Speaker 1: With Technology with tech Stuff from technolog Hey there, and
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, your beloved host,
Speaker 1: and it's that time of year again, folks. It is
Speaker 1: time for us to look over the predictions that I
Speaker 1: had made for and see how I did. However, if
Speaker 1: you remember Predictions episode, it wasn't the way we normally
Speaker 1: do it here on Tech Stuff. I had a guest host,
Speaker 1: Tom Merritt, who does the daily Tech News show along
Speaker 1: with dozens of other shows. He joined me and instead
Speaker 1: of making our own predictions, we actually looked over predictions
Speaker 1: other people had made and then evaluated them kind of
Speaker 1: gave our take on it. So I'm gonna go over
Speaker 1: those predictions again and and kind of talk about what
Speaker 1: actually happened during the course often. I should also add
Speaker 1: I'm recording this on December third, two thousand fifteen, so
Speaker 1: technically there is a month to go, or just about
Speaker 1: a month ago, before we end out the year. So
Speaker 1: some of these that I say haven't come true. Maybe
Speaker 1: in the next several days will come true, but it's
Speaker 1: not likely um, and most of them actually are are
Speaker 1: pretty safe bets. It turns out a lot of people
Speaker 1: when they make predictions want to go the safe route. Um, So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's talk about some of those predictions.
Speaker 1: The first group we talked about on that episode came
Speaker 1: from Samsung, and Samsung made some predictions that were, as
Speaker 1: Tom Merritt put, fairly aspirational, meaning that a lot of
Speaker 1: the predictions made by Samsung tied directly into products that
Speaker 1: Samsung offers, and obviously Samsung wanted to make prediction that
Speaker 1: kind of a dovetailed with their strategy. It wouldn't make
Speaker 1: sense for Samsung to predict, you know, these devices that
Speaker 1: we're making, no one's going to have a use for
Speaker 1: them anymore, so we're just wasting our time. That would
Speaker 1: be a bad idea. But the first one that they
Speaker 1: predicted was that wearables would be seen as status symbols
Speaker 1: in the business world, that the businessman and businesswoman of
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen they would not consider their ensembles
Speaker 1: complete unless they were wearing a smart watch for example.
Speaker 1: Tom and I both were pretty skeptical of this and
Speaker 1: pointed out that it was a little self serving no
Speaker 1: big surprise, as I already mentioned, and thought that perhaps
Speaker 1: it's a little premature to suggest that smart accessories are
Speaker 1: going to be seen as status symbols, even things like
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch, which had not yet launched when we
Speaker 1: recorded that episode. And as it turns out, I'd say
Speaker 1: we were mostly right. I don't see smart watches as
Speaker 1: being a big status symbol outside of very niche industries
Speaker 1: like in the tech world. Maybe you could argue that
Speaker 1: smart watches and devices that are in that tier are
Speaker 1: seen as something of a status symbol, but beyond that industry,
Speaker 1: not so much. And you've got to keep in mind
Speaker 1: that while smart watches can be expensive on the order
Speaker 1: of hundreds of dollars, when you're talking about luxury watches,
Speaker 1: the stuff that executives can afford and or afford to
Speaker 1: have and often use the status symbols, that's in the
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. It's well beyond what we tend to
Speaker 1: see with smart devices. And you wouldn't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: spend thousands of dollars on a smart device because, like
Speaker 1: all technology, it runs out of value pretty quickly. It
Speaker 1: hits hits obsolescence within a couple of years. So unless
Speaker 1: you're making crazy amounts of cheddar, you probably don't want
Speaker 1: to be spending it on smart devices. Every single year
Speaker 1: or every two years. The next prediction was that people
Speaker 1: will restructure their lives around personal power hours. This was
Speaker 1: an idea about how we're using more devices to kind
Speaker 1: of get information about ourselves and our productivity and our activity.
Speaker 1: We can see how we have peaks and troughs of
Speaker 1: activity throughout a day, and that by looking at this data,
Speaker 1: we could actually plan our day so that we have
Speaker 1: our most productive hours dedicated to work and are less
Speaker 1: productive hours reserved for other stuff like food and naps.
Speaker 1: And I want to live in this world. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a lovely place. But Tom and I both were
Speaker 1: skeptical of this one as well. We pointed out that
Speaker 1: we are probably not at a place yet or and
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be by the close of two thousand and
Speaker 1: fifteen where your average workplace could have the flexibility to
Speaker 1: allow employees to structure their work days around their own
Speaker 1: personal uh peaks and troughs of activity. And I think
Speaker 1: that's pretty much true. I'm sure there's some very forward
Speaker 1: thinking places out there that have incredible flexibility for their employees,
Speaker 1: but on average, I would say that's not the case,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't expect it to be. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of different businesses that just are not really optimal
Speaker 1: for that kind of flexibility. Despite the fact that we
Speaker 1: would be much more productive or potentially could be much
Speaker 1: more productive, it's just not the way the systems work.
Speaker 1: You know. There's certain business systems that rely upon people
Speaker 1: working at certain hours, and it would require a huge
Speaker 1: overhaul to change that, and it just is not really
Speaker 1: realistic to expect that to turn around so quickly. Maybe
Speaker 1: in the future it would be lovely to see, but
Speaker 1: we're still kind of waiting on that. The next one
Speaker 1: Samsung made was that VR and the innovative use of
Speaker 1: displays would lead to a new era of shops, freeing
Speaker 1: up physical space so you would have less of a
Speaker 1: need to maintain a physical presence like in a mall
Speaker 1: or at a strip of stores. You could have a
Speaker 1: kiosk and a VR headset and customers could put that
Speaker 1: on and walk through a virtual UH store and see
Speaker 1: all these products and purchase them that way. Tom and I,
Speaker 1: again we're a little skeptical on this. UH. We did
Speaker 1: think that we were going to see more VR headsets
Speaker 1: hit the consumer market in two thousand and fifteen. As
Speaker 1: it turns out, we're still waiting on most of those.
Speaker 1: Um we keep hearing about the promise of VR, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it's making me a little nervous about the use of VR,
Speaker 1: because the longer we have to wait, the more likely
Speaker 1: people will lose interest, just as they did the first
Speaker 1: round of v R in the nineties. Uh, if the
Speaker 1: experience isn't really mind blowing and amazing, and if it
Speaker 1: isn't at a price point that is acceptable to the
Speaker 1: average consumer, and if it doesn't happen soon, we are
Speaker 1: in danger of VR not going anywhere yet again. Um So,
Speaker 1: because of that delay, we really haven't seen any use
Speaker 1: of VR, at least not on a widespread basis as
Speaker 1: a way of of as an alternative to having a
Speaker 1: physical presence physical store of space. We've seen plenty of
Speaker 1: online uses of that where stores have used an online
Speaker 1: presence instead of physical storefront properties, but not the VR
Speaker 1: experience at least not that I've seen. And uh, this
Speaker 1: wasn't a big price for us, We thought that it
Speaker 1: was pretty likely that it was too early to call
Speaker 1: VR the savior of the small business. The next one
Speaker 1: was that home automation would become more of an industry
Speaker 1: and less of a geek only world. It was going
Speaker 1: to go from geek to chic in other words, and
Speaker 1: Tom and I both agreed that that was more realistic, uh,
Speaker 1: And we also said that it was going to probably
Speaker 1: be a slow progression. It wasn't going to be something
Speaker 1: that really super takes off in two thousand fifteen, but
Speaker 1: we would see an increase. And that's exactly what we
Speaker 1: have seen. We've seen more devices and systems that incorporate
Speaker 1: automation into the consumer world. But you know, as I've
Speaker 1: pointed out multiple times, it's a daunting task to ask
Speaker 1: a consumer to buy into an automated system for their home.
Speaker 1: Unless you're buying a brand new house, like something that's
Speaker 1: been built from the ground up and it's now time
Speaker 1: to put appliances in that space, you probably aren't looking
Speaker 1: at many situations where a consumer is going to replace
Speaker 1: all of their appliances and various like climate control systems
Speaker 1: and locks and all of that stuff all at once.
Speaker 1: It's very rare when that's gonna happen. Most of us
Speaker 1: can't really afford to do that. I know that it
Speaker 1: would be really a scary bill to look at to say,
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna get rid of all the stuff
Speaker 1: we have now, like all the appliances, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: change out the locks, and we're going to put in
Speaker 1: nest systems for both the smoke detectors and the thermostats,
Speaker 1: and all the lighting. We're gonna do Hugh bulbs and
Speaker 1: all the lighting. And I'm sure that by the time
Speaker 1: that's all over, and I looked at that that price tag,
Speaker 1: I would think this costs more than my house dead.
Speaker 1: So it's not a big surprise that while there are
Speaker 1: more options on the market and it's slowly getting adopted
Speaker 1: in the consumer space, it's not moving super fast. Not
Speaker 1: a big surprise. I think it would take a remarkable
Speaker 1: movement in the automation world for this to get like
Speaker 1: a big boost. I think it's going to be something
Speaker 1: that over years, we will see more and more systems
Speaker 1: integrated together, particularly if we can find uh non proprietary
Speaker 1: ways for these devices to communicate with each other so
Speaker 1: that you don't have to buy in on just one
Speaker 1: manufacturers products if you want to have an integrated system
Speaker 1: in your home. But that's a hope that is probably futile,
Speaker 1: at least in the short term, because it behooves companies
Speaker 1: to make proprietary systems so that way you stay with
Speaker 1: one company at any rate. That was the next one,
Speaker 1: and the last one that Samsung made was all kids
Speaker 1: born in two thousand fifteen will end up learning coding
Speaker 1: along with stuff like science and math as a core subject. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we can't verify that yet. It will take another ten
Speaker 1: or eleven years before we can say for sure whether
Speaker 1: this prediction comes true. But Tom and I both thought
Speaker 1: that this one was certainly possible, and we definitely hope
Speaker 1: that it becomes reality, because, uh, technology is a very
Speaker 1: important part of our lives. At least a base understanding
Speaker 1: of of what drives technology from a a processing standpoint,
Speaker 1: from a computational and programmatical standpoint would be really helpful,
Speaker 1: and it would be great to see that worked into
Speaker 1: the curriculum of schools, not just for students, but for
Speaker 1: teachers to it. I think it'd be incredibly helpful. I
Speaker 1: certainly wish I had been able to take coding classes
Speaker 1: when I was in high school or middle school. Even
Speaker 1: middle school would have been ideal, but it just was
Speaker 1: not an option. Instead, I had shop and I made
Speaker 1: a race car that vaguely looked car shaped and sort
Speaker 1: of rolled. I mean, it was easily the worst made
Speaker 1: car in the class. It looked like I had hacked
Speaker 1: at it with a stone saw as opposed to using
Speaker 1: power tools. Coding would have been a nice change of pace.
Speaker 1: The next collection of predictions came from the Street dot com.
Speaker 1: The first one was that Facebook will aim at the
Speaker 1: enterprise model to expand and launch something for businesses. In
Speaker 1: other words, Facebook was going to try and and grow
Speaker 1: as a company by targeting other companies and saying, we're
Speaker 1: gonna create a platform for you to use as a
Speaker 1: business on the back end, not just something for you
Speaker 1: to interface with customers, but for you to use as
Speaker 1: sort of a productivity platform. And this makes sense because
Speaker 1: Facebook already has hit pretty much saturation in the consumer world.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get more people to join Facebook when
Speaker 1: everyone is on Facebook, or one out seven people in
Speaker 1: the world are on Facebook. So, uh, Tom and I
Speaker 1: both agreed that this was in fact a very likely outcome.
Speaker 1: And as we've seen Facebook is doing this, it's kind
Speaker 1: of slowly working its way into business systems. They launched
Speaker 1: a messenger platform for Android example, for example, the Android
Speaker 1: operating system, and we're starting to see more of that
Speaker 1: kind of enter into the Facebook strategy. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: this will continue in two thousand and sixteen, although this
Speaker 1: is not the Predictions episode for yet, so I will
Speaker 1: save that. Perhaps I'll even talk about that more in
Speaker 1: the Predictions episode. Next was that Amazon would launch delivery
Speaker 1: drones before the end of and the f a A
Speaker 1: would crumble under intense pressure in order to allow this
Speaker 1: to happen. Tom immediately was skeptical of this, as was I,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, this prediction was a little too optimistic.
Speaker 1: Amazon has not launched the delivery service. We did get
Speaker 1: another video of an Amazon drone being able to lift
Speaker 1: a large package, but it hasn't gone into practice, and
Speaker 1: that's not a big surprise. It's gonna take a lot
Speaker 1: of R and D to prove the system works. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is reliable that it's not going to encounter problems
Speaker 1: or cause catastrophes. And then on top of that, it's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot of work for the regulatory
Speaker 1: bodies to allow this to happen. So yeah, this seemed
Speaker 1: like it was a really aggressive prediction and it did
Speaker 1: not pan out as it turns out. Next was that
Speaker 1: Uber would go public in two thousand and fifteen. Tom
Speaker 1: said his instinct on this was that no, it would not,
Speaker 1: But then he also pointed out that often companies end
Speaker 1: up going public despite the fact that he can't see
Speaker 1: any logical reason for that. Uh. But Bert did not
Speaker 1: go public, at least not yet, and in October two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, Uber CEO actually said that the company wasn't
Speaker 1: planning any I p O anytime soon. So it looks
Speaker 1: like we're gonna be pretty safe in Uber will not
Speaker 1: be a publicly traded company before at least, and perhaps
Speaker 1: it will be a long time before Uber attempts to
Speaker 1: go public, so that one ends up being a bust.
Speaker 1: But Tom's disagreement with that prediction was right, So while
Speaker 1: the prediction was wrong, we ended up being correct. Hooray.
Speaker 1: The next predictions came from Bread and Beyond, and the
Speaker 1: first was that Google Glass will head into mass production
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen. Wow. Well. Tom said that he
Speaker 1: gave this a sixty chance of going of being true,
Speaker 1: of Google Glass going into mass production, and I said
Speaker 1: I was more skeptical. I did not think it was
Speaker 1: and it happened, And that was largely because I own
Speaker 1: a pair of Google Glass and while I love them,
Speaker 1: I also recognize their shortcomings. They have very limited use,
Speaker 1: and the uses that they do have can cause strife
Speaker 1: among people you encounter. I had several situations where I
Speaker 1: wore Google Glass and friends would say, can you take
Speaker 1: those off? It makes me nervous because they thought I
Speaker 1: was video taping or I'm sorry for using the acronism videotaping.
Speaker 1: I'm a child of the eighties. Um, but but recording
Speaker 1: what was going on or taking pictures even though clearly
Speaker 1: I wasn't uh, and still made them nervous because it
Speaker 1: seemed very prevalent. Never mind the fact that everyone today
Speaker 1: has a device that is capable of recording video and
Speaker 1: even broadcasting it live to the Internet as it's happening. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I think the perception of what Google Glass is
Speaker 1: that really hurts it at any rate. Uh. It did
Speaker 1: not go into mass production. Only did not go into
Speaker 1: mass production. But in January two thousand and fifteen, so
Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks after Tom and I recorded
Speaker 1: the episode, Google announced that Google Glass was essentially being shelved.
Speaker 1: It wasn't being dismantled entirely. They said that they the
Speaker 1: company intended to bring Google Glass to consumers at some
Speaker 1: point in the future, but was at least temporarily being
Speaker 1: put on hold. So not only did not go into
Speaker 1: mass production, it actually was kind of pushed into the shadows.
Speaker 1: So uh that one, uh, that one not so much.
Speaker 1: Brend Beyond also predicted that the Firefox operating system uh
Speaker 1: for for mobile devices wild flop and it would never
Speaker 1: go mainstream, which made Tom laugh because he said that, well,
Speaker 1: it it had maybe a long shot chance of success,
Speaker 1: but it was already clear that the cards were really
Speaker 1: stacked again to Firefox already, because you had entrenched operating
Speaker 1: systems in the mobile space already and it would be
Speaker 1: really hard to dislodge them. Uh. And in fact, if
Speaker 1: you look at recent market share numbers, they're kind of
Speaker 1: all over the place because it all depends upon which
Speaker 1: tracking system you use. But for example, I d C
Speaker 1: says that Android makes up to about eighty two point
Speaker 1: eight percent of the mobile market, and iOS is a
Speaker 1: distant second at thirteen point nine percent. Then it's Windows
Speaker 1: Phone at two point six percent, then BlackBerry at point
Speaker 1: three percent, and everything else all lumped together as point
Speaker 1: four So that would include Firefox OS in there. Uh
Speaker 1: So yeah, it definitely didn't go mainstream, but who would
Speaker 1: have expected it to. Uh. We certainly thought that there
Speaker 1: was a chance for it to go to be popular
Speaker 1: within a niche, but there was just no chance for
Speaker 1: it to go mainstream, not not in a year's time anyway.
Speaker 1: The last prediction from brend Beyond was that we might
Speaker 1: actually see autonomous cars hit the streets before the end
Speaker 1: of meaning that consumers would have an opportunity to buy them,
Speaker 1: or perhaps that businesses would be able to use them
Speaker 1: as taxi services. But Tom and I both thought this
Speaker 1: was way too aggressive prediction. Uh And sure enough that's
Speaker 1: the case. We have not seen these types of cars
Speaker 1: go out for the general public to either purchase or
Speaker 1: to ride in as part of a service. Uh. We
Speaker 1: pointed out that autonomous cars also faced some really hefty
Speaker 1: legislative hurdles, and it's gonna take laws changing in order
Speaker 1: for these to become a possibility in the future, like
Speaker 1: it may not even be legal to purchase an autonomous
Speaker 1: car depending upon where you live. Never mind the fact
Speaker 1: that we do have Tesla vehicles on the street with
Speaker 1: some autonomous capability, but they're not intended to be autonomous vehicles.
Speaker 1: Their vehicles that have really sophisticated driver assist systems in them.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to use it as a means of
Speaker 1: getting from point A to point B without having touched
Speaker 1: the wheel or the the accelerator or break. In fact,
Speaker 1: you're very much not supposed to do that. And yet
Speaker 1: there are people who take videos of it and then
Speaker 1: express amazement when things do not go as they had hoped.
Speaker 1: And it's because the systems weren't designed to do what
Speaker 1: the people are making them do. It's really problematic. So
Speaker 1: this one also turned out to be a bust, but
Speaker 1: Tom and I both agreed that that's how it was
Speaker 1: going to turn out. Next, we looked at I d
Speaker 1: C and some of the predictions they made. One of
Speaker 1: those was that the fablet market fablets being extremely large smartphones,
Speaker 1: something between a phone and a tablet. Typically we look
Speaker 1: at things like the Galaxy Notes and the next to
Speaker 1: six and the iPhone six and that sort of stuff
Speaker 1: as being iPhones plus really as being the devices that
Speaker 1: are in that category. That the market would grow as
Speaker 1: people demand larger devices, but wearables would underperform. In two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, now, Tom made a very good point in
Speaker 1: that episode, he said, well, it's pretty safe to say
Speaker 1: that fablit market is going to grow because the fablet
Speaker 1: market was very young at the end of two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: there were only a few uh devices that fit the category,
Speaker 1: and clearly more devices were going to join that category.
Speaker 1: And since you're talking about small number, having a small
Speaker 1: number grow isn't a big surprise. Like sometimes you'll see
Speaker 1: figures for market growth that will say the market for
Speaker 1: this type of device grew by two. Well, if I
Speaker 1: only sold one last year and then I sell you know,
Speaker 1: three the following year, it's not that great a story.
Speaker 1: But from a growth perspective, it looks fantastic, you know,
Speaker 1: from that percentage. So it all depends on how you
Speaker 1: look at it. And sure enough, Uh in July two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, there was a report that fablets were on
Speaker 1: track to have market growth of sixty six percent in
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen. Now that sounds great, a sixty
Speaker 1: six percent growth in the market, but that means that
Speaker 1: fablets would make up about seventeen percent of the overall
Speaker 1: smartphone market. So it's not like fablets are completely displacing
Speaker 1: every other type of smartphone. They're making up less than
Speaker 1: twenty percent of all smartphones on the market, but they
Speaker 1: are the number is growing and I do expect that
Speaker 1: to continue because, as Tom pointed out in our Predictions episode,
Speaker 1: these days we use our phones not to make calls
Speaker 1: so much, but to access stuff online and to send
Speaker 1: messages and pictures, and therefore having larger real estate for
Speaker 1: for screen size, for for being able to see the
Speaker 1: things we use these phones for, it totally makes sense.
Speaker 1: He also pointed out that the second half of that
Speaker 1: prediction that wearables would underperform was more of a substantive prediction.
Speaker 1: It had more meat to it because it meant sticking
Speaker 1: your neck out and and actually saying wearables are not
Speaker 1: going to do as well in as they had been doing,
Speaker 1: or at least they're not going to sell as well
Speaker 1: as what people had predicted. He pointed out that there
Speaker 1: would be many more products in the wearable category out
Speaker 1: in but perhaps people wouldn't flock to them, and according
Speaker 1: to I d C, there was a two increase in
Speaker 1: wearables shipped in the first quarter of compared to that
Speaker 1: same time in but that is shipped, not sold. The
Speaker 1: Apple Watch came out this past year, but it was
Speaker 1: not a mega hit. I mean, it sold a lot
Speaker 1: of units early on, but hasn't continued. Like we don't
Speaker 1: hear crazy stories of of Apple Watch sales, but then again,
Speaker 1: Apple is also pretty quiet about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But it didn't seem to be the sort of hit
Speaker 1: that the iPhone was or that the iPad was. The
Speaker 1: next prediction was that the Internet of things will continue
Speaker 1: to grow, which is sort of a no brainer, and
Speaker 1: we Tom and I both pointed out that that was
Speaker 1: going to obviously be true, and of course that is true.
Speaker 1: But we're also seeing some resistance to the Internet of things,
Speaker 1: largely because people are starting to question how that impacts
Speaker 1: their security and their their privacy. There's also been some
Speaker 1: data tracking scandals that have really brought this to light,
Speaker 1: and so now some people at least are a little
Speaker 1: more wary of having more devices around us that are
Speaker 1: tracking more data that pertains to us as people. So
Speaker 1: it is interesting to see how this is going. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we're going to continue to see the Internet of
Speaker 1: things grow over the next few years. I don't think
Speaker 1: that it's going to stop growing. It may slow a
Speaker 1: bit in its growth as people bring more concerns to light.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, from what I see, it looks like the
Speaker 1: people who are raising concerns represent a relatively small population
Speaker 1: compared to people who either don't know about the problems,
Speaker 1: don't care about the problems, or just are you know,
Speaker 1: they they care, but not enough for them to do
Speaker 1: anything about it. We next looked at some predictions from Gardner,
Speaker 1: and Gartner mostly was looking at trends that they expected
Speaker 1: to increase, maybe in doubling in size, like the number
Speaker 1: of devices connected to the Internet would increase substantially, in
Speaker 1: the three D printer market would double, uh that there
Speaker 1: would be twice as many car models that would have
Speaker 1: connectivity in as there were in twenty fourteen, and that
Speaker 1: more companies were going to higher chief digital officers and
Speaker 1: similar executives to help with data security. Now, Tom and
Speaker 1: I agreed that all of those trends would be on
Speaker 1: the rise, maybe not as much as doubling, but all
Speaker 1: of them would see increases over the course of As
Speaker 1: it turns out, if you want to know how many
Speaker 1: devices are connected to the Internet, there's not really any
Speaker 1: good number out there. There are a lot of different
Speaker 1: companies that have created estimations based upon various types of measurements,
Speaker 1: but there's no easy source to go to and say
Speaker 1: here it is, here's the number, Like you can't go
Speaker 1: to how many devices are on the internet dot com,
Speaker 1: and there's just a big number there that doesn't happen. However,
Speaker 1: estimations tend to range between four point nine billion to
Speaker 1: twenty five billion devices. That's a big range now. Gartner
Speaker 1: says that four point nine billion represents the install old base.
Speaker 1: Those are chips that have connectivity UH abilities that are
Speaker 1: actually in devices that are shipped to consumers. In other words,
Speaker 1: there are currently four point nine billion devices that are
Speaker 1: in consumer products and are connecting to the Internet, whereas
Speaker 1: the twenty billion number they say represents the total chips
Speaker 1: manufactured that would allow for connectivity but are not necessarily
Speaker 1: in actual devices are actually employed as of right now.
Speaker 1: So in other words, we're just shy of five billion
Speaker 1: devices connected to the Internet. According to Gardner's numbers, three
Speaker 1: D printers have seen a great deal of growth, particularly
Speaker 1: in the low cost consumer model market. Forecasts still predict
Speaker 1: that the market will double in size every single year
Speaker 1: until two thousand nineteen, so every year we're gonna see
Speaker 1: twice as many three D printers sold as the year previous,
Speaker 1: which is pretty exciting. However, right now we're all talking
Speaker 1: about numbers that are in the hundreds of thousands of units,
Speaker 1: not millions of units. So, like I said before, doubling
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean a huge number. Uh, it just means
Speaker 1: it's twice as big as it had been before if
Speaker 1: if it had been too now it's four. In this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking about couple hundred thousand units of three D printers.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon we'll be getting into the millions though. But
Speaker 1: even so, it's still a pretty small market all things considered,
Speaker 1: but it is growing. The car model prediction they made
Speaker 1: is pretty difficult to pin down because it would mean
Speaker 1: going through every manufacturer in every brand and every model
Speaker 1: and seeing which ones have connectivity, and then even defining
Speaker 1: what connectivity means. When you say a connected car, are
Speaker 1: you talking about multiple systems being connected? Are you talking
Speaker 1: about just a entertainment system? Um? Like, what does that
Speaker 1: mean acted car in this in this respect, but I
Speaker 1: would guess that we have seen a lot more cars
Speaker 1: with some sort of connectivity feature added into it, and
Speaker 1: there were in However, we also saw some major major
Speaker 1: problems with connected cars in and if you listen to
Speaker 1: my year in review where I wrapped up the big
Speaker 1: stories of you heard some of that. Uh, So we'll
Speaker 1: probably see this continue, but we're also going to see
Speaker 1: even more focus put on security in the automotive world.
Speaker 1: And as for chief digital officers, we've certainly seen a
Speaker 1: lot more focus put towards cybersecurity, but we're still seeing
Speaker 1: security leaks and security breaches. So I don't know that
Speaker 1: we have reached the point where we can really say
Speaker 1: we've got to handle on this, because this is an
Speaker 1: ongoing problem. Well, the I r S hack was incredibly
Speaker 1: scary that this hit the United States government, which is
Speaker 1: supposed to be really focusing on cybersecurity, and there are
Speaker 1: other breaches that were also pretty terrifying, nothing quite on
Speaker 1: the media level of the Sony hack from but still
Speaker 1: we haven't reached a point where we can rest easy.
Speaker 1: Certainly one of those things where I think we'll see
Speaker 1: more progress in twenty six more companies investing in high
Speaker 1: level positions that are meant to at least attempt to
Speaker 1: address security issues, uh, cybersecurity issues at companies. Then we
Speaker 1: had a couple of other predictions that just fell from
Speaker 1: different sources. One was that we'd see a move to
Speaker 1: more alternatives to email, that emails importance itself would decrease
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen. I mean, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find a whole lot of information about how email
Speaker 1: use has changed in two thousand fifteen. Anecdotally, it's still
Speaker 1: very important in my job, but that's anecdotal. That's not
Speaker 1: very useful information. There have been a lot of tools
Speaker 1: that have gained serious traction in two thousand fifteen, stuff
Speaker 1: like slack. Slack reminds me a lot of what Google
Speaker 1: Wave was attempting to be. So we're we are seeing
Speaker 1: tools that are meant to be a means of of
Speaker 1: collaborative work that could decrease the need to use email.
Speaker 1: But even in our office where we do have slack um,
Speaker 1: we also have people who would prefer to just go
Speaker 1: ahead and use email to send stuff around rather than
Speaker 1: constantly check, uh, you know, a slack feed. So this
Speaker 1: one was one that I think maybe is more true
Speaker 1: than not true. We probably did see some people shift
Speaker 1: away from email use other means of communication more frequently,
Speaker 1: but not to a point that was really remarkable. Uh. Also,
Speaker 1: there was a prediction that tablets would make a comeback
Speaker 1: in two thousand and fifteen, although another prediction said that
Speaker 1: tablets would fade away and smartphones would take their place. Now,
Speaker 1: Tom pointed out that there had been a stall in
Speaker 1: tablet sales, but that might be because people had bought
Speaker 1: a tablet and then weren't ready to replace it yet,
Speaker 1: that tablets might follow a pattern more similar to desktop computers,
Speaker 1: where you buy one and you stick with it for
Speaker 1: a couple of years before you upgrade, and then you
Speaker 1: might upgrade once you notice that the performance is starting
Speaker 1: to suffer, or maybe the latest version has a feature
Speaker 1: that is really compelling to you and you're not going
Speaker 1: to get it on your existing tablet. But it would
Speaker 1: make sense that we would see tablet sales numbers go
Speaker 1: in cycles where you know it's it's not necessarily a
Speaker 1: device one's going to upgrade every single year. Some people will,
Speaker 1: but not the not necessarily the majority of your market.
Speaker 1: So he said, it's not a big, big surprise. He
Speaker 1: would imagine that there would be an uptick at some
Speaker 1: point where people are ready to upgrade. Um And as
Speaker 1: it turns out, I d C reported in two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen that by the end of the year, we would
Speaker 1: see an eight percent decline in tablet shipments. This was
Speaker 1: in the middle of two thousand fifteen when this report
Speaker 1: came out, So eight percent negative growth is the way
Speaker 1: some people refer to it um Strategy Analytics, as it
Speaker 1: expects a seven percent growth in the tablet market in
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen. So it's possible that we're on the
Speaker 1: verge of an upward swing, that that two thousand fifteen
Speaker 1: was one of the lulls, and in two thousand sixteen
Speaker 1: people will be ready to upgrade and that's when we're
Speaker 1: gonna see growth again. But we're probably not going to
Speaker 1: see crazy growth the way we did when the first
Speaker 1: few years when the iPad came out and everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to get one of those devices. I also asked Tom
Speaker 1: did he think two thousand fifteen was going to be
Speaker 1: the year that NFC technology would finally take off. I mean,
Speaker 1: it had been available for a couple of years but
Speaker 1: had yet to really catch on, and I was wondering
Speaker 1: if Apple pay the iPhone and the and the Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: we're going to really push this over the edge. Tom
Speaker 1: said he wasn't. He wasn't really certain that would happen.
Speaker 1: He was a little ah. He said it probably wasn't
Speaker 1: the outcome that we should expect, And I'd say, he's right.
Speaker 1: We've definitely seen more places adopt stuff like Apple Pay,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't been universal. And I would argue that
Speaker 1: seeing someone pay with NFC is still the exception as
Speaker 1: opposed to the rule. In most cases, it hasn't been
Speaker 1: so widespread that it's become the common way, or at
Speaker 1: least like even one out of five transactions. We haven't
Speaker 1: seen like a twenty perc adoption rate of NFC technology,
Speaker 1: at least from what I can tell. So uh, he thinks.
Speaker 1: Tom thinks that, you know, NFC is gonna be one
Speaker 1: of those technologies that gradually increases in saturation, and at
Speaker 1: some point we're gonna look at and say, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: NFC is really here. I mean, it's it's the way
Speaker 1: people use to pay for stuff, um, But it's not
Speaker 1: going to be one of those things that happens rapidly.
Speaker 1: It's just going to be a gradual realization. I agree
Speaker 1: with that. I also said, will the Firefox browsers switching
Speaker 1: to yah Who's search engine make a big difference? And
Speaker 1: Tom jokingly said Google would end up selling YouTube and
Speaker 1: their HQ because they would be so threatened, and then said, no,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna happen. Is it would be interesting and
Speaker 1: good for Yahoo, and I will make Google a little sharper.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Um, that didn't work out so well,
Speaker 1: because if you listen to my wrap up episode of UH,
Speaker 1: this agreement was made at the end of two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen, and a year later, Yahoo market share had
Speaker 1: actually dropped, it had not increased, So you could argue
Speaker 1: that this partnership did not help Yahoo at all. Maybe
Speaker 1: it did help Yahoo. Maybe without the partnership it would
Speaker 1: have dropped even further. It's hard to say, but it
Speaker 1: certainly didn't propel Yahoo into a new dominant space in
Speaker 1: the search engine business. So that was pretty rough. Um.
Speaker 1: Then I said, Tom, do you have any other predictions
Speaker 1: that you'd like to talk about. He brought up the
Speaker 1: fact that everyone tends to predict that an Apple TV
Speaker 1: will be on the way, not just an interface for
Speaker 1: your television, but an actual television branded by Apple. UH.
Speaker 1: And we both said that's probably not gonna happen in
Speaker 1: if it happens at all, And sure enough, we did
Speaker 1: get Apple TV, but we're talking about a set top
Speaker 1: box with a new user in face, a new operate
Speaker 1: system TV o S that interacts with streaming content and
Speaker 1: digital content so that you can watch it on your television,
Speaker 1: but it's not a TV set itself. And Tom also
Speaker 1: talked about how we'd be seeing more traditional broadcast and
Speaker 1: cable channels offering online options for customers to get the
Speaker 1: content without going through cable itself, and how that could
Speaker 1: mean we're seeing peak cable, so stuff like HBO, you know,
Speaker 1: in we saw Hbo Now, which was the first time
Speaker 1: HBO was offering digital access to content without requiring a
Speaker 1: cable subscription, including HBO. So HBO Go you had to
Speaker 1: already be an HBO customer through your cable company in
Speaker 1: order to use HBO Go, but HBO Now meant that
Speaker 1: you could actually get access to HBO programming without having
Speaker 1: HBO on your cable, which was kind of cool, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people have said this is sort of
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end for cable television as it
Speaker 1: has been known up to this point, and Tom you know, said, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we are at peak cable, and as it turns out,
Speaker 1: that looks like that might be right. We're seeing we're
Speaker 1: seeing numbers of cable subscribers drop. Not just that we're
Speaker 1: seeing more people get rid of cable, but we're seeing
Speaker 1: few here people adopt cable. Uh. We have cord cutters,
Speaker 1: the people who are saying I'm done with cable television,
Speaker 1: I don't want it anymore. And then we have cord never's.
Speaker 1: These are the people who have never subscribed to cable.
Speaker 1: They don't see the value in it. They might have
Speaker 1: cable as an Internet service provider, but they don't have
Speaker 1: cable television. And uh, it looks like we're not just
Speaker 1: looking at peak cable. We're not just looking at a plateau.
Speaker 1: We're looking at a drop off. It's not so incredible
Speaker 1: that the cable company is in dire straits right now.
Speaker 1: But unless something changes, I think it's a trend we're
Speaker 1: gonna see continue where cable subscriptions are gonna gonna continue
Speaker 1: to drop. Uh. We're going to see fewer customers for
Speaker 1: the major cable companies out there, cable service providers, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna see some big changes in that industry. Uh.
Speaker 1: I sure hope we see some big changes in that industry,
Speaker 1: because there needs to be some real shakeups in the
Speaker 1: United States. We've talked multiple times about how cable service
Speaker 1: is largely a monopoly in the US, even though there
Speaker 1: are multiple companies that are operating in that space. In
Speaker 1: most regions, you don't have a choice in who your
Speaker 1: provider is, or if you do have a choice, it's
Speaker 1: it's almost like a fake choice, like one is clearly
Speaker 1: more dominant than the other. Um And that's a problem
Speaker 1: because without competition, there's no incentive to UH to work
Speaker 1: with con sumers to create the best experience for consumers.
Speaker 1: If you're the only game in town, you can charge
Speaker 1: whatever you want for your stuff and that's the only
Speaker 1: place people can get it. So this is where we're
Speaker 1: starting to see that kind of crumble as the Internet
Speaker 1: takes over some of that load where you can get
Speaker 1: stuff online. Well, that wraps up what our predictions were
Speaker 1: and how things have turned out. I'd say on the whole,
Speaker 1: Tom and I were pretty accurate with our our evaluation
Speaker 1: of the predictions. There were a couple of times where
Speaker 1: things turned out differently than what we expected, but not
Speaker 1: by a whole lot. Now, our next episode will be
Speaker 1: the predictions for two thousand sixteen, and on that episode,
Speaker 1: I will have another special guest, and that will be
Speaker 1: i As, Actar of c Net. I As is an
Speaker 1: old friend of mine. He's been on the show before.
Speaker 1: We're also co hosts of a another show that we
Speaker 1: do ourselves with a friend of ours named Eric Sandean,
Speaker 1: and so i As and I are going to make
Speaker 1: our predictions for what will happen in two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: And that should be fun because we'll be recording that
Speaker 1: in December and it won't air until the beginning of
Speaker 1: two sixteen, and by then it will be too late
Speaker 1: for us to change our minds. And I'm sure I
Speaker 1: will predict something that will have already been proven wrong
Speaker 1: by the time the episode goes live, because that seems
Speaker 1: to be the tradition. If you guys have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, whether it's a topic that
Speaker 1: I should cover, or a guest I should have on
Speaker 1: the show, either to interview or to be a guest post,
Speaker 1: or anything along those lines, you should send me a message.
Speaker 1: Let me know. The email address is tech Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or you can drop me
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler. The handle at
Speaker 1: all three is tech stuff hs W and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again in the future for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it houstock works dot com,