5 ms·

10 predictions for the world of January 1, 2020

68 points by peter123 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago
1) no way, my data certainly won't. 2) Android and Iphone will take a larger marketshare, but RIM will come back with a much revamped blackberry, and microsoft will re-do their windows mobile and this time they might even get it right. 3) facebook will die and will be replaced by the next fad 4) 3D displays are a lot harder than it seems, those that you can buy right now are all seriously inferior to people used to Hi-Def and 3D doesn't offer that much more of a user experience unless the user is completely free to go around the display. 5) is probably spot on 6) I don't think so, but what will happen is that people will be a lot more careful. 1987 to 2009 took 22 years, I think the next economic crash is a little further out, but eventually it will happen. All that it takes for that is to wait long enough, eventually people forget the previous one. 7) is pretty US centric, if you want a fixed health care system tomorrow move to Europe, Cuba or Colombia. 8) There is no drug war, that's just a figment of some peoples imaginations. 9) The energy solutions will immediately be offset by an increase in consumption by the developing world, I figure the energy-almost-crisis will be here for at least another 50 years. The only thing that will solve the energy crisis is cheap, pollution free fusion power. That will take a while. 10) The internet will force transparency on to politicians at a level that they are not used to and might actually bring something good, but the evolution of politics in America starts with making it a real democracy first, until then the two party system will rule. The day there is a 'coalition' government in the USA will be the day that there is a real possibility of change, instead of just 'lipservice' change.
- teralaser 17y ago
  good 2nd calls, except 6) ... 1987 was a bit technical actually, while we had 1998 (asia), 2000-2001 (dotcom/tech), and with those US twin decifits (currency/government) still out of whack, it won't take long for the next one. We only patched things very superficially.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    That's true, but I think the current one will have much longer term effects in terms of banking reforms and that's what hopefully will stave off the next one for a long time.
  - borism 17y ago
    I don't think 2007-2012 crash/depression has ended yet.
    - gaius 17y ago
      I don't think the 2001 crash is over yet. The 80s and 90s both had bull markets, phases of "irrational exuberance", the 00s was missing one. Gordon Brown said he'd do away with "boom and bust" and it turns out he has, by eliminating booms...
- jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
  3) I think facebook is here to stay. Whether it lasts through time to be google status is yet to be seen, but I really think it could be. It's interesting hearing paul's predictions as he saw google become GOOGLE.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Google is a business essential service. If facebook would go down it would be an inconvenience but the world will continue. Google has literally become mission critical for millions of people doing their everyday job from doctors to scientists. Someone should make a little program to track how many google searches you do on a daily basis, that would be a really interesting bit of knowledge.
    - cookingrobot 17y ago
      Search is essential. If Google went down, people would start using Bing or Yahoo, and would be fine.
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        Yes, you are absolutely correct. I just posted a poll and I already clued in to that before I finished writing it.
    - jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
      I could be very very wrong on this, but ill throw it out there. Facebook going away would be much worse. We can just replace Google with Bing and the search results would be good enough. The advertising would shift there too. Our social graph on facebook? That's a whole lot harder to re-create. The other data we have there (interactions, photos,etc.) could not be recreated easily either. Just my two cents
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        Your social graph is replicated in your address book, if you've used facebook to 'reconnect' with people then I'd guess if it was worth enough to you then you'd stay connected with them even if facebook went bust. If you have photos on facebook but not backed up elsewhere (on your own storage devices) then you're setting yourself up for a fall. Interactions with people can happen in many ways outside of facebook, after all it's not like they invented inter-human communications. But sifting through the web without a search engine would be a bit tedious. On the other hand it would stop the spammers cold and people would have to spend some more time linking to places. Who knows what a web without search engines would have looked like, possibly better than the one we have today. But we can hardly go back there.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  3) facebook will die and will be replaced by the next fad Facebook reminds me a lot more of Prodigy (where I met many good online friends who became in-real-life friends who are now my Facebook friends) than of Google. Yes, I think Facebook will be pervasive for a while, and then fizzle out.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    It's different, because people typically went on Prodigy to meet new friends that shared their interests, while people typically went on FaceBook to hang out virtually with existing friends that they met through real life. I'm not sure whether this is a plus or minus for FaceBook - in general, network effects involving strangers (eg. EBay) are stronger than those involving friends, because friends have many more alternate means of communications. I look at FaceBook as more like the mall. It's a place to hang out. (And just like the mall, they try to sell you something ;-)). There will always be a need for some sort of mall. But if this particular mall starts getting evil, or ugly, or filled with undesirable people, then you can just call up your friends and visit some other mall. Or hang out at the gas station, or rec center, or bowling alley.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  Jacques, this comment interests me: There is no drug war, that's just a figment of some peoples imaginations. I've been on the edge (on various sides) of what looks to me like a very long, slow and destructive engagement between the populace / drugs gangs / the authorities. So Im wondering how your comment is pitched? Im certain there are quite a few people in SA countries who would argue there certainly is a drugs war :) On the other hand I suspect your talking in a domestic sense (in which case I mostly agree). Just interested where your coming from with that? The energy solutions will immediately be offset by an increase in consumption by the developing world, I figure the energy-almost-crisis will be here for at least another 50 years. The only thing that will solve the energy crisis is cheap, pollution free fusion power. That will take a while. This I think you nailed spot on. But I think there is definitely a market here for someone to really work on sustainable energy - and to make it less of a niche / hippy thing. Perhaps a startup opportunity or 2. The am would be simple: to stretch that "50 years" out as long as possible till a proper solution (Fusion, I guess) is stabilized.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Let me try to clarify the drug war comment without making it book length. To call something a war means that there is an enemy of sort. The war on Cancer, the war on Terror, the war on Drugs etc. War evokes a whole pile of emotions in people and that's the reason why that word gets a lot of use (or better put abuse) outside of its proper usage. War is an act of violence between two nation states when diplomacy fails to resolve a conflict. A last resort, after which a state of normality (or sanity) normally resumes, this we call 'peace'. Since you can't really make peace with Cancer, drugs or terror you can't be at war with them either. Who will negotiate the surrender, what will the terms be. But war is such a convenient short word that politicians simply can't resist the temptation to use it, after all, if there is a war we want to be on the good side (and never mind looking too closely at what the good side is, almost by definition we are a on the good side). So to call the war on drugs a war is disingenuous (sp?), it puts people mentally on the wrong foot and then uses their emotional response as a way to suppress their critical thinking faculties. If they stood still long enough they'd realize that cancer cells have never declared war on us, and we can declare war back all we want it's not going to make a difference. Cancer doesn't care about us, it's just a malfunctioning of a mechanism that is built in to our cells. Normally it serves us well, when it malfunctions it turns against us. So we'd like it to go away, but because it is systemic and because the longer you live the more frequently you play the lottery of cell division the bigger the chance you'll lose. So to win the war on cancer you'd have to turn back the clock on our longer life spans. The war on terror is similar. You can't create a world in which there are so many black vs white, with-us-or-against-us polarizing elements without having some percentage of the world population turn to radical methods of making their displeasure known. And given a world wide media that loves nothing better than carnage on a large scale these people have a great platform. The gorier the merrier as far as they're concerned, anything to drive up those ratings. Then, the subject at hand, the war on drugs. There are people that would rather close their eyes to the reality around them, for a short while feel better than their lot in life gives them reason to, a way to escape reality. Some do this by playing games online, a world in which they can be more than in reality. Some do it by exiting this world altogether. Some get up and start changing the world around them until it suits them better and get a kick out of that. And some choose drugs. Sometimes 'softer' drugs like cannabis or piles of chocolate, sometimes harder drugs like alcohol, heroin, cocaine or whatever floats their boat. It's systemic as well. In a world where there are so many people driven to the fringe of society, where the only way to make a killing is to do something illegal because you don't stand much chance of doing it the honest way plenty of people will take the chance to become a cog in the machine that supplies the escapists with their method of escape. That's a societal problem, not something you're going to solve with a war. It will take time, tolerance, education and real involvement on all levels of society. You're not going to win that by either bombing some fields, raiding some labs or by killing or busting a few people. The only thing that will do is drive the price up because the drugs will become more scarce.
- qw 17y ago
  3) I believe that Facebook in its current form will not exist. People will become more concerned about privacy. Facebook will be replaced unless they manage to change in time. Perhaps personal websites that can be more easily connected to others will replace the need of a central hub? I think that it's just a matter of time before a major incident forces people to think about privacy. We will see an advanced search engine that can find out more about you than you want to, and/or some sort of 3rd party service that sells information to advertisers. That will certainly cause a lot of panic. I am almost sure that this will happen soon (within 2-5 years)
  - motters 17y ago
    I think you're probably right about this, and that some peer-to-peer equivalent of facebook will emerge, where users may (optionally) host and have much more control over their own data and who gets access to it.
lunchbox 17y ago
2. Android and iPhone kill off all the other mobile phone platforms. Android will be bigger (it will run on all of the "free" cell phones), but iPhone will still be "cooler", and will work more seamlessly with Apple's tablet computer. This is more of a 2012 prediction than it is a 2020 prediction. Mobile technology is evolving so quickly, and there are so many potential competitors (not just Google, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia), that there is no way to know what systems will power 2020's mobile devices.
- chaosprophet 17y ago
  My guess (and hope) is that Maemo will become as good as or even better than Android. However, I still don't see anybody other than Nokia adopting it.
- paul 17y ago
  If the answer were obvious, the prediction wouldn't be interesting :) That said, I think this is like the early PC market -- many platforms, but most (Commodore, Atari, etc) won't survive because they lack purpose. RIM, Nokia etc will switch to Android or disappear.
  - gaius 17y ago
    It sounds like wishful thinking to me. What does Android have that other smartphone OSs lack, apart from the Google marketing machine behind it? BlackBerry's USP is its email integration. WinMo's is that you can take your Office stuff with you on the road. Symbian's is that it's technically mature (and that isn't enough to be commercially successful). iPhone's is that it's easy to use works seamlessly with Apple everything-else. Android's is... It's Google?
    - rick_2047 17y ago
      Android's is that its open. So there would not be only one company pumping in resources into it but many small developers and even other big firms who want to use it as a profitable platform. In this Android gains resources,mostly free marketing and probably some great breakthroughs.
jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
I certainly see something like number 1 happening much sooner than later. I actually think something that works like dropbox could achieve this. Keep a copy locally on my machine, but have it all sync'd and stored online. There wasn't really a need for this 10 years ago. We pretty much had one computer. Now we have many, and the number will only grow larger. Mobile phone, kindle, tablet, game console, netbook, desktop pc,etc. are all computers. Someone needs to create something so all of these devices can be in sync/talk to each other. I envision a day where any system I buy or log in to can access the same settings, files, etc. instantly.
- mattmanser 17y ago
  Are you totally crazy? point 1 = end of privacy, freedom and sanity which is why we must pray that it will never, ever happen.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Exactly. To put all our data in the hands of untrusted and not-beholden third parties is really asking for trouble at a level that is hard to even comprehend. Anyway, the first major cloud dataloss will put an end to that one. And that's only a matter of time.
    - mattmanser 17y ago
      One wonders what will happen when one of the cloud computing companies goes bust and it turns out the data that was oh-so-secure turns out to be legally fair game to anyone with a cheque book. But the other comments are spot on too, it's all in the air, but Facebook's and Google's recent attitude of you shared so you're damned has left me gravely worried about our future.
    - lunchbox 17y ago
      Anyway, the first major cloud dataloss will put an end to that one. I am willing to bet you on this. Big datalosses will happen, and people will for the most part continue doing what they did before, because they don't know better, because it's less of a hassle, or because the cat's already out of the bag. Look at the long list of data losses and privacy breaches that have happened in recent years: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm#2005 http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm#2005 These haven't significantly changed the way your average person protects their data. People continue to put their data at risk in ways that boggle my mind, but we hackers have to be careful not to assume the average consumer shares our tech savvy and concerns for privacy. As for the question of data loss: sure, a cloud provider might lose your data, but then again you might spill coffee on your laptop and do the same. (Again, "you" meaning the average consumer.)
borism 17y ago
assuming civilization doesn't collapse first interesting assumption that might be worth expanding
- mseebach 17y ago
  Naa, not really. We might all die due to some extreme natural disaster or nuclear war, but civilization is a very strong trait. Even in the most abject poverty and the most horrible wars, glimpses of the beauty that is human civilization appears. Our lives may change significantly for better or for worse, but civilization isn't going anywhere.
  - borism 17y ago
    well, civilizations die to be replaced by new ones all the time you know. whether we can overcome deeply fundamental crisis our western civilization faces remains to be seen, but looking back at 2000-2009 i am not convinced.
    - mseebach 17y ago
      Yes, single civilizations come and go - but the OP you quoted said "civilization", not "this" or "our", which I read as the concept of civilization as such, and I don't see that going anywhere.
sage_joch 17y ago
"New movements will arise and gain power very quickly. Obama beating Clinton was the first hint of this." I would argue that Howard Dean's 2004 candidacy was an earlier hint of this.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Yes, but the MSM torpedoed his candidacy after the Iowa caucuses. That didn't happen to Obama, largely because he was telegenic enough to impress the old media as well as the new. I actually think the internet's effect on politics is overstated. Ron Paul won the internet in 2008, but got single digit percentages of the vote.
  - s3graham 17y ago
    Ron Paul might have won reddit, but he sure as shit didn't win "the internet".
    - kiba 17y ago
      He broke records on fundraising.
    - jimmyjim 17y ago
      I would say he did. He won Digg (which has a considerably larger userbase than Reddit), a sizable portion of Fark, and many other similar social-bookmarking websites.
- gaius 17y ago
  In what sense was Obama "new"? His political career began in '96 (state legislator) whereas Hillary Clinton's began in 2000 (New York). Both had elements of the Democrats political machine behind them, which are as old as the two-party system. When an independent wins the Presidency on the strength of his or her Internet campaign, then that'll be news.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ErrantX 17y ago
I personally think predicting the next 10 years is a bit difficult. Because you generally can't predict broad sweeping changes in culture/society/technology and dealing in specifics is hard (who would have predicted the iPod and iPhone in 2000? considering their secrecy). A year ago tablets were pretty much a dead end. If the decade had ended in 2008 no one would have predicted tablets making a comeback (probably, though the Crunchpad might have caused speculation). Now the Apple rumours mean it is high on our prediction lists, right? I think if were going to do this we should go for Jan 1, 2050... (and my only prediction there that I will make off hand is that Man will have commercialised space travel properly and reached the Moon again - if not beginning to settle / talk about settling there.)
mark_l_watson 17y ago
I expect that 6. is spot-on. For me, 1. is almost here: all of my important data is in a git repository on a managed server in Texas, and backups are in Amazon zone east 1-b. His predictions on AI also seem reasonable.
lunchbox 17y ago
For those interested in long-range predictions, here's an amusing site that tracks predictions from the past: http://www.paleofuture.com/ http://www.paleofuture.com/
motters 17y ago
This is pretty much a "more of the same" prediction.
rmason 17y ago
Sorry Paul but solar (despite the massive investment) will still be a technology that is perpetually always twenty years into the future. The winner will be the green nuke, Thorium. Once people understand that it has all the advantages of our current uranium based plants with few of the negatives public opinion will shift.

68 points by peter123 17y ago

1) no way, my data certainly won't. 2) Android and Iphone will take a larger marketshare, but RIM will come back with a much revamped blackberry, and microsoft will re-do their windows mobile and this time they might even get it right. 3) facebook will die and will be replaced by the next fad 4) 3D displays are a lot harder than it seems, those that you can buy right now are all seriously inferior to people used to Hi-Def and 3D doesn't offer that much more of a user experience unless the user is completely free to go around the display. 5) is probably spot on 6) I don't think so, but what will happen is that people will be a lot more careful. 1987 to 2009 took 22 years, I think the next economic crash is a little further out, but eventually it will happen. All that it takes for that is to wait long enough, eventually people forget the previous one. 7) is pretty US centric, if you want a fixed health care system tomorrow move to Europe, Cuba or Colombia. 8) There is no drug war, that's just a figment of some peoples imaginations. 9) The energy solutions will immediately be offset by an increase in consumption by the developing world, I figure the energy-almost-crisis will be here for at least another 50 years. The only thing that will solve the energy crisis is cheap, pollution free fusion power. That will take a while. 10) The internet will force transparency on to politicians at a level that they are not used to and might actually bring something good, but the evolution of politics in America starts with making it a real democracy first, until then the two party system will rule. The day there is a 'coalition' government in the USA will be the day that there is a real possibility of change, instead of just 'lipservice' change.

teralaser 17y ago
good 2nd calls, except 6) ... 1987 was a bit technical actually, while we had 1998 (asia), 2000-2001 (dotcom/tech), and with those US twin decifits (currency/government) still out of whack, it won't take long for the next one. We only patched things very superficially.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  That's true, but I think the current one will have much longer term effects in terms of banking reforms and that's what hopefully will stave off the next one for a long time.
- borism 17y ago
  I don't think 2007-2012 crash/depression has ended yet.
  - gaius 17y ago
    I don't think the 2001 crash is over yet. The 80s and 90s both had bull markets, phases of "irrational exuberance", the 00s was missing one. Gordon Brown said he'd do away with "boom and bust" and it turns out he has, by eliminating booms...
jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
3) I think facebook is here to stay. Whether it lasts through time to be google status is yet to be seen, but I really think it could be. It's interesting hearing paul's predictions as he saw google become GOOGLE.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Google is a business essential service. If facebook would go down it would be an inconvenience but the world will continue. Google has literally become mission critical for millions of people doing their everyday job from doctors to scientists. Someone should make a little program to track how many google searches you do on a daily basis, that would be a really interesting bit of knowledge.
  - cookingrobot 17y ago
    Search is essential. If Google went down, people would start using Bing or Yahoo, and would be fine.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Yes, you are absolutely correct. I just posted a poll and I already clued in to that before I finished writing it.
  - jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
    I could be very very wrong on this, but ill throw it out there. Facebook going away would be much worse. We can just replace Google with Bing and the search results would be good enough. The advertising would shift there too. Our social graph on facebook? That's a whole lot harder to re-create. The other data we have there (interactions, photos,etc.) could not be recreated easily either. Just my two cents
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Your social graph is replicated in your address book, if you've used facebook to 'reconnect' with people then I'd guess if it was worth enough to you then you'd stay connected with them even if facebook went bust. If you have photos on facebook but not backed up elsewhere (on your own storage devices) then you're setting yourself up for a fall. Interactions with people can happen in many ways outside of facebook, after all it's not like they invented inter-human communications. But sifting through the web without a search engine would be a bit tedious. On the other hand it would stop the spammers cold and people would have to spend some more time linking to places. Who knows what a web without search engines would have looked like, possibly better than the one we have today. But we can hardly go back there.
tokenadult 17y ago
3) facebook will die and will be replaced by the next fad Facebook reminds me a lot more of Prodigy (where I met many good online friends who became in-real-life friends who are now my Facebook friends) than of Google. Yes, I think Facebook will be pervasive for a while, and then fizzle out.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  It's different, because people typically went on Prodigy to meet new friends that shared their interests, while people typically went on FaceBook to hang out virtually with existing friends that they met through real life. I'm not sure whether this is a plus or minus for FaceBook - in general, network effects involving strangers (eg. EBay) are stronger than those involving friends, because friends have many more alternate means of communications. I look at FaceBook as more like the mall. It's a place to hang out. (And just like the mall, they try to sell you something ;-)). There will always be a need for some sort of mall. But if this particular mall starts getting evil, or ugly, or filled with undesirable people, then you can just call up your friends and visit some other mall. Or hang out at the gas station, or rec center, or bowling alley.
ErrantX 17y ago
Jacques, this comment interests me: There is no drug war, that's just a figment of some peoples imaginations. I've been on the edge (on various sides) of what looks to me like a very long, slow and destructive engagement between the populace / drugs gangs / the authorities. So Im wondering how your comment is pitched? Im certain there are quite a few people in SA countries who would argue there certainly is a drugs war :) On the other hand I suspect your talking in a domestic sense (in which case I mostly agree). Just interested where your coming from with that? The energy solutions will immediately be offset by an increase in consumption by the developing world, I figure the energy-almost-crisis will be here for at least another 50 years. The only thing that will solve the energy crisis is cheap, pollution free fusion power. That will take a while. This I think you nailed spot on. But I think there is definitely a market here for someone to really work on sustainable energy - and to make it less of a niche / hippy thing. Perhaps a startup opportunity or 2. The am would be simple: to stretch that "50 years" out as long as possible till a proper solution (Fusion, I guess) is stabilized.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Let me try to clarify the drug war comment without making it book length. To call something a war means that there is an enemy of sort. The war on Cancer, the war on Terror, the war on Drugs etc. War evokes a whole pile of emotions in people and that's the reason why that word gets a lot of use (or better put abuse) outside of its proper usage. War is an act of violence between two nation states when diplomacy fails to resolve a conflict. A last resort, after which a state of normality (or sanity) normally resumes, this we call 'peace'. Since you can't really make peace with Cancer, drugs or terror you can't be at war with them either. Who will negotiate the surrender, what will the terms be. But war is such a convenient short word that politicians simply can't resist the temptation to use it, after all, if there is a war we want to be on the good side (and never mind looking too closely at what the good side is, almost by definition we are a on the good side). So to call the war on drugs a war is disingenuous (sp?), it puts people mentally on the wrong foot and then uses their emotional response as a way to suppress their critical thinking faculties. If they stood still long enough they'd realize that cancer cells have never declared war on us, and we can declare war back all we want it's not going to make a difference. Cancer doesn't care about us, it's just a malfunctioning of a mechanism that is built in to our cells. Normally it serves us well, when it malfunctions it turns against us. So we'd like it to go away, but because it is systemic and because the longer you live the more frequently you play the lottery of cell division the bigger the chance you'll lose. So to win the war on cancer you'd have to turn back the clock on our longer life spans. The war on terror is similar. You can't create a world in which there are so many black vs white, with-us-or-against-us polarizing elements without having some percentage of the world population turn to radical methods of making their displeasure known. And given a world wide media that loves nothing better than carnage on a large scale these people have a great platform. The gorier the merrier as far as they're concerned, anything to drive up those ratings. Then, the subject at hand, the war on drugs. There are people that would rather close their eyes to the reality around them, for a short while feel better than their lot in life gives them reason to, a way to escape reality. Some do this by playing games online, a world in which they can be more than in reality. Some do it by exiting this world altogether. Some get up and start changing the world around them until it suits them better and get a kick out of that. And some choose drugs. Sometimes 'softer' drugs like cannabis or piles of chocolate, sometimes harder drugs like alcohol, heroin, cocaine or whatever floats their boat. It's systemic as well. In a world where there are so many people driven to the fringe of society, where the only way to make a killing is to do something illegal because you don't stand much chance of doing it the honest way plenty of people will take the chance to become a cog in the machine that supplies the escapists with their method of escape. That's a societal problem, not something you're going to solve with a war. It will take time, tolerance, education and real involvement on all levels of society. You're not going to win that by either bombing some fields, raiding some labs or by killing or busting a few people. The only thing that will do is drive the price up because the drugs will become more scarce.
qw 17y ago
3) I believe that Facebook in its current form will not exist. People will become more concerned about privacy. Facebook will be replaced unless they manage to change in time. Perhaps personal websites that can be more easily connected to others will replace the need of a central hub? I think that it's just a matter of time before a major incident forces people to think about privacy. We will see an advanced search engine that can find out more about you than you want to, and/or some sort of 3rd party service that sells information to advertisers. That will certainly cause a lot of panic. I am almost sure that this will happen soon (within 2-5 years)
- motters 17y ago
  I think you're probably right about this, and that some peer-to-peer equivalent of facebook will emerge, where users may (optionally) host and have much more control over their own data and who gets access to it.

lunchbox 17y ago

2. Android and iPhone kill off all the other mobile phone platforms. Android will be bigger (it will run on all of the "free" cell phones), but iPhone will still be "cooler", and will work more seamlessly with Apple's tablet computer. This is more of a 2012 prediction than it is a 2020 prediction. Mobile technology is evolving so quickly, and there are so many potential competitors (not just Google, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia), that there is no way to know what systems will power 2020's mobile devices.

chaosprophet 17y ago
My guess (and hope) is that Maemo will become as good as or even better than Android. However, I still don't see anybody other than Nokia adopting it.
paul 17y ago
If the answer were obvious, the prediction wouldn't be interesting :) That said, I think this is like the early PC market -- many platforms, but most (Commodore, Atari, etc) won't survive because they lack purpose. RIM, Nokia etc will switch to Android or disappear.
- gaius 17y ago
  It sounds like wishful thinking to me. What does Android have that other smartphone OSs lack, apart from the Google marketing machine behind it? BlackBerry's USP is its email integration. WinMo's is that you can take your Office stuff with you on the road. Symbian's is that it's technically mature (and that isn't enough to be commercially successful). iPhone's is that it's easy to use works seamlessly with Apple everything-else. Android's is... It's Google?
  - rick_2047 17y ago
    Android's is that its open. So there would not be only one company pumping in resources into it but many small developers and even other big firms who want to use it as a profitable platform. In this Android gains resources,mostly free marketing and probably some great breakthroughs.

jasonlbaptiste 17y ago

I certainly see something like number 1 happening much sooner than later. I actually think something that works like dropbox could achieve this. Keep a copy locally on my machine, but have it all sync'd and stored online. There wasn't really a need for this 10 years ago. We pretty much had one computer. Now we have many, and the number will only grow larger. Mobile phone, kindle, tablet, game console, netbook, desktop pc,etc. are all computers. Someone needs to create something so all of these devices can be in sync/talk to each other. I envision a day where any system I buy or log in to can access the same settings, files, etc. instantly.

mattmanser 17y ago
Are you totally crazy? point 1 = end of privacy, freedom and sanity which is why we must pray that it will never, ever happen.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Exactly. To put all our data in the hands of untrusted and not-beholden third parties is really asking for trouble at a level that is hard to even comprehend. Anyway, the first major cloud dataloss will put an end to that one. And that's only a matter of time.
  - mattmanser 17y ago
    One wonders what will happen when one of the cloud computing companies goes bust and it turns out the data that was oh-so-secure turns out to be legally fair game to anyone with a cheque book. But the other comments are spot on too, it's all in the air, but Facebook's and Google's recent attitude of you shared so you're damned has left me gravely worried about our future.
  - lunchbox 17y ago
    Anyway, the first major cloud dataloss will put an end to that one. I am willing to bet you on this. Big datalosses will happen, and people will for the most part continue doing what they did before, because they don't know better, because it's less of a hassle, or because the cat's already out of the bag. Look at the long list of data losses and privacy breaches that have happened in recent years: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm#2005 http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm#2005 These haven't significantly changed the way your average person protects their data. People continue to put their data at risk in ways that boggle my mind, but we hackers have to be careful not to assume the average consumer shares our tech savvy and concerns for privacy. As for the question of data loss: sure, a cloud provider might lose your data, but then again you might spill coffee on your laptop and do the same. (Again, "you" meaning the average consumer.)

borism 17y ago

assuming civilization doesn't collapse first interesting assumption that might be worth expanding

mseebach 17y ago
Naa, not really. We might all die due to some extreme natural disaster or nuclear war, but civilization is a very strong trait. Even in the most abject poverty and the most horrible wars, glimpses of the beauty that is human civilization appears. Our lives may change significantly for better or for worse, but civilization isn't going anywhere.
- borism 17y ago
  well, civilizations die to be replaced by new ones all the time you know. whether we can overcome deeply fundamental crisis our western civilization faces remains to be seen, but looking back at 2000-2009 i am not convinced.
  - mseebach 17y ago
    Yes, single civilizations come and go - but the OP you quoted said "civilization", not "this" or "our", which I read as the concept of civilization as such, and I don't see that going anywhere.

sage_joch 17y ago

"New movements will arise and gain power very quickly. Obama beating Clinton was the first hint of this." I would argue that Howard Dean's 2004 candidacy was an earlier hint of this.

philwelch 17y ago
Yes, but the MSM torpedoed his candidacy after the Iowa caucuses. That didn't happen to Obama, largely because he was telegenic enough to impress the old media as well as the new. I actually think the internet's effect on politics is overstated. Ron Paul won the internet in 2008, but got single digit percentages of the vote.
- s3graham 17y ago
  Ron Paul might have won reddit, but he sure as shit didn't win "the internet".
  - kiba 17y ago
    He broke records on fundraising.
  - jimmyjim 17y ago
    I would say he did. He won Digg (which has a considerably larger userbase than Reddit), a sizable portion of Fark, and many other similar social-bookmarking websites.
gaius 17y ago
In what sense was Obama "new"? His political career began in '96 (state legislator) whereas Hillary Clinton's began in 2000 (New York). Both had elements of the Democrats political machine behind them, which are as old as the two-party system. When an independent wins the Presidency on the strength of his or her Internet campaign, then that'll be news.

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ErrantX 17y ago

I personally think predicting the next 10 years is a bit difficult. Because you generally can't predict broad sweeping changes in culture/society/technology and dealing in specifics is hard (who would have predicted the iPod and iPhone in 2000? considering their secrecy). A year ago tablets were pretty much a dead end. If the decade had ended in 2008 no one would have predicted tablets making a comeback (probably, though the Crunchpad might have caused speculation). Now the Apple rumours mean it is high on our prediction lists, right? I think if were going to do this we should go for Jan 1, 2050... (and my only prediction there that I will make off hand is that Man will have commercialised space travel properly and reached the Moon again - if not beginning to settle / talk about settling there.)

mark_l_watson 17y ago

I expect that 6. is spot-on. For me, 1. is almost here: all of my important data is in a git repository on a managed server in Texas, and backups are in Amazon zone east 1-b. His predictions on AI also seem reasonable.

lunchbox 17y ago

For those interested in long-range predictions, here's an amusing site that tracks predictions from the past: http://www.paleofuture.com/ http://www.paleofuture.com/

motters 17y ago

This is pretty much a "more of the same" prediction.

rmason 17y ago

Sorry Paul but solar (despite the massive investment) will still be a technology that is perpetually always twenty years into the future. The winner will be the green nuke, Thorium. Once people understand that it has all the advantages of our current uranium based plants with few of the negatives public opinion will shift.