in several countries.
14. Most of the rioters will be returned unharmed from police custody.
15. The War on Terror will continue, unabated.
16. Security services and telcos will gang up on free wifi, which will become known as "the service of choice for pedophiles and terrorists".
17. At least one EU country will attempt to ban unmonitored access to web-based email services, and be roundly ridiculed for the attempt.
18. China's economy will grow to be number 3 in the world.
19. The USD will continue to prosper, as people realise that it's a terrible currency, but better than all the rest.
20. Many of these predictions will be proved wrong.
My blog
he is the only pundit that i feel is ballanced, (reasonably) impartial, does his research well, and most important: is not afraid to admit when he is wrong.
/. , ars or digg, but cringely is the only one who deserves a bookmark. most other guys seems to be industry whores, riding on hypes and/or cutting and pasting company's press realeases as if they were prophecies of the next Big Thing(tm).
i read some of the other guys, usually when thy're linked in sites like
cringely's column is here
What ? Me, worry ?
2005's list is a real low-light. The opening paragraph of the Wired article is like a kick to the groin. Dvorak was right! Neener neener neener. Nevermind that he got the timing wrong, and just about everything else he says never comes true. Is it really predicting when you just throw as many possibilities out there as possible, and ignore the 99% failure rate?
For your New Year's schadenfreude entertainment, be sure to catch Robert Cringely twist and turn his predictions ikn an effort to make himself look insightful in hindsight. Last time he claimed a 70% accuracy rate, or some bullshit figure.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/
His New Year column isn't out yet, just some ramble about advertising killing print media. But he's always at his most hilarious when trying to justify his predictions.
... and then they built the supercollider.