WEBVTT - The TechStuff 2017 Predictions Report Card 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:12.120 Get technology with tech Stuff from stuff works dot com. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.120 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.920 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here at how Stuff Works. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.920 And if you are a long time listener to tech Stuff, 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.720 you know, every year, for for almost ten years now, 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.680 at the end of a calendar year, we make predictions 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.879 about what is going to happen in technology for the 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.320 following year. And every year I try to go back 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.040 and look at those predictions and see how well they 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.440 matched up to what actually happened. And usually, if I'm 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:48.519 being really generous, I get about fift right. Uh. But 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.159 it's always fun to try and make those predictions. And 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.320 sometimes you're making predictions you don't want to come true 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.040 and you hope that you end up being wrong. There 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.840 were a few of those in the seventeen predictions. We'll 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.120 have to see whether they ended up being the ones 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.399 that turned out to be wrong or not. Last year 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.880 I also had the good fortune to call upon some 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.479 of my friends in the tech journalism space and they 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.800 joined me for the show and gave me a prediction 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.440 or two about what they thought was going to happen 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.360 the following year. So we'll talk about what their predictions 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.960 were as they, you know, came out through the show. 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.440 So I'm gonna tackle this by order of the predictions 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.640 we made in the episode, So we're not going chronologically 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.560 through seen again. We just did that, but instead we're 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.800 going to look at these predictions and kind of try 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.520 and guess how well they did. Uh So, the first 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.280 prediction that I made was that we would see a 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:51.000 lot of VR and a R everywhere at c e S. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.480 In fact, these first few predictions are all c e 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.000 S related because c e S takes place in January 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.800 every year. That's the Sumer Electronics Show. It's a big 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.400 trade show that happens in Las Vegas every year. And 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:07.120 we were getting ready to go, and I was trying 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:08.560 to think of the things that we're going to be 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.239 a big deal at c e SEN, and I said 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.079 that VR and a R would definitely be up there, 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.240 and that was true. V R and a R were huge, 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.480 huge types of technology, categories of technology that were on 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.600 display at c e S. Although these days we tend 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.200 to use the term mixed reality instead of just virtual 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:34.200 reality or augmented reality. However, would not see all of 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.840 the products and concepts that were on display at c 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.000 e S make it through to the end of the year. 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.079 Some of those ended up fizzling out. For example, Intel 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.440 came to c e S and showed off a cool 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:51.519 mixed reality headset concept called Project Alloy. Though the implementation 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.280 needed some refinement, it was pretty big and clunky. It 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.640 didn't create a smooth experience that people were hoping for either, 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.800 because it was using a different metho, the doology for 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:05.600 head tracking external head tracking. As it stands, Intel would 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.880 end up shelving Project Alloy at some point over the 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:13.560 summer of sev UH. It didn't really make the news initially. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.000 It was only afterwards that the company came forward and 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.600 said it was having trouble finding partners interested in making 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.359 the device. So while they had developed the internal technology 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.600 for Project Alloy, they were having trouble finding anyone that 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.440 would actually produce the hardware. Now, part of this issue 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.839 probably stemmed from the fact that Microsoft was launching its 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.040 own mixed reality headset platform and they were attracting a 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.600 lot of interest from various partners, and so all these 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.160 companies that might have worked on Project Alloy were instead 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.680 kind of hitching their wagons to Microsoft. Intel continues to 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.040 invest in technologies that either played directly or indirectly into 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.480 mixed reality technology. So it's not all a loss. It's 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.240 not like Intel got out of the game Intel early. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.560 They just said, well, Project Alloy as it stands doesn't 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.680 make a whole lot of sense. I also said that 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.400 there would be a lot of smart home and automation 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.480 stuff on display at c e S, which is kind 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.120 of a no brainer. Some of these predictions, I admit 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.279 are are kind of lame because anyone could have said this. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.600 It's like saying, if you jump into the ocean, you're 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.680 gonna get wet. Well, the Internet of Things continued its 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.080 journey into becoming part of everything we can imagine, whether 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.039 you can make a good case for it to be 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.080 there or not. For example, Cara Stace loreal And with 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.760 Things or We Things, if you prefer, partnered to create 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:43.280 the Carras Stas Hair Coach hair brush, which sends information 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.960 from the brush to a smart device like a smartphone 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.080 or a tablet, to give you feedback on how well 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.360 you're brushing your hair. I see no point in this, 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.560 but then I have no hair, so brushes are sort 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.800 of not my bag to begin with. But other devices 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:03.240 like coffee makers, connected displays, things like that, they fit 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.640 more into what we come to expect from connected smart devices. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.240 So there was a mixture. There was stuff that we 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.400 could see a practical application for right away, and other 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.119 stuff that seemed more frivolous or just absurd. I also 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.160 said that there would be a lot more driver less 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.920 car technology on display at the e S Show, and 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.560 that was for sure the case. Everyone seemed to have 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.120 connected cars, or autonomous cars, or both. Chrysler showed off 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:35.440 an electric minivan with autonomous capabilities called the Portal Faraday Future, 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.039 the automotive startup company that we talked about back in 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.000 It still seems weird to say automotive startup company, although 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.080 you could argue Tesla did the same thing. They showed 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.920 off their FF nine one concept, and this one was 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:56.160 a slightly less futuristic looking vehicle than their sports car 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.839 concept they showed off the year earlier. Still pretty sleek 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.479 and sexy, just more in a utilitarian approach than sports car. 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.760 The f f n one is supposed to be able 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.280 to park itself, so it's semi autonomous. Toyota showed off 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.359 a concept of a vehicle that would be able to 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.320 monitor the conditions and moods of the people inside the car, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.520 dynamically adjusting conditions and even the route based on that feedback. 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.320 It could also take over if you wanted to, so 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.240 that was another concept that had this semi autonomous approach. 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.360 There seemed to be a lot of of concepts that 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.120 would allow for human control and then handing off that 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.960 control to a computer if you wanted to. I also 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.799 said there'd be a lot more drone stuff at CS, 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.560 and there were tons of them. One drone was the 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.760 hover camera Passport, which can hold a position around you 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.919 and take photos of you, just in case you wanted 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.080 some robo paparazzi treating you like a Hollywood superstar. I guess. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.040 There were tons of other flying drones from various manufacturers, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.560 many equipped with high definition cameras, and just a few 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.359 years ago, just the cameras would have cost tens of 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.560 thousands of dollars. Now you can find these style cameras 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.800 on flying machines that you can control by remote control 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.400 for less than a grand It's kind of crazy. These 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.400 devices really serve as evidence of how an emerging technology 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.240 can become commonplace in just a few years. There was 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.480 also an underwater drone called the power Vision power Ray 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.360 that is a fish finder and a fish hunter all 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.920 in one. It can carry baited lures and help you 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.680 snag a fish. This drone is a tethered drone. It 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.360 has to be connected to its power source, and that 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.800 makes sense because it also helps prevent it from drifting 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.160 too far away and then sleeping with the fish. Ees 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.480 I also said there'd be a lot of three sixty 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.320 degree cameras, and there were quite a few of those 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.640 on display at c e S. But this is also 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.760 where things get a little confusing, because there's no real 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:58.000 standardized format for three six cameras. In my mind, if 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.080 you say three sixty camera, I think of a camera 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.720 that's capable of taking an image in a three hundred 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.640 sixty degree arc, so a full circle around the the 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.120 the axis of the photographer. In other words, it would 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.360 be like if you were standing in a place, took 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.080 a photo, turned to the right, took another photo, and 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.240 just did like a panoramic photo in a full circle. 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.880 That's what I think of a three sixty degree cameras. 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.120 And then you would use some other device like a 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.720 phone or a headset to view the image and you 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.800 could turn around in place and see the complete image 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.160 as you turn in a physical space. That's what I 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.280 think of. But some companies capture only on eight degrees 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.520 of arc. Some are capable of capturing three D images, 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.600 some are only two D. Some people refer to these 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.200 as VR cameras. I don't really like that term. I 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.160 don't think of it as VR. To me, virtual reality 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.120 requires a computer generated environment. It needs to be a 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.280 virtual environment, not just a video overlay. Otherwise I would 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.079 argue any movie as a virtual reality film. Uh, grant it. 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.800 Typically you can control the point of view because you 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.319 could turn your head and you can change the perspective 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.720 you're looking at. But that's the extent of interactivity for 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.520 most of these computers, and I don't really think of 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.680 that as being true virtual reality. I feel like you 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.319 have to be able to affect your environment in some way, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.120 apart from just being able to change your perspective. Anyway, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:21.679 there were a ton of these at c E S. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.320 There was the views VR camera, the Hublo four K 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.760 thirty frames per second three D video camera, the lucid 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.560 Cam one degree three D personal camera, the Insta three 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.720 sixty pro. The list goes on and on. There were 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.480 just tons of them. There were drones with three degree 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.640 camera capabilities. It was just really popular technology on the floor. 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.200 I'm not really sure that that popularity has translated to 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.520 great commercial success. I don't know that there have been 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.160 a run on these sort of cameras. I don't think 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.040 they've received like huge sales figures. And I haven't seen 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.880 very many implementations that managed to get beyond the sort 0:09:59.880 --> 0:10:02.840 of gimmicky feel for the technology. But it's very early, 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.640 so it may be that someone is really working on 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.680 a really cool implementation that's going to be the killer app. 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.360 In other words, I did not predict all the voice 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.840 activation stuff, however, and there was a lot of that 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.040 on the show floor as well. You could find voice 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.960 activated assistants incorporated into tons of different products, particularly in 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.320 the automotive sections of the show floor, and you could 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.280 also find the technology incorporated into other gadgets, such as 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.360 Amazon's Alexa being included as a feature on LGS smart 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.800 instabuw refrigerator, so you can ask your refrigerator if it's 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.440 running and until it jokes. I also didn't predict that 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.800 smart watches would have a less prominent space at c S, 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.720 though I really should have seen that one coming. Smart 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.000 Watches are a category that have never really taken off, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.880 with the possible exception of Apple's Watch, and there were 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.559 some notable departures in the field the year before, particularly 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.000 Pebble once it got a quired by Fitbit. But while 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.320 smart watches were mostly a no show, fitness trackers were 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:10.360 everywhere at CE seen and they continue to be really popular. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.040 And I like the concept of fitness trackers, but I 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.920 honestly wonder how viable the category is for growth. After all, 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.640 I have a tracker that works just fine, so I 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.960 don't anticipate needing to replace it for a while, even 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.400 if another one comes out that has more features than 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.920 mine has. Unless those features are just incredibly compelling, there's 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.480 just not really any incentive on my part to upgrade. 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.000 So my feel is that once you hit market saturation, 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.200 where all the people who want one of these essentially 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.400 have one, your your market drives up. You don't really 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.840 I mean, how do you sell another fitness tracker to 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.160 someone who already has one unless they just happened to 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.199 have this kind of obsessive collection mentality. But at CES 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.760 it was clear that many companies feel strongly that we've 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.080 not yet reached this point. Now we'll move out out 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.120 of the ce S predictions into some of the other 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.720 ones I did. I made this prediction about Apple. I said, 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.439 the new iPhone will be a bigger and boulder departure 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:12.840 from the traditional design. I was thinking this because it 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.199 was the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, so I thought, well, 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.240 Apple is going to have to do something to set 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.800 it apart, because this is you know, we we set 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:24.360 great importance on these things like ten year marks. Even 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.880 though you could argue that's just completely arbitrary, we make 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.080 it very important. That being said, the tenth anniversary of 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.000 tech stuff is coming up pretty soon, I'm going to 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.319 have to start thinking about that. Well, the prediction ended 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.280 up being true in some ways. At least, Apple introduced 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.200 two phones at the same time. In case you don't remember, 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.480 there was the iPhone eight, which was more of an 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.560 evolutionary product. It was kind of following in the same 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.600 sort of design footsteps as its predecessors. And then there 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.040 was the iPhone ten or iPhone X, which was a 0:12:56.080 --> 0:13:01.360 more dramatic departure from earlier iPhone designs. Now as Apple says, quote, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.400 our vision has always been to create an iPhone that 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.840 is entirely screen end quote. It's actually from the Apple Store, 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.800 and the iPhone ten incorporates features like voice commands and 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:17.000 facial recognition more than earlier iPhones, though the eight has 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.880 a few of those features as well, and some of 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.400 the differences between the eight and the ten once you 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.360 get past the screen are really not that dramatic. So 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.640 while the physical design might be a bit of a departure, 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.800 I don't think it's really that bold of a change 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.600 in design. And while both phones have more powerful processors 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.560 and even more impressive photography algorithms and processing abilities, I 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.320 don't know that I would call this prediction a total win, 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.280 because it wasn't quite as dramatic as I was hoping for. 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.080 I also said we'd get a sneak peek at Apple's 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.480 autonomous car technology, which we did, but only because some 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.760 people in San Francisco have snapped photos of it. It's 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.120 not because of Apple. McAlister Higgins, who has worked on 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.240 autonomous car technology for a while, referred to the images 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.600 of the car as the thing. But the code name 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.960 for Apple's project is called Project Tighten the Cars have 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.480 these big roof mounted sensor arrays that are all cased 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.679 in white plastic. It's very typical Apple approach, but they 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:23.360 are extremely bulky looking and conspicuous. They also seem to 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.880 contain a ton of sensors, including six Linar sensors, which 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.040 is a bit of overkill. Apple applied for and received 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.880 a permit to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:38.880 California in according to anonymous sources, so take this with 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.040 a grain of salt. Apple shifted its strategy from building 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:46.040 an entirely new vehicle to developing software that will power 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:51.000 other manufacturers autonomous cars. So there's been no official sneak 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.280 peak from the company yet, just people spying on it 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.080 from AFAR and then taking photos and uploading them to 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.880 various social networking sites. I also said that more states 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.800 would create formalized rules for autonomous cars operating on state roads, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:11.840 which is true. In twenty states introduced self driving car legislation. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:18.120 In thirty three states had car legislation for autonomous cars there, 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.120 so we've seen more movement on that front. Twenty one 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.600 states Georgia among them, have enacted that legislation. Others it's 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.400 still kind of in the process of that. In addition, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.480 the US federal government is weighing in. On September twelve, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.400 two thousand seventeen, the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:39.200 released federal guidelines for automated driving systems. So that one 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.200 was correct. Yea. I said that Uber will test an 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.640 autonomous car with no one in the driver's seat in 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:50.640 a major market before the end of and I haven't 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.800 found any reports of that actually happening. I think perhaps 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.960 Uber's seventeen was so rough that it may have slowed 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.760 down their bullish adoption of driverless vehicle technolog GEZ. The 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.720 company is still enthusiastically pursuing this technology, but perhaps with 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:06.800 a bit less gusto than they were at the end 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.120 of twenty six before all of their legal troubles began. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.000 Part of that may be due to a crash that 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.680 happened in Arizona that put the brakes literally on their 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:21.280 self driving tests in Phoenix, San Francisco and Pittsburgh. Police 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.960 later determined the crash was not the Uber vehicle's fault, 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.640 it was the fault of the other driver, and Pittsburgh 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:32.640 residents have since become less enchanted with Uber overtime as 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.680 the company has seemingly failed to follow through on many 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.800 of the promises it made. When the original negotiations were 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.280 taking place to use Pittsburgh as a test city, there 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.000 were all these different promises Uber was making that it 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.080 seems to not have made good on. For example, there 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.360 were reports that Uber was beginning to charge money for 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.120 driverless car trips, when initially the agreement was that all 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.600 these test drives would be provided free of charge to passengers. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.040 So I have to call this one a miss, because 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:04.960 as far as I could tell, there was no case 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.720 where there was no one in the driver's seat. There 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.000 was always an operator standing by from all the reports 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.160 I could find. Keeping in mind that I'm recording this December, 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.680 so I still have a few days for that one 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.920 to come true. Maybe I said that hyperlop tests would 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.000 prove to be sound from an engineering perspective, but would 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.399 find the real challenge to be in the economics of 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:31.239 laying out a hyper loop, and this one I think 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.400 I nailed pretty well. There were several tests of hyperloop 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.840 like technology in twenty seen. Most of them used mag 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.359 lev methodologies magnetic levitation to provide for transportation pods to 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.040 float above tracks. This is different from the original design 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.240 Elon Musk had in mind, which was to use what 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.160 he called air skis, which the transportation pods would expel 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:57.280 air downward against the track and that would create lift, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.720 kind of like an uh air hockey table turned upside 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.280 down and juiced up a whole bunch. But we did 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.199 see several examples of the hyperlop technology working, including a 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.520 test that saw a pod accelerate to more than two 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.480 hundred miles per hour. So this is still far below 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.760 what Musk's design originally proposed. And as for economic challenges, 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.399 I wasn't the only person to suggest this. Timo matin 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.000 in A, an engineer from Finland, and I apologize for 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.200 completely butchering his name, conducted a study about the potential 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.840 for hyperloop concluded that the billions of dollars that would 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.040 be necessary to make a working system meant the project 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:41.000 had a chance of success that hovered somewhere around six percent. 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.080 That being said, Hyperloop one held a round of funding 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.080 in the fall of seventeen and raised another eighty five 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.800 million dollars, so we haven't exactly hit that barrier just 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:57.560 yet still, until we see a real construction project connecting 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.959 two distant cities together the hyper It remains an interesting proposition, 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.120 but still is a long shot in my opinion. Now 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.359 I have a lot more predictions to talk about, but 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.639 before I get into all of those, let's take a 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:21.040 quick break to thank our sponsor. So in that predictions 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:26.200 episode in seen my friend I as actar, a guy 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.119 who works for c net came on and he made 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.040 a prediction. He said that Alphabet will get into wireless 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.439 internet service in a big way in ten and I 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.720 would say, who's mostly right about this? It's still pretty 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.119 early days all things considered, but clearly the momentum at 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.680 Google is in wireless service. Alphabet is the parent company 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.600 for Google, so I often will use the two interchangeably. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.280 We saw an early seventeen that the company began to 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.960 downsize employees working in the Google Fiber division, and it 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.840 was abundantly clear that the company was scaling way back 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.040 on its plans to connect cities with fiber and compete 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:09.440 against entrenched Internet service providers. For one thing, Google had 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.840 to continuously fight with various regulations that gave preferential treatment 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.120 to traditional I s p s for stuff like access 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.440 to utility polls. So it's hard to supply cable to 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.320 customers if you're not allowed to access the existing infrastructure. 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.199 And while Project five remains a phone plan alternative that 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.240 you can use if you so wish, Google's push is 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.680 much much bigger than that. Ours Technica reported in February 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.800 seen that the then new wireless division in Google Fiber 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.560 called web Pass, had put out a call for a 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:45.200 new general manager to head up the division. Web Pass 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.240 was a gigabit wireless company that Google acquired in October. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:55.800 By June, Google had expanded web Pass into its seventh 0:20:55.840 --> 0:21:00.000 market by opening up for business in Seattle, Washington. Google 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.359 Fiber the wired version continued to operate in the cities 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.600 where it had already been deployed, and in San Antonio. 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.880 Google even dropped the price of its gigabit wired service 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.520 to fifty dollars a month, which was down from seventy 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.600 seventy dollars a month in all other markets. Now back 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:18.879 to one of my predictions, I said that was going 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.840 to be a make or break year for VR, and 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.119 I said there'd probably be more VR experiences and amusement 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.760 parks and arcade style businesses rather than at the home. 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.160 For Right now, that seems to more or less be true, 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.920 though it's not necessarily going to be the case moving forward. 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.640 Hardware manufacturers are trying to bring costs down to make 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.560 detect more attractive to a larger user base. HTC cut 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.359 two dollars off it's VR kit, and there are a 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.200 lot more developers creating virtual experiences for that hardware to leverage. 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.000 This includes some big name ports over into the VR experience, 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:57.159 such as Skyrim. Complicating my judgment of this prediction is 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.680 that neither HTC nor Oculus release sales figures, so it's 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.840 hard to judge how well they're doing. Though by August, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.800 most analysts felt that neither brand had sold as many 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:13.800 as five hundred thousand units. Sony fared better in ten, 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.159 claiming the companies sold nine hundred fifteen thousand units of 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.680 the PlayStation VR, but that number hadn't increased by much 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.360 over the following several months. According to tech Crunch, Sony's 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:29.080 total units sold had topped at one million in June. 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:33.240 So think of it this way. The hardware debuts in 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:38.919 and sells nine fifteen thousand units, but then over the 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:42.920 next half year fewer than a hundred thousand more units 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:47.560 move off store shelves. That is not a good story. Gardner, however, 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.360 estimates that VR has made it through the hype cycle 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:54.359 for emerging technologies. Now, the hype cycle, it looks like 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.600 a very sharp inverted the trench. Actually it's more of 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.120 a hill, right. So if you start the very far 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:04.840 left of a hype cycle chart, you have a technology 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:08.560 that's just beginning to emerge. Then people get excited about it, 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.440 and it starts to follow this very sharp curb until 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.120 it gets to the peak of its hype cycle. Then 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.359 starts to come down as people begin to get frustrated. 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:20.960 Maybe they're waiting too long for the technology to get 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.439 into their hands, or maybe the early builds of the 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.320 technology don't measure up to what you imagined it would be, 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.800