Wild Predictions for a Wired 2007

An anonymous reader writes "Wired has put up its predictions for the coming year, in technology, internet, and entertainment news. Despite their claim that they are 'wild' predictions, a lot of them make some sense. Some of their calls: 'Google Stock Hits $1,000 per Share. Internet Traffic Doubles to 5,000 petabits per day by the end of 2007. And 80 percent of it is peer-to-peer file sharing, mostly Skype video and BitTorrent. BitTorrent on TiVo: Speaking of, digital video recorders get BitTorrent baked in, bringing internet video to the living room. Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work. Second Life Ends a Life: Skullduggery in Second Life -- probably digital adultery -- ends in a real-life murder. Year o' the Laptop: Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks." What do you folks think? How many will Wired have called correctly by the end of the year?

Comments

Beatles back catalogue...

[advocate_one]

The entire Beatles catalog is licensed exclusively to iTunes for a year.

Jacko getting short of cash again???

Re:Beatles back catalogue...

[TheBiGW]

I guess I'll have to buy the White album again

One fix

[SnarfQuest]

Internet Traffic Doubles to 5,000 petabits per day by the end of 2007. And 80 percent of it is peer-to-peer file sharing, mostly Skype video and BitTorrent.

Change that "spam", and then I'd believe it.

Re:One fix

[Salvance]

There's a lot that's either just so blatantly obvious or lame that it's hard to believe they consider these "wild". I'd hate to see Wired's parties ... To try to be a little more "wild" with predictions, here are mine ... I'll bet at least one pans out:

1. Gootube is sued by a consortium of Music Publishers, and caves hard to copyright protections
2. RIAA creates their own music sharing program cloaked as an offshore company, then gathers IPs and sues thousands of file sharers
3. Steve Jobs will step down amidst some scandal, either stock options or due to random trysts with Apple interns
4. The OLPC project will be featured on Sesame Street, and become the hot holiday product of 2007 for small children
5. Yahoo will make at least 2 ridiculously overpriced purchases, at least one will either be Facebook, or a floating dirigible high over Texas (similar to the banana over Texas ... which surprisingly is a real project)

Re:One fix

[truthsearch]

1. Possible, but I think Google is perceived to be so influential that the RIAA/MPAA will actually want to work with them (while still threatening to sue).
2. They already gather IPs and sue. No need for a cloaked company.
3. My bet would be Jobs made sure to stay clean. The problems are mostly with past execs, not himself.
4. Sesame Street doesn't feature products.
5. This one is probable. Yahoo is definitely concerned with becoming stale and is constantly looking to buy things ups. They'll make some uber-purchases, pick up headlines, and hope their stock goes up.

Re:One fix

[Ingolfke]

How often do you steal from Mark Cuban? Go Suns!

Re:One fix

[slashbob22]

4. Sesame Street doesn't feature products. Really? I bet the Letter E would have something to say about that.

Re:One fix

[soft_guy]

4. Sesame Street doesn't feature products. Really? I bet the Letter E would have something to say about that. Are you saying Sesame Street was involved with Enron?

Re:One fix

[slashbob22]

Are you saying Sesame Street was involved with Enron? Sure was. They also support:
C) The C Programming Language
D) Democratic Party
E) Enron
1) The BBC

I think we can all see that Sesame Street isn't as innocent as we all thought.

Re:One fix

[chriswaclawik]

Dear God, my kids watch that show! And they're pushing ecstasy? Oh wait, you meant Elmo.

Re:One fix

[thewiz]

So would the letter i

Re:One fix

[hritcu]

We all know that 90% of the traffic is porn.

Wired predictions

[Paradoks]

Ah, Wired wildly predicting things; it's as if we've never left 1994, much less 2006. Bring on the memories.

Re:Wired predictions

[Rob T Firefly]

Ah, Wired wildly predicting things; it's as if we've never left 1994, much less 2006. Bring on the memories.

But they're doing it in only one or two fonts per page now, written in mostly non-fluorescent ink. Progress!

Re:Wired predictions

[east coast]

I will say, IMHO, that Wired is a big let down.

I remember when it was first announced I thought it was going to be kick ass until I read it and found that it was somewhere between a lame Omni (which isn't saying much) and a geeky Maxim.

Pop culture's attempt at try to make technology seem hip... great.

Meanwhile all the screaming fanbois they have on stock really kills any chance for progressive writing.

Yawn...

Re:Wired predictions

[Andy Dodd]

I find it amusing that at least one of their "predictions" came true in even better form years ago.

"Implantable contact lenses" - why implant something when you can just fix the cornea itself? I had LASIK performed five years ago, and it wasn't even that new then. It has improved even more in the past five years too. Corneal implants for those with cataracts have existed for even longer.

Re:Wired predictions

[Migizi]

LASIK isn't all it is cracked up to be. Most people do have improved vision but not 100% and it does require tune-ups. It also diminishes night sight and gives the patient tunnel vision. Implants have been used in most of the European countries for a few years and they don't have the loss of night sight or tunnel vision issues that LASIK has. I believe the last time I read about implants they were also cheaper, safer and a longer history of use.

One third of the people I know who got LASIK have tunnel vision and loss of night sight. Another one third took over 6 months to see any benefits and only the last third said they had no issues but do require tune-ups.

Re:Wired predictions

[sgt_doom]

Amen to that.

Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks.

ONLY 20 percent....not that's farfeteched...try 60 percent....

Re:Wired predictions

[Andy Dodd]

No tunnel vision (hell, compared to glasses my peripheral vision is incredible! :) , I had haloing at night for about a year but it's gone now.

There's a slight possibility I might eventually need a tuneup, although after 5 years I can still fully function without any additional correction, most likely if I ever need more "oomph" I'll get glasses with a very low correction for that tweaking when I want REALLY sharp vision.

FYI, in my case my vision was HORRIBLE prior to LASIK - +6.25 diopters in one eye and +6.75 in the other I believe, combined with awful astigmatism which prevented contacts from ever working well for me and made even glasses with high-index lenses extremely thick. In the 5 years since I had the procedure performed, equipment and techniques have improved even more.

I'm not sure how anyone you know didn't see vast improvement with LASIK unless:
a) The doctor screwed up. Sadly, there are a lot of shlocky doctors who shouldn't ever be allowed near anyone's eyes doing the procedures. I had mine done by a reputable doctor that was recommended by another opthamologist who was a friend of the family. It cost far more (over twice as much per eye) than the "el cheapo" shlocky advertises-on-TV-and-radio doctors, but you get what you pay for.
b) They had such low correction needs they probably didn't really need LASIK anyway. The good LASIK doctors refuse to treat such patients. (Ones with too little need for correction to justify the risk or with "difficult" correction needs, such as astigmatism + farsightedness or a cornea that is too thin to begin with.)

Re:Wired predictions

[tverbeek]

I don't know about the market-share percentage, but I predict that students at Kendall College of Art and Design will buy about 1,000 MacBooks in 2007, as the school is going to require laptops starting in the Fall semester... and even the AutoCAD-and-Windows-using majors (e.g. Industrial Design and Interior Design) are being spec'ed to use MacBooks.

Re:Wired predictions

[boyko.at.netqos]

I don't know. In 1994, when I was 14, I thought Wired Magazine was the coolest thing ever. In 2007, now that I'm 27, I still think that Wired Magazine is pretty cool.

Re:Wired predictions

[jo42]

Wait until you get older and mature.

Re:Wired predictions

[boyko.at.netqos]

That's what they said in 1994...

Wired is a contra indicator

[Anonymous Coward]

So many social revolutions seen through the lens of that San Francisco circle jerk of media. So many people lead to the slaughter of the bubble by these losers. And someone at wired must work for Second Life because they've been over-hyping that non-event forever.

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[Rachel Lucid]

Second Life is catching on as more computers are able to handle 3D-Rendering. A good friend of mine who'll be working at Google shortly got completely hooked on it a couple months ago and won't shut up about it now.

So, sure, I'll buy the whole second-life prediction.

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[ameoba]

Have you ever played Second Life?

Neither have I but the people I know that play it are -exactly- the type that would get wrapped up in a virtual world, commit adultery & then kill as a result of it.

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[truthsearch]

More and more people are trying second life. But the retention rate is extremely low. A fair percentage of daily users are only trying to make money. The vast majority of people check it out, don't see anything very interesting, and leave.

I gave it a fair shot. I logged on just about every day for three weeks. I explored and explored and explored. I found no reason to stick around.

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[Skrynesaver]

I genuinely have difficulty with the whole second-life/sadville thing. Is it just the kids who didn't get bored with the whole clique thing by the time they left school or what?

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[truthsearch]

No offense, but you need to find new friends.

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[advocate_one]

second life... just like The Sims... but boring as fsck and filled with saddoes...

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[doormat]

I believe Autodesk (San Rafael, CA) has their own island in Second Life. Companies (not just people) are jumping on the SL bandwagon.

Re:Wired is a contra indicator

[rujholla]

IBM has a large presence in Second Life and recently built a virtual to real store for Circuit City in SL. On the IBM insider website it says that they consider second life a precursor for a 3D internet.

Here is a Reuters piece on their SL involvement.

IBM is ramping up its push into virtual worlds with an investment of roughly $10 million over the next 12 months, including an expanded presence within the popular 3D online universe Second Life. Chairman and Chief Executive Sam Palmisano is set to visit Second Life on Tuesday, following a "town hall" meeting with some 7,000 employees in China, and speak with the more than 250 IBM employees on one of the company's virtual islands. Second Life, where Reuters opened a bureau last month, is one of the best-known virtual worlds, with more than 1 million registered users and a well-established economy and currency. The equivalent of more than half a million U.S. dollars change hands there every day. IBM has already established the biggest Second Life presence of any Fortune 500 company. It uses the world primarily for training and meetings but has also built a simulation of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. The company is also looking to build a private 3D intranet where it will be able to discuss sensitive business information. It is moving to champion what it calls "v-business" -- short for virtual business -- just as it championed "e-business", or electronic business, during the dot-com boom. "We always ask the question, 'if you knew 20 years ago what you know about the Web today, what would you do differently?'" said Sandy Kearney, IBM's director of emerging 3-D Internet and virtual business. "The Web took decades. This will likely take half that time." The company said it is already holding meetings and conducting development inside virtual worlds with about 20 major clients, including telecommunications and aerospace firms, a petroleum company that wants to use virtual worlds for training and "a major grocer in the UK" that wants to build a virtual storefront that will allow consumers to buy real-world groceries online. "The essence of e-commerce today is built around the idea of catalogs. That's very useful, it fits with the idea of Web pages and catalog pages, but most people don't think of shopping in terms of catalogs and pages, but in terms of stores that they go into," said IBM chief technology strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger. A spokesman for IBM said its goals go far beyond Second Life, although it currently has its largest virtual world presence there, and that the company eventually wants to see all multiverses integrated into a seamless whole. "In addition to our desire to work more closely with Linden Labs, we're exploring how we can work with many virtual world players, including companies like Multiverse and Bigworld Technology, as well as open source platforms like Uni-Verse.org," the spokesman said in an email. "IBM's ultimate aim is for inter-world integration, instead of separate islands of virtual worlds, where you cannot cross over from one to the other in a consistent way," he said.

Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[advocate_one]

not while we can be milked for support... the women aren't gonna drop us and fend for themselves...

Artificial gametes made from female eggs are sold over the internet, making fathers biologically irrelevant.

Re:Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[WormholeFiend]

Plus, I would think that for (the mostly male) scientist community, creating female replicants would higher in the priorities list.

Re:Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[simm1701]

Troll maybe... but then the modder really counts equally as troll

Who knows what the future will bring - maybe the Tleilaxu will turn out to have it right - not sure axolotl tanks are really the way to go though.... (and if you miss the reference you could try wikipedia but I'd recommend forgoing that and actualy read the Dune books - the prequels aren't too bad either)

Re:Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[SQLGuru]

Have *YOU* meta-moderated lately? I know I have (too bad, too....if these posts had come up, I would have meta-moderated them....)

I know it's on topic, and I haven't event RTFA....it's {Wired, /.}, why should I?

Layne

Re:Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[larkost]

Have you ever been in a bio-lab? Over half of the biology researchers that I know are women. And I worked at a Veterinary school (mostly researchers with a little bit of teaching tacked on the side) until recently, so I know quite a number of researchers.

Re:Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[Dave Emami]

Oh, great. You'd hope Slashdot would be the last place someone would use top-posting.

Re:Nah... we'll never be irrelevant...

[GroovyTrucker]

Or we'll be taking care of the kid(s) ala Trillian dumping her daughter Random on Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide sequel Mostly Harmless.

life from scifi, as usual

[Endymion]

Second Life Ends a Life: Skullduggery in Second Life -- probably digital adultery -- ends in a real-life murder.

I see someone has been reading . That plot has been covered already.

Re:life from scifi, as usual

[Endymion]

umm... make that link Tea from an Empty Cup.

can't type today or something... @.@

Just like it was

[advocate_one]

back in the Viking times... why else do you think they called it Greenland then???

As the ice melts, Greenland becomes literally green.

Re:Just like it was

[kansas1051]

back in the Viking times... why else do you think they called it Greenland then???

The Vikings (Erik the Red) called it Greenland to encourage immigrants to move there. Although some contend "Greenland" comes from a bad translation of Gruntland ("Ground-land"). See Wikipedia.

Re:Just like it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr No.

From wikipedia:

"The name "Greenland" comes from Scandinavian settlers. In the Norse sagas, it is said that Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland for murder. He, along with his extended family and thralls, set out in ships to find the land that was rumored to be to the northwest. After settling there, he named the land Grænland ("Greenland"), possibly in order to attract more people to settle there. Greenland was also called Gruntland ("Ground-land") on early maps. Whether Green is an erroneous transcription of Grunt ("Ground"), which refers to shallow bays, or vice versa, is not known. It should also be noted, however, that the southern portion of Greenland (not covered by glacier) is indeed very green in the summer."

Re:Just like it was

[tomzyk]

why else do you think they called it Greenland then???

To attract more people to come and settle there; it wouldn't sound as attractive if they had called it Glacierland or NotSoGreenOtherThanTheSouthernMostTipInMidSummerLa nd.

Re:Just like it was

[mislinux]

Actually, when Erik the Red was exiled, it is believed he called the area "Greenland" to try and attract more settlers from his home land, although it was definitely not green (except the southern part). Remember, the Vikings were around in the late 900s. Greenland didn't get covered completely in ice in under 1100 years. That would have taken an ice age.

Re:Just like it was

[morgan_greywolf]

That's highly suspect. Norse sagas aren't exactly known for the complete truthfulness. It's possible that it happened that way, but knowing what I know about Norse culture, it's probably just a really cool story about a Norse hero.

Re:Just like it was

[tigerd]

They called it green because the first place they landed in was very green. The southern part of Greenland can be very green and "warm" in the summer

Re:Just like it was

[seven of five]

It was deceptive marketing.
They called the bad place Greenland to send suckers there, and the good place Iceland to keep the babes & hot springs all to themselves.

A Bit Premature

[Silver Sloth]

Greenland Becomes Green

As the ice melts, Greenland becomes literally green.

It will take a few more years (or even decades) yet. It might not even happen, we should stop calling it 'Global Warming' and start calling it 'Climate Change' otherwise it gives this idea that everywhere will become some sort of tropical paradise. We Brits could do with some warming but, if some of the predictions about the gulf stream are correct, we'll actually get colder.

Re:A Bit Premature

[Mr_Blank]

We Brits could do with some warming but, if some of the predictions about the gulf stream are correct, we'll actually get colder.

Have you got a source?

Re:A Bit Premature

[7Prime]

Actually, you have a point there. BTW: that post was not meant as to be a global warming appologist, but the fact is that things aren't just going to get warmer (for some parts), they're really gonna change. I live up in Alaska, and yes, things are getting warmer (noticably), but they're also getting more extreme at both ends, as well. The only problem about calling it "Climate Change" is that it sounds like something that's simply a natural course... which it clearly isn't.

Re:A Bit Premature

[rising_hope]

Climate change is more accurate in layman's terms. However, the term Global Warming is more scientific, since the world's oceans are, overall, warming. This causes the climate change. Some areas will become hotter, others colder, others wetter, others dryer. Particularly vulnerable is the Atlantic ocean, where some evidence of warming is already showing oceanic changes in salinity. Ocean water in the tropics has become more saline, thanks to less fresh water flowing in. Water in the north Atlantic has become fresher, thanks to melting glaciers pumping even more fresh water in. This interrupts the North Atlantic Current, and results in cooler temps for Europe, which could see temps more similar to that of southern Canada. Also at risk is oceanic life, in which creatures must either migrate, adapt, or die to increasing temps and changes in salinity.

Re:A Bit Premature

[Threni]

> Have you got a source?

I can't be bothered to look it up - I'm sure if you look up `gulf stream` on Wikipedia or Google you might find a page that states that the reason the UK is warmer than many countries of similar latitude (such as Denmark, for instance) is the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is apparently at risk
from global warming and if true, its disappearance will bring our climate into line with Denmark et al.

Re:A Bit Premature

[Jerry Smith]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-16025 79,00.html says:

Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream -- the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing. They have found that one of the "engines" driving the Gulf Stream -- the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea -- has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

Re:A Bit Premature

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Well, its called "global warming" not, "British Isles Warming."
there is an aggregate shift warmer, on average, and one of the consequences of that is "climate change" whereby the extremes get more shifty.
But speaking on global terms, warming is happening, and is therefore the more accurate term.
Also, being an american liberal, the very term climate change is indivisible from that texan asshat running my country, and therefore makes me gag.

they forgot to mention...

[teh_chrizzle]

that this is the year of linux on the desktop and that this is the year that sun's "whatever the hell we are calling thin clients this year" breaks the MS stranglehold on the corporate desktop.

i don't think either will happen, but some crackpot makes that prediction every year. this year, it would appear that cackpot is me :-)

Re:they forgot to mention...

[ElephanTS]

you meant 'cackpot' didn't you ;-p

Re:they forgot to mention...

[hritcu]

this is the year that sun's "whatever the hell we are calling thin clients this year" breaks the MS stranglehold on the corporate desktop

They call it Sun Ray. They have little guys like this in the university I previously studied, and they are extremely neat. However, since Microsoft's domination on the desktop is based on marketing and not on any kind of technological merit, innovative ideas like this just don't stand a chance, and it's really a pity.

Re:they forgot to mention...

[teh_chrizzle]

They call it Sun Ray.

and 10 years ago they were called javastations. sun trots it's thin clients out once or twice a decade, shakes it's fist at MS and then goes back to selling OMFG expensive servers :-)

Microsoft's domination on the desktop is based on marketing and not on any kind of technological merit

the corporate desktop itself is pretty much based on marketing and not any kind of technological merit. coincidentally, that is pretty much why MS will own it for the forseeable future.

innovative ideas like this just don't stand a chance, and it's really a pity.

couldn't agree more. your basic corporate MIS type is two or more parts "Management" and two or fewer parts "Information Systems". thin clients/open source/linux/[insert cool technology here] could appease the "Information Systems" requirement given the right implementation, but that pesky "Management" part is a whole other story.

Apple laptops?

[NineNine]

Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks."

I doubt this. But then, Wired has always been even bigger Apple shills than Slashdot is.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Orange Crush]

I doubt this. But then, Wired has always been even bigger Apple shills than Slashdot is.

Apple's laptop market share doubled in the first half of last year from 6% in January 2006 to 12% in June 2006. I don't know what their market share is up to since 6/06 but predicting 20% for 2007 doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Keyslapper]

Actually, I'd be surprised if it was only 20%.

I'm not an OS hound at all, I've used Linux, FreeBSD, Windows (Every version since 3.1 - except '98) and finally, MacOSX. FreeBSD has always been a favorite, and I've always lamented the fact that there weren't more paying jobs that focused on the *BSDs.

I've developed (for my bread and butter) on 5 flavors of Unix (not including Linux or any *BSD), and am currently doing so on Windows.

Now, that doesn't make me an expert on any one of these platforms, and certainly doesn't make me privy to any special information, but it seems to me that the changes Apple has made in just the last couple years are huge gains. You can now do anything with MacOSX that you could once only do on Windows - and a great many of them are considerably easier with OSX.

The change to an Intel architecture has opened the way to VM development, which essentially puts Apple ahead of MS in terms of feature availability - while MS has added video and photo management features to Vista that are suspiciously similar to iPhoto and iDVD, they still don't have anything like GarageBand or Sherlock (which, by the way, is an AWESOME app). This is the point where MS will start to lose, unless they stop playing the "Me Too" game, using Apple as their R&D lab and start playing to their strengths. MS is still ahead in the hardware game, though with Apple's shift to Intel, this is a somewhat slimmer lead. Vista has been labeled a MacOSX wannabe (without the stability) by a number of sources, some of which are typically pro-MS. MS needs to get their own R&D and design teams, and start making their UI more flexible - and stable. Until they start focusing on flexibility, stability, and (more effectively) on security, they'll continue to struggle to stay just one step ahead.

I think this will be the year the balance starts to tip. I don't know if it will stay tipped, or if it will tip to anything near equivalence, much less anywhere near the level Apple actually deserves for all their hard work and creative innovation, but it will tip.

And BTW, I've been waiting for the new year myself to upgrade to a Macbook Pro, simply for the "extras" that Apple does so much better, and the VMs, which will finally let me have the OS of my choice on a laptop. Of course, storage for all these VMs will now become something of a hassle (WinXP, Vista, Ubuntu, Knoppix, FreeBSD, etc.) ...

Before anyone suggests you can still get those OSes on a VM in Windows, keep in mind, you can't get MacOSX on a VM in Windows yet. Even so, I happen to like the look and feel of the Apple notebooks better than pretty much anything I've seen from Dell, Gateway, or any of the other big PC makers.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, I prefer the MacBook (Pro) w/ windows combination, especially if you do any dev at all that also runs on Unix. Can't count the number of times that capitalization has caused issues when transferring to a real OS. (That's right, Windows still sucks eggs in that dept.) With OSX and Parallels, you now get a real OS, and can run those few pesky windows apps seamlessly, at least until MS tries to break them again.

And why wouldn't you get a Mac? Price? For similarly robust computers, Macs are now very competitively priced. And the packaged software is pretty darn nice too, and is much more feature rich than the MS set, although not good enough to not require an additional software purchase for the serious user. (e.g., iPhoto is nice, until you get into RAW editing, or thousands of pictures. iMovie is nice, but for full menu creation, you'll need something better)

I'm looking forward to my Macbook Pro, it'll be on order within the week. The Macbook is nice, but I miss the backlit keys.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Less than 5% of computers on the internet are Macs (Check most website user-agent stats). For 20% of 50% of all computers sold to be Macs (ie: 10%) you'd need to double that statistic, fast. I highly doubt any company can do that sort of thing. Hell, even Pepsi couldn't do it when New Coke came out. Would be interesting to see it happen, it'd definitely make for something that would be discussed in Marketing and Economics classes for a long time (hell, probably forever).

Re:Apple laptops?

[soft_guy]

I ordered a custom built MacBook Pro a few days ago (opted for the 2.3 GHz 15" model with better graphics card + a 200GB hard drive). My main reason was that the MBP has better video hardware than the MB. Plus, I don't like the keyboard on the MacBook, it reminds me of the IBM PCjr.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Gr8Apes]

Another reason to get the MBP is dual head support. That seals it for me.

Re:Apple laptops?

[SQLGuru]

How much credence can you give someone who ran Windows ME and didn't bother to downgrade to Windows 98 because ME was crappier and slower than 98 with no added benefit.

As for doing "anything", there are still Games. Which, as far as I've seen, no VM gives you direct hardware access to get good performance out of your gaming hardware. That's the whole point of it being virtual. I'm much better off running my games native in Windows and VM'ing Linux to run Linux apps. And I'm sure someone is working on a MacOSX VM....keep your eye on the torrents.

One of these days, your OS will just be a VM player and your OS will come on a USB key-fob (locked down fairly tightly, I'm sure). As long as they can get high performance hardware to work with it, I'm game. I'd love to be able to "dual boot" simply by swapping out my OS memory stick.

Layne

Re:Apple laptops?

[Keyslapper]

How much credence can you give someone who ran Windows ME and didn't bother to downgrade to Windows 98 because ME was crappier and slower than 98 with no added benefit.

Whoops! Forgot all about ME. Who hasn't (or at least tried)? I never ran it. It was such a blatant repackaging of a stripped down, destabilized Win98 that I never even considered it.

For that matter, now you mention it, I haven't run CE either. Not sure why, probably just never got 'round to it.

Games are yet another reason I'm looking forward to my MacBook Pro. Aside from the usual practice of running Windows in a VM, I can also keep an installation to boot directly to for gaming. While it may someday be possible to boot MacOSX in a VM on Windows, it won't give you ideal performance for gaming. With a MacBook Pro, you can easily boot to Windows to play a Windows game instead of running Windows in a VM. Same for Linux - NWN is supported in Linux, though at present, I play it on FreeBSD in compatibility mode. NWN2 is not likely to be supported on Linux, and may take some time to be supported on Mac.

As for the VM shell with OSes on a key-fob, that story's been going round since VMWare hit the scene ages ago. I don't think it will be any time soon, and even then, I don't think it will be exactly that scenario. It's more likely that the system will come with a higher speed interface (like Firewire 800 or something yet unspecified) and will be able to boot from these ports by default. USB thumbdrives - or their equivalent, will have much higher capacity, and will be able to hold an entire OS.
The hangup here will be the filesystem. There are dozens out there, and unfortunately, the Fat32 filesystem is typically considered the default, even though it is much less efficient and much less reliable than others out there. It's likely that an encrypted filesystem will be used for a second thumbdrive, which will hold a persons home directory, or at least their default document dump (resumes, photos, web bookmarks, email, contacts, etc). With any luck, someone will figure out how to make this work for all the available OSes, so I can read mail in Windows, Ubuntu, Knoppix, or MacOSX. It's pretty straightforward (if time consuming) to get a single home directory to work for most of the *nix OSes. If someone finds a way to automate this, and extend it to include Windows and MacOSX, that person will have stumbled onto something worth paying for.

My ideal system would be just such a monster. High end power in the CPU and Video arenas with enough RAM to handle the most intense development and gaming tasks, and plenty of very high speed external storage interfaces. Ideally, this would include pluggable solid state drives in the 80Gig range, so you wouldn't have to worry about banging the thumbdrive on the airplane seat and hosing your port. Buy a drive for each OS, maybe one for games, and there you go. This machine would have to be able to run MacOSX, Windows, and pretty much any OSS platform I wanted.

Right now, this is pretty much done, with the exception that the pluggable drives are actually hard drives, not solid state, Home directories are generally OS specific by design, and these machines don't run MacOSX. If Apple were to put out a notebook that let you shift hard drives that easily, I'd bet they'd be past the 20% mark in no time. They'd probably hit the 30% mark within a year, especially if they were to knock prices down (just a tad).

Re:Apple laptops?

[LionMage]

Less than 5% of computers on the internet are Macs (Check most website user-agent stats). For 20% of 50% of all computers sold to be Macs (ie: 10%) you'd need to double that statistic, fast.

This was modded Insightful?

The 5% statistic you quote is reflective of installed base, but it's the subset of the installed base that is Internet connected. (Not all Macs are connected to the 'Net, any more than all PCs are.)

I'm a bit dubious of the claim that 50% of all computers sold are laptops, but even so, the Wired prediction is that 20% of all laptops sold this year will be MacBooks (Pro or non-Pro). That's a prediction of market share, which is not the same thing as installed base at all. Even if Apple managed to pull off what Wired is predicting, the installed base of Macs won't magically double in one year's time; that's because all the computers that have been purchased before now will continue to operate until they either cease to function on their own, or are retired.

Since personal computer sales are plateauing (moreso in the desktop sector), it's fair to say that the total number of computers purchased this year probably won't exceed the total number of computers in service prior to this year. Expect installed base numbers to change gradually, and don't rely solely on user agent stats compiled from web sites.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Overzeetop]

This is going to sound crazy to /.ers, but why would I want to put multiple OSes on my business laptop? Because you can isn't good enough. Is there really a sound financial case for buying more expensive hardware, with extra memory, and buying a second OS (I'm presuming windows, of course) just so that I can run some included Apple apps that are mostly home-based?

Now, I am presuming many things:
- Most laptops will still be bought by businesses.
- Most businesses don't do the media stuff that is so well optimized on Macs
- The vast majority of MS-only IT departments would rather gouge their eyes out than add Macs to the support list (not because they're macs, but because they're not Windows; they wouldn't want a bunch of new Linux laptops on the system either)

If you exclude the limited number of Mac shops and exclude the top executive class that gets to break all the internal rules anyway, arent the purchaseing decisions still going to be based on Win apps and minimum cost per functional unit? Or is the Wired office so myopic that they don't really understand what really happens in the rest of the US?

Re:Apple laptops?

[Keyslapper]

First off, several OSes don't make sense on a business laptop. They do make sense on a development machine, if development is being done on multiple platforms, even if they are different versions of Windows.

- Most laptops will still be bought by businesses.

Not necessarily true. Wireless broadband is becoming more and more mainstream, and while 2007 won't see it come to the fore, it will certainly see it increase in availability. What do you do if you have wireless access on a wide pipe with no leash? You take it down to the coffee shop, to the park, or wherever. Kinda hard to do with a desktop.

Aside from that, businesses will start seeing more security risks associated with laptop ownership - they're too easy to lift from unsuspecting suits. I see them all too often left on the table at Starbucks, while someone's gone back up to get another latte. I think that's a lot less likely if the person has $3,000 of their own money invested in that hardware. For that reason, companies are going to be a lot more wary of handing out laptops to folks that don't have to take them out of the office.

More and more laptops are going to be purchased as portable gaming machines and digital wallets - for personal use. Particularly since many people who don't currently have desktops at home, don't actually have desks either. With more and more single folks start moving in to their own places with limited space, they're going to want to be able to shove their digital life out of the way for some quiet time with the significant other.

The long and short of it is that it's not just about price anymore when you're shopping for yourself.

Re:Apple laptops?

[RedWizzard]

Actually, I'd be surprised if it was only 20%. You might be right in terms of consumer sales, but to reach that overall Apple will need more corporate penetration that they currently have. I don't see how they are going to get that in the short term - companies are slow to change.

Re:Apple laptops?

[stewbacca]

Is there really a sound financial case for buying more expensive hardware, with extra memory, and buying a second OS (I'm presuming windows, of course) just so that I can run some included Apple apps that are mostly home-based? Now, I am presuming many things: - Most laptops will still be bought by businesses. - Most businesses don't do the media stuff that is so well optimized on Macs

You've uncovered Microsoft's (not so) dirty little secret here! Based on your excellent points, I have to ask; why would anyone buy a PC for home? I don't take work home, and even if I do have to from time-to-time, there is nothing that Office for Mac can't handle. It usually works better to boot, especially the quality of PowerPoint templates and (snicker) clip-art. At least Microsoft understands that the typical Mac user has some taste when it comes to clip art and templates, and gives the Mac version somewhat usable stuff to work with.

Re:Apple laptops?

[MojoStan]

Apple's laptop market share doubled in the first half of last year from 6% in January 2006 to 12% in June 2006. I don't know what their market share is up to since 6/06 but predicting 20% for 2007 doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

I think some of this sharp rise in market share was attributable to pent-up demand for faster Apple notebooks with modern CPUs, which was finally met when Apple announced their Core Duo based MacBooks in January 2006 (Pro) and May 2006.

Do you remember how long Apple stuck with the G3/G4 architecture in their iBooks/PowerBooks? For years I'm sure many users wanted newer Apple notebooks, but were unsatisfied with yet another G4-based notebook. During that time, the Pentium M architecture had been available since March 2003, so there was no corresponding pent-up demand from non-Apple notebook buyers.

Maybe I'm overestimating this pent-up demand. Maybe they're mostly new Apple customers, not old Apple customers. However, I won't be surprised if Apple's notebook marketshare stabilizes or even goes down slightly as most of the longtime iBook/PowerBook owners finally upgrade to modern CPUs.

Re:Apple laptops?

[stewbacca]

companies are slow to change.

Vista might help push them in that (i.e., a different) direction. If their current machines don't run Vista well, and they have to upgrade, I wouldn't be surprised to see some organizations making the leap to Macs. If you gotta fork out the money for new machines, that might just be the excuse pencil-pushing budget geeks need to justify a Mac switch. If they already have XP licenses for hundreds of machines, boot camp is their answer.

Re:Apple laptops?

[stewbacca]

Well, this is a start:

"Apple sold over 1.25 million Macs--including 667,000 desktops and 587,000 portables, a 20 percent increase from the year-ago. ... Apple did say, however, that it may not be able to meet demand for its new Intel-based MacBook Pro in the current quarter." http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/01/18/apples.holi day.quarter/

Re:Apple laptops?

[stewbacca]

Sorry...forgot to mention these numbers were from just the 4th quarter only.

Re:Apple laptops?

[Overzeetop]

I agree with you. There is little reason to have a PC at home today. The one thing still going for MS is that everybody understands MS. Different==scary in America.

The reason most people used to have MS at home was that they had MS at work - and in the days before IT departments, you just took the software from work home and loaded it onto your personal computer. The company paid, and you played. Not that it mattered much - hardware costs easily outstripped software costs in those days, and the BSA and product activiation wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of the industry.

Today, software is guarded under lock and key in the corporate IT office, and rightly so now that one computer-one license activation is prevalent in the higher cost packages. People are either getting pirated copies off the net, or buying them outright. Pirating software, btw, is still heavily in favor of the PC, which is what keeps it out there. People will spend hours to save a few bucks.

Re:Apple laptops?

[stewbacca]

I'm lucky enough to work in educational technology, and we have hundreds of licenses laying around...free to any teacher, student, staff member interested in having one. Seems like a huge waste of money to me, considering most teachers don't know Microsoft Office from their orifice...

Re:Apple laptops?

[RedWizzard]

I don't expect companies to be quick to adopt Vista. A lot of corporate systems I come in contact with are still using Windows 2000. I expect most upgrades to Vista to happen only when support for XP is terminated.

Rats.

[TripMaster Monkey]

Still no flying cars.

Damnit...

I was promised flying cars...

Re:Rats.

[theStorminMormon]

Seriously. And I want my jetpack.

-stormin

Re:Rats.

[WormholeFiend]

And Duke Nukem Forever

Re:Rats.

[morgan_greywolf]

Still no flying cars.

Here you go, flying cars. Happy now?

Re:Rats.

[Skrynesaver]

Here you go, definitve proof the Austrailians are working on it ;)

Re:Rats.

[MattHawk]

Given the standard quality of driving shown by drivers when only having to deal with 2d, I don't think you want to have to have them deal with 3d. A collision is bad enough when it doesn't also result in the two vehicles falling out of the sky and smooshing whatever happens to be directly below >.

Re:Rats.

[spun]

Hey TMM, long time no post, eh? Welcome back!

Forget about the flying cars, I want my jetpack. Actually, forget the jetpack, I want my Orgasmatron.

Re:Rats.

[pPnf]

You already have flying cars. You've had them for years.

They're called helicopters

Thankfully, the licence requirements are a helluva lot stricter than the "open your lucky box of cereal" method for car licences...

Re:Rats.

[Kuvter]

Rats, I hate rats. They make me crazy. Crazy, I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. I died in that room and they buried me in the cold hard ground with rats. Rats, I hate rats. They make me crazy. Crazy, I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. I died in that room and they buried me in the cold hard ground with rats. Rats, I hate rats. They make me crazy. Crazy, I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. I died in that room and they buried me in the cold hard ground with rats

I still want teleportation, le sigh.

interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jimstapleton]

Year o' the Laptop Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks.

With the popularity of notebooks, I can see this, except for the 20% by Apple, I doubt they'll surpass 10-15% at best.

Print to Web A major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.

Not sure that this'll happen, unless you want to stretch the definition of "a major newpaper".

HD-DVD Wins HD-DVD is the clear winner over Blu-ray in the DVD format wars. Oh yeah, and the PS3 is a bust.

The latter was more-or-less already true before 2007 started. The former... It's too early to tell, never underestimate the power of marketing dweebs at selling crap.

Implantable Contact Lenses Synthetic corneas will be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, allowing the shortsighted to have artificial contact lenses transplanted right into their eyes. No more popping out!

Not really a surprise or news. I thought it had already been done, but I guess I could be wrong. Not like it'd be the first time.

No More Dads Artificial gametes made from female eggs are sold over the internet, making fathers biologically irrelevant.

Still 5+ years off. Also it's not really an online type thing until they get a USB medicomaitc or something like that. It's still going to require the wom(an|en) in question to go to a lab and/or doctors office.

PaedoSpace Sex offenders start their own social networking service. It's popular on Capitol Hill.

That's hardly insightful or news. Already done, it's called congress.

DNA Database for Athletes To stamp out doping, the Olympic Committee orders all athletes to submit DNA samples to a global database, which matches blood found in doping forensics to cheats. Forensics include needles, tubes, bags of blood and skin cells on stacks of 100-euro notes seized at doping clinics.

Got bridge? Want one? This won't happen.

Online Sitcom Picked Up by Network Encouraged by the news, the internet becomes home to 5,000 clones of Friends, shot by friends using their friends but unwatched even by their friends.

Wired, meet youtube, youtube meet wired.

MySpace Spaces Out MySpace splinters as teens head for niche sites. New services that control profiles across multiple social networking sites begin to take off.

Possible, but I doubt it. Most people are too lazy to move.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jwdav]

With regards to "With the popularity of notebooks, I can see this, except for the 20% by Apple, I doubt they'll surpass 10-15% at best"

Apple had 12% market share of laptop sales last June, given the rise of Apple market share since then, and the general trend, it's quite likely that 20% is within reach.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jimstapleton]

I have trouble beliving that, moving up 8% in a year, basically, increasing their sales by 66% of their current market share? They've been around too long, people have their minds too set on what Apple is and isn't.

With a very few exceptions, most of the people I knwo think Macs are silly and useless computers with limited capabilities. And most of my friends aren't tech geeks. They pretty much laugh at the Apple commercials as misleading and lies (which isn't horribly inaccurate IMO).

I guess I just don't see that switch happening.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jwdav]

Apple's latest overall market share is around 5-6%, but in *laptops* it's much higher. Reported by Ars Technica as 12% and climbing last June. http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/7/2 5/4753

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jimstapleton]

Wow quite a jump from january to june, but I still don't think they can keep it up, not without something really innovative, or at least taking in some of the not-so-innovative but still nice ideas.

I suspect 2007 will be the year the Tablet really hits off, because of it's convinience, if Apple makes a tablet, they might have chance.

If Apple makes a tablet with a DVI port, they might even have me as a buyer, although OS would be replaced by FreeBSD before the day is out.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Quasicorps]

Fox News now projects HD-DVD the winner in Florida...

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Achromatic1978]

Problem is, that's going to plateau. At some point they'll reach that point where to gain any inroads they have to start replacing all the corporate Dells, Compaqs and IBMs - then their growth will slow dramatically, "rightly" or "wrongly".

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Glock27]

With a very few exceptions, most of the people I knwo think Macs are silly and useless computers with limited capabilities. And most of my friends aren't tech geeks.

The thing is, we tech "geeks" who actually know what we're talking about like Apple's products for the most part. Apple products also have some very tangible advantages, and Macs are clearly the most flexible computers on the market.

As to "limited capabilities", I have no idea what you're talking about. I recently picked up a 24" iMac and I'm very pleased with it so far. It definitely outshines any other computer I've had.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[P. Niss]

Still 5+ years off. Also it's not really an online type thing until they get a USB medicomaitc or something like that. It's still going to require the wom(an|en) in question to go to a lab and/or doctors office.

What's a womanlen?

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[drinkypoo]

I do think apple has a chance to get that percentage of the notebook market this year. They are overwhelmingly the machine to get today, that is, if you don't want a numeric keyboard. I'm sitting at a HPQ nw9440 that has the same specs as a MBP (missing some doodads, has some other doodads the mac is missing) and it's got a numeric keypad and frankly I can't live without the thing since I play strategy games. Plus instead of bullshit ATI graphics I have nVidia Quadro FX in here. I want to run Linux more than I want to run MacOSX (which I don't think is all that great - maybe a few hundred bucks' worth of point releases later it will be...) so I want nVidia. ATI drivers are shit.

You're 100% on the newspaper, and probably everything else except, I think, for the DNA tests at the Olympics. The Olympic committee is already positively ridiculous about the level of control they exercise over the event - not only can you not videotape anything or photograph many things, but you can't even bring a container with a competing soda company's logo on it into the olympic grounds. Since it's a voluntary and independent association and event, I don't see any reason why the olympics would be unable to do this. I also think that most athletes would accept it, barring those interested in freedom and those who are using performance-enhancing drugs.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jimstapleton]

The thing is, we tech "geeks" who actually know what we're talking about like Apple's products for the most part. Apple products also have some very tangible advantages, and Macs are clearly the most flexible computers on the market.

The majority of knowledgeable geeks I know of don't really think that way. More of them think that way than the non-geeks, as a rough percentage, but the lack of hardware, the lack of software and the overall closed-platform that they had been stuck on for so long makes them less than desireable. That are not clearly one of the most flexible computers, they have a lot of limitations along with their advantages.

Apple expects peoples wants and needs to adapt to their computers, you find that is a lot less common in the PC world.

1) You can build your own PC, can't do that with an Apple
2) Until recently, you could put MacOS and maybe wiggle a few flavors of *Nix or *Nix clones on a Mac, PCs had pretty much everything but MacOS, and some industrial-grade operating systems available for them.
3) There's a lot more software avialable for Windows for Apple, you can also find more or at least comparable amounts for Linux and BSD as well.
4) The majority of hardware/peripherials you find is labeled for Windows. While you can often use them on other operating systems (Linux, BSD, MacOS), the stuff that works on Macs is still a lot less common, probably even less common than that which will work on Linux.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jimstapleton]

I got my toshiba, about the same specs as a mac, much lower price (both use intel GMA graphics, not ATi), and I'm quite happy with it. Aside from the fact that

(A) It's not a tablet, didn't have the money for one at the time
(B) Video out is VGA, not DVI

I run FreeBSD on it and am quite happy with it. I can't see spending the extra to get a mac and not getting anything more useful with the extra money.

I see Macs as the machine to get more because of marketing than anything else. I'd rather have a Toshiba, Lenovo or Dell myself.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[soft_guy]

I suspect 2007 will be the year the Tablet really hits off, because of it's convinience, if Apple makes a tablet, they might have chance. Tablets have been around too long, people have their minds too set on what Tablets are and aren't.

With a very few exceptions, most of the people I knwo think Tablets are silly and useless computers with limited capabilities. And most of my friends aren't tech geeks. They pretty much laugh at the commercials for Tablets as misleading and lies (which isn't horribly inaccurate IMO).

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[soft_guy]

the stuff that works on Macs is still a lot less common, probably even less common than that which will work on Linux. Were you high when you wrote this?

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jimstapleton]

No, I wasn't

A lot more hardware supports Windows than Mac OS.
In my experience, it seems that a lot more hardware is even supported under Linux through independant/OSS drivers, than is supported under Apple. Admittedly the Apple support is more often through first party drivers, which are probably going to be more stable, in general it seems Linux still has more available drivers for hardware that didn't necessarily come with the computer.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[drinkypoo]

I got my toshiba, about the same specs as a mac, much lower price (both use intel GMA graphics, not ATi)

Uh no. Macbook pro uses ATI. The machine I'm comparing has the same specs as a MBP, except that instead of a camera and a backlit keyboard with no numpad, it has a crypto/trusted computing module (actually quite handy as a crypto accelerator) and an ambient light sensor. And the one failing area, no firewire boot :( I mentioned the MBP specifically in my comment because it's the only mac I would consider buying - an integrated machine that doesn't fold up so that I can take it places is just a stupid fucking idea (iMac), the base macbook has not enough power, and the desktop systems are horrendously overpriced compared to building my own clone - they're not cheaper than buying a prebuilt PC, really, but you don't have the option of kit-building a mac.

Thanks for playing.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[soft_guy]

No, I wasn't Yes, you are.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Prophet of Nixon]

How is that Quadro FX? I saw that Toshiba was putting that in the M5, but I couldn't find any specs or info on it anywhere (even NVIDIA wouldn't return my mail)... does it perform reasonably well for games, keep a decent temperature, etc?

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[squiggleslash]

The problem is that figure isn't sustainable. Apple got a major blip on the marketshare figures when they released the Intel MacBooks, which had been long awaited and an absolutely huge number of already-committed-to-the-Mac people had been holding off buying a laptop for.

I don't doubt their marketshare grew, even ignoring that group, but I really suspect the figures wouldn't have looked so out of place had the Intel MacBooks been released six months earlier.

I can see 10% as a reasonable long term figure for their laptop marketshare, as long as they keep up the excitement factor.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Jon A. Mbeki, Esq.]

The Olympic committee is already positively ridiculous ... you can't even bring a container with a competing soda company's logo on it into the olympic grounds.

Are you sure you're not talking about FIFA?

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[squiggleslash]

Given the sheer volume of drivers in Linux for the obscure and barely heard of, I suspect he wasn't, and I can't really fathom why you'd think he was.

The Linux kernel has an extremely diverse set of drivers. The difficulty is usually getting it all set up, not finding the driver (with some exceptions.) By comparison, Mac OS X only comes with drivers for a specific shortlist of devices, in some categories only devices Apple themselves sell.

I've been through the bizarre process of editing a device driver binary with "vi" under Jaguar in order to get my newly bought, generic, off-the-shelf, would-work-without-anything-special-under-Linux, CD burner to work under Mac OS X's CD burning regime. Very wierd. (I added the link after deciding most people would read that claim as so ridiculous, I must be trolling. No, seriously, that's what I had to do.)

Mac OS X "just works" because, as those opposed to Apple selling Mac OS X for generic PCs never tire of reminding everyone, Apple controls the hardware it runs on. They sell the widget, they provide drivers for the widgets they ship, and with a few honourable exceptions (most USB and Firewire devices fitting particular generic profiles, many phones, cameras, and printers), they don't support anything else.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[rdoger6424]

wom(an|en)
the | character means or, so this could be read as "woman or women"

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[jacem]

Problem is, that's going to plateau. At some point they'll reach that point where to gain any inroads they have to start replacing all the corporate Dells, Compaqs and IBMs - then their growth will slow dramatically, "rightly" or "wrongly".

With the quality I've been seeing from Dell and HP (Compaq) I'd have to say that they are ripe for replacement.

JACEM

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[stewbacca]

1) You can build your own PC, can't do that with an Apple 2) Until recently, you could put MacOS and maybe wiggle a few flavors of *Nix or *Nix clones on a Mac, PCs had pretty much everything but MacOS, and some industrial-grade operating systems available for them. 3) There's a lot more software avialable for Windows for Apple, you can also find more or at least comparable amounts for Linux and BSD as well. 4) The majority of hardware/peripherials you find is labeled for Windows. While you can often use them on other operating systems (Linux, BSD, MacOS), the stuff that works on Macs is still a lot less common, probably even less common than that which will work on Linux.

Hello, this is 1993. I would like my arguments back. What's this I hear that Macs only have one mouse button?

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[stewbacca]

an integrated machine that doesn't fold up so that I can take it places is just a stupid fucking idea (iMac),

Yeah, that "stupid f'ing idea" looks horrible on my desk with its one wire (power cable) coming out of the back. How awful! I guess if I actually wanted to take it somewhere, I WOULD buy a MacBook (or a Pro). Oh wait, I already did that too.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[TobascoKid]

Print to WebA major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.

Not sure that this'll happen, unless you want to stretch the definition of "a major newpaper".
  I'd bet what is more likely to happen would be a that a major metropolitan newspaper will switch to a smaller, free "commuter" edition, that would be backed by a bigger online presence. In the UK, this has already sort of started happening, with the publishers of the Evening Standard now publishing a smaller, free version called London Lite, alongside the larger, non-free Evening Standard. Both the Evening Standard and London Lite share the same backing website - www.thisislondon.co.uk, though it's more entertainment than news focused.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Mike1024]

MySpace Spaces Out MySpace splinters as teens head for niche sites. [....] Possible, but I doubt it. Most people are too lazy to move.

That might not be true.

Re:interesting, not necessarily agreed...

[Glock27]

Sorry I got busy and forgot to check this for replies. I hope you notice it. ;-)

The majority of knowledgeable geeks I know of don't really think that way. More of them think that way than the non-geeks, as a rough percentage, but the lack of hardware, the lack of software and the overall closed-platform that they had been stuck on for so long makes them less than desireable. That are not clearly one of the most flexible computers, they have a lot of limitations along with their advantages.

You are conflating MacOS with Mac hardware. Mac hardware runs MacOS, Windows (either virtual or native), and Linux (either virtual or native). So, there is no other computer that you can buy that is as flexible of a software platform than a Mac. Sorry I wasn't more clear, though I think you're off on your other conclusions too, see below.

Apple expects peoples wants and needs to adapt to their computers, you find that is a lot less common in the PC world.

This isn't really true any more, though I'm sure it'd be nice if Apple had even more models. What you should really look at now are the Mac Pros, which are highly configurable (something like 2 billion possible configurations from the Apple Store, and a lot more if you take into account third party hardware). I'd like to see a Core 2 Duo based tower at a lower price point, but that's the only big hole in Apple's lineup.

1) You can build your own PC, can't do that with an Apple

Since Apple is a hardware manufacturer, that isn't too surprising. You can't build your own IBM or Dell either. But yes, that is one area I'd like to see Apple change, I'd like them to sell their OS for a few hundred dollars to run on third party hardware using approved devices.

2) Until recently, you could put MacOS and maybe wiggle a few flavors of *Nix or *Nix clones on a Mac, PCs had pretty much everything but MacOS, and some industrial-grade operating systems available for them.

I'm not at all sure what you mean here. Current Macs run MacOS, Linux, Windows, and most likely any other x86 compatible OS (say QNX for example).

3) There's a lot more software avialable for Windows for Apple, you can also find more or at least comparable amounts for Linux and BSD as well.

Since Mac _hardware_ runs all of those operating systems (and runs most of the software fine in virtualized environments) I'd say you're off base here. Plus, since MacOS is POSIX, a lot of *nix software compiles and runs fine with no modifications.

4) The majority of hardware/peripherials you find is labeled for Windows. While you can often use them on other operating systems (Linux, BSD, MacOS), the stuff that works on Macs is still a lot less common, probably even less common than that which will work on Linux.

Yes, but the need for third-party hardware is reduced with a Mac. Plus, many things do work, for instance most Bluetooth, USB and Firewire devices - which is a big chunk of the market.

I think Apple is going to see a big upswing in computer sales over the next few years as word spreads of how painless, fun, and powerful Macs are compared to the competition.

What is so great about IM?

[Buskaatt]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

There's no way to archive the messages is there?

Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?

How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?

Re:What is so great about IM?

[SQLGuru]

* No archive = harder to trace those solicitations from congressman to page
* You don't forward the thread, you simply invite them into the chat

But, I agree. IM has it's place, but it is the same reason that our cell phones (which we carry around with us all the time) have voicemail. IM is the phone call and E-mail is the voice mail. I don't see either of them going away (maybe morphing into something better, but not going away).

Layne

Re:What is so great about IM?

[Rob T Firefly]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great? There's no way to archive the messages is there? Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index? How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

By running a quick text search on my Gaim logs, which are stored in bog-standard HTML files, I see that someone asked me that very question in 2003.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[Valthan]

Meet Google Talk paired with Gmail! Everything you asked for an more (and they even come together... need an invite, let me know!)

Re:What is so great about IM?

[east coast]

There's no way to archive the messages is there?
Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?
How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

And a more important question...

If all of this functionality was put into an IM client would it still be IM or would we just start calling it eMail?

This isn't much unlike the "death" of the PDA. The PDA isn't dying, it's migrating. The current common form of the PDA makes it a target for getting both bigger and smaller. In the case of it getting smaller we turn it into the smartphone. When it gets larger it's just another laptop/tablet. I find the people who scoff at stuff like PDAs are the people who wonder where new technology comes from because they don't see it for what it was in the past.

Not unlike the station wagon becoming the SUV. (That's right, SUV drivers, you're actually driving the old grocery getter with a new body and a lift kit... and Jeep is laughing all the way to the bank.)

Re:What is so great about IM?

[thebdj]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?
Instant gratification? Even e-mail is not as instantaneous as IMs are. Far less spam. Granted IM is getting spammed, but not at the rate that e-mail is.

There's no way to archive the messages is there?
GAIM

Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?
See my previous answer. If you log, you can search those logs using GAIM. Not real hard. Tons of other programs offer this option as well.

How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?
Logs have timestamps. Marvelous little thing that tells you the date and time a message was sent. Forwarding messages might be possible. Worst case you copy and paste. Most chat systems also offer chat room options. AOL IM offers you the ability to create a room and invite the people you want to it. This can be accomplished and logged with the above.

I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?
Obviously a lot. IM is coming into increasing usage. We have a Jabber server at work for all internal communications, it is used more than the e-mail system or the phones are. I actually have to get up from my desk once a day just to make sure that people are really in this place. I do not know how big it will be with inter-office communications, especially considering a lot of companies headed by older execs still don't use e-mail well. (Trust me, plenty of offices are still sending TONS of paper memos.)

Re:What is so great about IM?

[owlnation]

Can I also add to this list my biggest hatred of IM, that when I have used it in the past I found it extremely invasive. It either steals focus causing you to paste god knows what into an IM to absolutely the wrong person, or still naggingly flashing in the corner of my eye to the point where I have to stop what I'm doing and deal with it. At least you can turn of the annoying sound effects if you want. (why does anything, ever, need to flash and nag in the corner of my screen - not even anti-virus software needs to do this, it should always be optional.)

It is the little slow death of sanity, productivity and concentration.

Still, I don't think this is technically an unsurmountable issue, nor are the points made by the parent post. I'm sure it must be possible to add more control to messaging clients so that you can have them gathering messages in the background, and add a way of storing and logging messages when you need to. Clients need to be able to talk to each other too - AIM to Yahoo to Google talk or whatever.

Or do these things already exist and it's just that my bad experiences with IM historically has prevented me exploring this fact?

Re:What is so great about IM?

[finkployd]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

It's more real time than email usually is. I use it for when a phone call would be too much trouble (quick one off questions and such) or when cutting and pasting code and/or config lines is needed.

There's no way to archive the messages is there?

Gaim can easily save everything to text files

Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?

grep the text files

How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?,

copy/paste

As for threaded discussions, you want email (or NNTP), not IM. IM is not some holy grail that covers all communication needs.

I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?

I think your mistake is looking for a sole means of electronic communication.

Finkployd

Re:What is so great about IM?

[Qzukk]

How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people?

I use bash.org for that.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[nacturation]

Or you could use a service that people actually use, like MSN Messenger. Which (optionally) gets archived to your hard drive in an XML format. I'm sure MS has some tools for corporations to auto-archive company IM accounts as well... I think Live Communications Server is their thing.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[ThJ]

These things already exist and your bad experiences with IM have prevented you from exploring this fact. In most programs you can turn off all the flashing and sounds and even smileys if you wish. Anyway, I keep them all on, because the worst thing I know is typing to someone and they ignore me. I don't want this to happen to my friends, so I leave the notifications on so I can reply to them immediately. Think of it like a small office where the coworkers do their separate stuff and chitchat in between working. Nothing distracting about it.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Umm...Say what?

"There's no way to archive the messages is there?"
- YES there is. Most IM's today allow for archiving, Yahoo even does it by default archiving every message - a bad idea from a security perspective, so in fact it does it in extreme.

"Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?"
- Sort of, it's automatically done for you. Yahoo provides a search option to search within the archive.

"How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?"
- Easy, after you finished your search, you just copy/paste it into little IM windows of whom you want to forward it to, or alternatively copy/paste it into some technology they called "e-mail".

Jokes aside, IM is an awesome tool for the home user. In the top 3 I would say. Web, Email & IM are pretty much the most used software for most home users these days. In the Enterprise, especially the large Enterprise (not a star trek reference), I can see it as a tool that if opened to the world (i.e. anybody can message you at any time on any subject) it will likely make you less focused on your work and therefore less productive. IM still needs to mature a lot in the Enterprise - I'd suggest starting out with some piloting options from a focus group to determine how IM might be useful & a positive technology (if at all) in your company. Such a study might be followed by development of co-herent user policies with "how-to and when-to" tidbits, as well as actual back-end management suite with group-policy like controls to enforce those policies. I think the missing piece these days is mature back-end management software.

just my 2 cents.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[ajs318]

You're missing
grep phrase $HOME/.gaim/logs/protocol/login_name/*
Your IM conversations are stored right there in plain text. (So are your passwords, in $HOME/.gaim/accounts.xml -- but that's alright because the directory is 700 so nobody except you or root can read them.)

Re:What is so great about IM?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

IM provides the opportunity for realtime communication and you know who is available to talk right now. So it is faster and more responsive than e-mail. IM is text based so you can send exact numbers, quotes, etc. You can also easily multitask and chat with multiple people, unlike phone conversations which don't scale.

There's no way to archive the messages is there? Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?

Of course. I log all my chats locally and they are indexed and searchable.

How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

If you want to "forward" info you should switch mediums to e-mail, which is not real time. Many e-mail clients now integrate with chat. I can send a selection or entire transcript with a key combo and one click. Chats are time stamped as well.

...if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?

You're missing the fact that it is not going to be the sole means of communication. IM fills a role, it does not replace other mediums. Also, unlike e-mail which is standardized, IM is currently intentionally broken by the entrenched players who are trying to gain complete control. E-mail did not take off until AOL and other players agreed to a standard and you could send mail to anyone using your choice of client and server. When this happened, competition made them all better and now it is indispensable. If and when the same thing happens for IM, it will explode in popularity and usefulness. I'm not sure this will happen as soon as this article predicts.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[drsquare]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

The same thing that makes the telephone, or even those old 'conversations' so great. Being able to have a conversation with people.

If you need to ask the value of that, then I pity you.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[Bryansix]

I see you have never use GMail Chat. It does all of this.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[Canordis]

I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great? There's no way to archive the messages is there?

Yes there is. It's called message logging. GTalk even archives to your Gmail account for you.

Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?

Yes.

How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

Meet Copy and Paste. Copy and Paste, meet Buskaat.

I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?

IM is akin to talking in person, or to phones. You can get more done through an IM conversation because you get instant feedback. Email's sole advantage is that the person doesn't have to be online, or near his keyboard, or have time to talk to you.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[jZnat]

Also, unlike e-mail which is standardized, IM is currently intentionally broken by the entrenched players who are trying to gain complete control. E-mail did not take off until AOL and other players agreed to a standard and you could send mail to anyone using your choice of client and server. When this happened, competition made them all better and now it is indispensable. If and when the same thing happens for IM, it will explode in popularity and usefulness.

This is why we have Jabber.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This is why we have Jabber.

Jabber has a little traction in business and Google is behind it with a tiny market share and Apple is sort of behind it with support in iChat. Unfortunately Microsoft and Yahoo together have a huge chunk and they're partnering for interoperability and likely to dominate the market, thus preventing an open standard from emerging. They hope to collect a toll in advertisements and server licensing and they will probably succeed unless people wise up or the government steps in. If only AOL would throw their weight behind it Jabber would have a real chance.

Re:What is so great about IM?

[spun]

Hey, you still have that robe and wizard hat? ;)

Re:First

[SQLGuru]

Internet Traffic Doubles to 5,000 petabits per day by the end of 2007. And 80 percent of it is peer-to-peer file sharing, mostly Skype video and BitTorrent.

How many petabits are wasted on "Frist Psot" posts one wonders......

Layne

Re:Lottery

[Technician]

And I'm goin' win the big lottery!

I already did. I have several e-mails to prove it. Someday I'm going to have to call and ask when they are sending the money.

Only IM at work -- NOT

[PeeAitchPee]

Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work.

Sorry, wrong, *buzzz*. Email will continue to be the corporate IT bedrock it's been for the last decade. While IM is great for those young folks with a short attention spam pushing around uber-important stuff like "OMG?!?!? He dumped her? Shes gonna like be sooooo drunk tonite!" -- and I'll admit it even has a place augmenting email in certain areas of the enterprise -- corporate america already has billions in infrastructure built around this more persistant method of communication. I for one have noticed that if I leave "on" an IM client at work I get pestered to the point where I just end up keeping it off, and eventually unstall it.

Re:Only IM at work -- NOT

[antifoidulus]

While IM is great for those young folks with a short attention spam

Was that intentional? How does one have a "long attention spam"?

Re:Only IM at work -- NOT

[tcopeland]

> Email will continue to be the corporate
> IT bedrock it's been for the last decade.

Unless people start using a spam-free alternative, like indi.

Re:Only IM at work -- NOT

[CrazyTalk]

Actually (although this contradicts an earlier post of mine) I find IM extremely useful for having online status "Chats" with developers spread across the US, India, and Brazil. It is interactive, we can cut and paste code and links, and it is easier to understand all parties who may not have excellent English and/or good international telephone connections.

Re:Only IM at work -- NOT

[AnyoneEB]

Strangely, if you set your e-mail client to notify you of new e-mails within 5 seconds, it's just as distracting.

Marketing

[hypermanng]

They were trying to establish a viable colony and needed to attract more colonists. "Hostile Frigid Waste" wasn't working, so Greenland it was.

Re:Marketing

[Overzeetop]

Maybe North Dakota should hire the same marketing firm. They just keep getting stuck on Dakota, but it's going to take a lot more than that to convice people that it's not damned cold.

No one cares?

[sqlrob]

Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work

I just stopped using one of my accounts at work because of spim. So yes, people care.

Re:No one cares?

[tehcyder]

spim

My prediction for the year is a vast increase in pointless neologisms.

Beta plus for effort

[frisket]

I'd say over 50% of the forecasts will turn out -- but only in the USA. Some of them are already USA-specific anyway (eg TiVo) and WIRED notoriously has a set of blinkers that restrict its vision to the contiguous 48 states (and sometimes just to Californyaa). The real skinny:

• Google Stock -- who gives a flying f*ck anyway except the tiny number who own some?
• Internet Traffic -- bandwidth is always in demand, but it will be 80% taken up by spam
• BitTorrent on TiVo -- more likely BitTorrent will be throttled by some dipsh*t judgment
• Spam Doubles -- sure, and more; but only those with no work to do use IM
• Second Life murder -- the miracle is that it hasn't happened already
• Year o' the Laptop -- long overdue, but 20% for Macs is optimistic

Happy NúJã!

--

As the database engineer said when she realised she'd have to start using XML, "I remember when all of this was fields"

Re:Beta plus for effort

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Year o' the Laptop -- long overdue, but 20% for Macs is optimistic

Not really, as most other laptops will only come with Vista by mid-year.

Congress

[RockoTDF]

I highly doubt with a democratic congress in charge things are going to be getting any worse for us in the areas of privacy and the government any time soon.

Re:Congress

[RockoTDF]

The reality is though, it isn't going to happen for a long time. The Dems aren't going to invade privacy for the sake of it like the Republicans do.

But,

[Sippan]

They're not predicting the Second Coming of the Woz?

Wired's predictions can be tracked

[BlackjackGuy]

These predictions are being tracked on Who's Wrong (along with lots of others).

how about this?

[argStyopa]

The clueless journalists that want to write about something 'edgy' and 'VR' discover that Second Life is a lame excuse for a massively-multiplayer online experience (pretty much used only by the clueless), and stop referring to it as if it's the be-all and end-all archetypical "VR" experience?

Nah, I doubt it too.

Re:how about this?

[drinkypoo]

So what is out there that is more expansive and powerful than second life? Do you suppose we'll all end up living in squeakland?

Where's the obligatory...

[WhyDoYouWantToKnow]

Where are the XYZ iPod killers that will revolutionize the world and cure cancer to boot predictions?

How can they call these predictions for 2007 if there's no iPod killer?

I was promised an iPod killer. I want my iPod killer. Where is my iPod killer?

Re:Where's the obligatory...

[Bitmanhome]

It's already here. Turns out, it's another iPod.

Re:Where's the obligatory...

[stewbacca]

I thought it was the Zune? Speaking of...I have an idea, tell me what you think. Since the Zune is so great, but not available here in the UK, I was thinking of snapping up the hundreds of unsold Zunes here at the Air Force base I work at and selling them on the economy. They are $250, so if I sell 100 of them for £200, with the $/£ rate at 1:2, that's $150 profit per unit! Oh wait, nobody wants to buy one? Damn....

Re:Where's the obligatory...

[thinkinggrenades]

you want Ipod killer?

Its here :http://gimps.de/wettbewerb/displayimage.php?pos=- 160-USB-HammerIpod Killer

Ihammer

Re:Where's the obligatory...

[Bitmanhome]

Buy 'em for 250$, sell 'em for 50lb, you won't be able to keep them in stock!

Decent predictions but...

[testednegative]

I don't buy the whole Skype video being a large part of the doubling internet traffic. Internet video has been around for a good while now and Skype can market the hell out of it but i don't think it'll aquire such a large slice of the internet pipes. The move from email to IM is also unlikely, way too many business' and way too much money already invested in email servers/infrastructure.
Besides that, decent predictions. I think we can all vouch for notebooks slowly taking over the desktop market, case and point would be that this last year alone I bought a laptop for myself, my dad bought himself a laptop and my sister a macbook. I don't think macbooks will take such a large share of the notebook market allthough I do think they will be top contenders.

My prediction is that there will be more spam (seems like a sureshot every year, unfortunately) and botnets will be taken ever more seriousely (I hope at least).
my 2cents.

Google 1,000?

[LuisAnaya]

Yes, I believe it. According to their future estimates per growth and multiple, it should be trading about $700 by the end of 2007, with a low estimate of $600. It might not happen by 2007, but if it continues to grow at the same rate for 2008, I would believe seeing up to 1,000 if it does not split somewhere in '07.

Additions

[Bish.dk]

A major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.
This actually already happened late last year.

Digg holds out for a big payday but ends up like Friendster (i.e., no friends).
This point should perhaps come with the disclaimer that Digg-competitor Reddit.com is owned by Wired.

Re:Additions

[TomHandy]

I don't think that really counts. From the article, it is described as "Post Och Inrikes Tidningar, the official Swedish publication for bankruptcies, company and government announcements" - this sounds way too specific to be considered a "major newspaper", which I think is the point of the prediction.

Re:HD-DVD Wins?

[octaene]

when it becomes more affordable, do you think people are going to go out and get HD-DVD players, when they most likely already have one in their Dell or Apple computer? Not to mention that it's already in their PS3 that they have in the home media center, if they don't have a HTPC.

Boy, you're making a lot of assumptions. I have never, nor will I own a game console or a Dell. OK, maybe an Apple. But the reason this battle is important is because I want to buy a DVD player that will play the damn discs I buy or rent. Are we going to have to have 3 devices just to watch a frikkin' movie?

spam

[OriginalArlen]

"Spam doubles but no-one cares because everyone's using IM" -- they have got to be kidding. Not a chance in hell.

Trade on these predictions

[inventric]

I added a bunch of these to Inkling Markets if anyone wanted to share their opinion that way: http://home.inklingmarkets.com/market/list?term=wi red/

Re:HD-DVD Wins?

[HappySqurriel]

I could be completely wrong, but I suspect that neither format will be adopted by the masses (at least for quite awhile) but HD-DVD has a much better chance than Blu-Ray.

Currently, both formats are way too expensive and offer too small of a benefit for most people to consider upgrading at the moment; the image difference between an upscaled DVD and a High-Definition source is far too small for most people (who are not accustomed to HD content because they have not been exposed to much atm) to notice, and neither HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray have stand alone players that are available in the sub $300 price range yet.

The advantage HD-DVD has is that it will probably hit the $300 price range sometime in 2007 whereas Blu-Ray will be in that price range in 2008; HD-DVD will probably hit $200 in 2008 wheras Blu-Ray will hit $200 in 2009. Now, there is no quality difference in the Sound produced by HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and the storage capacity benefits of Blu-Ray can easily be matched (surpassed) by producing an extra disc (the last thing I heard was that it was cheaper to produce 2 HD-DVDs than it was to produce one Blu-Ray disc but I could be wrong) so most people are going to buy their HD player based on the price.

The PS3 will (likely) put a lot of Blu-Ray players into people's homes, but it is unlikely that they will lead to that many Blu-Ray (movie) disc sales in comparison to HD-DVD disc sales; someone who spends $500 on a movie player will probably buy far more movies than someone who spends $500 on a game system/movie player, and even the people who buy the $200 XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on will be more likely to buy HD-DVD movies than someone who bought a $500 PS3 because they went out of their way to get movie playback. If studios do not see a (major) benefit of supporting one format over the other they will (likely) release movies on both formats; this means that (with the exception of Sony Pictures) every movie that is produced for Blu-Ray will likely be produced for HD-DVD.

Re:and People Continue to Slander Google.

[NineNine]

Now that he's burnt through software and hardware makers,

You're right. It's nearly impossible to find hardware or software that works with Microsoft products.

So, despite tremendous family money and legal connections and great initial success, Microsoft will soon fail.

Are you actually delusional, or just trolling?

IM at work

[CrazyTalk]

We are all using IM at work? I highly doubt it. Most companies I have worked for, and most companies where my friends work, take great pains to prevent use of IM. Beyond just fear of employees wasting time chatting with friends, there is a perceived security risk (yes, there are precautions that can be taken if they bothered) of sending confidential data etc.

Re:IM at work

[spun]

We just set up our own Jabber server. It has been deemed marginally useful. No security risk because it's all in-house. No idle chat risk because it's all logged. Marginally useful for those circumstances when you need a quick answer, you need to see who is available to ask, and a short email or phone call would take too long.

Re:IM at work

[stewbacca]

IM at work will most likely only happen in Mac-centric environments, and only when the overwhelming majority of Macs are a less than a couple of years old (i.e., equipped with iSight and iChat). My experience in computer education is that schools (and most likely, businesses) are too lazy or ill-equipped to actually install all the necessary components for IM. Since all recent Macs have this capability right out of the box, this is the only way I'd see it happening. I have so many family and friends back in the States that I don't chat with, because they can't configure their AIM to do video or receive files with the ease of Mac-to-Mac iChat. It really bothers me that my ex won't take the time to configure her pc so I can video chat with my kids.

Ironic link

[Hoi Polloi]

Ironically, this link was next to the article.

Where's the 2006 predictions?

[bitspotter]

I find it far more useful to look at an oracle's track record than at their predictions. don't you? Pending predictions are just there to go in the bin until you can tell whether or not they're actually accurate.

Some cursory searching yields no old wired predictions articles. Anybody else have better luck?

Re:HD-DVD Wins?

[HappySqurriel]

There were also lots of people who bought PSPs as UMD players but that didn't really help that format.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the average number of HD-DVD movie sales per system sold (including the XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on) will likely be far greater than the average number of Blu-Ray movie sales per system sold. The reason for this is someone who buys a stand-alone player (or add-on) at these price is likely going to be a reasonably large movie fan as compared to someone who buys an videogame system with an integrated movie player.

There were a lot of studios that supported UMD but that didn't help the format.

Sony got a lot of studios to support Blu-Ray by promising that the PS3 would be released in Q2 of 2006, and they kept a lot of support after the delay by promising 2 Million PS3 systems sold at launch, with 2 Million additional PS3s sold by the end of 2006 and a total of 6 Million sold worldwide by March 2007; even with my earlier argument of a better ratio of movies sold per system, the PS3 would have ensured higher Blu-Ray movie sales. The fact is that Sony will not even come close to meeting these numbers, which will mean that more studios will look into supporting HD-DVD. Now, the PS3 could still recover over the second half of 2007 but ( being that most mainstream and gaming related news sites have proclaimed the PS3 a dud) I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:and People Continue to Slander Google.

[MyOtherUIDis3digits]

I pity people who think that the only way to get ahead is to screw someone else.

It's true that great power lies ahead both ways, but unfortunately the path of the "light side" is an unmapped uphill hike through thick forest, while the "dark side" provides shuttle service.

$1000 per share? Do the math...

[Jorgandar]

I am not a financial expert but I have enough working knowledge to know this is unlikely. At the current price, $460, GOOG has a market cap of 140B and reported revenue of 6B. Compare that to microsoft, whose market cap is double, about $280B, and income is 44B. A doubling of google's stock price would make google as valuable as microsoft, with only a fraction of the income. Google is simply not as valuable as microsoft, yet.

No doubt GOOG would hit $600 or $700 this year, but not $1000, it's too high too soon. The psycology and initial "wowwing" of wall street is over. GOOG must bring in the money for the stock to see prices that high.

And that's my extremely nutty prediction for 2007.

How many will Wired call correctly?

[JazzHarper]

How many did Wired call correctly for 2006?

What do you folks think?

[spun]

Has AC called this one? Will "Zong" stop asking questions like "What do you folks think? Has AC called this one? Will "Zong" stop asking questions like "What do you folks think?....

Google integrated phones.

[bigwave111]

A Googlephone, more seriously named...it integrates with Googlemaps, youtube, pics, and groups. Using GPS, all pictures and movies can be tagged with the location of where you are, making it possible to search for images and video by location. This in turn makes the organization of pictures much easier and streamlined. Also allows for your googlepage to be updated via cell phone for personal journaling. GoogleGroups will notify you of members or events in the area and allow you to spread beyond the GoogleTalk already available to use on the phone and let you actually talk with people. Also, groups could tag things to do in their city (ie I'm into museums, my group membership tags on my phonemaps local museums) Again, using GPS, allow pairing to find friends in cities by mapping a route to meet someone.

GOOG up to $1000?

[Pendersempai]

Do they really believe their Google stock prediction? The market thinks it's pretty unlikely. If you agree with Wired, put your money where your mouth is. Here's the link to GOOG call options with a $750 strike price, a 1/18/08 expiration, and a price of only around $5.60:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=GOOG&m=2008-01

Stock options are contracts you buy that let you purchase a share of the stock at the strike price on the expiration date. In practice, this means that you are making a bet that the stock will pass the strike price by the expiration date; if you are correct, you win the difference.

So if Wired's prediction comes true, you'd earn $250 ($1000-750) for every $5.60 you spend on the option -- a 4364% return on investment. Not bad for a year's investment.

Because they've been soooo accurate in the past

[ukemike]

I remember in about 1995 they had a cover with a big smiley face and it said, "The Long Boom." They were predicting a constantly booming economy for the next 25 years. Even then I thought it was naive.

Correctness: about 1 in 2

[vikingpower]

The Mars exploration predictions will probably come true, and the ones on Google are quite plausible ( which IMHO is not sufficient a reason to buy Google stock )

My predictons

[plopez]

1) Jobs will marry bigfoot.
2) Ballmer will be revealed as an alien, from (wait for it....) "The Planet of the Apes!".
3) No one will remember any of the predictions by the pundits, allowing them to claim successes.
4) Windows 'Vista' will be the most stable and secure Windows OS *ever*.
5) BSD will finally die.
6) Web 3.0 will be the hot new thing. 2.0 will be seen as just another 'bubble'. But with 3.0 it will be different, it will be a paradigm shift to a whole new economy.
7) Thanks to the MS/Novell deal, a new era of peace, cooperation and interoperability will break out between MS and FOSS.

Remember, you read it hear first.

There are ailments that can't be solved with LASIK

[jotaeleemeese]

For those people artificial corneas are the best hope.