Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff dot com either and welcome to text Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: johns in Strickland and I'm Lauren Voca. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: What happened? Uh? You asked me to come onto the
Speaker 1: podcast in order to do a follow up to our
Speaker 1: predictions episode and I said yes, And we've been sitting
Speaker 1: across from each other for actually several minutes, so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why you're so surprised. Yes, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what my own name is anymore. I
Speaker 1: just say I'm John in Strickland because that's literally what's
Speaker 1: on my screen in front of me. I I am
Speaker 1: a trained monkey at this point. Well, I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you're keeping good notes at the very least. But yes,
Speaker 1: hello tech Stuff listeners. I am so glad to be
Speaker 1: back talking again today. I don't even know what to
Speaker 1: do without a third person sitting around this podcast table.
Speaker 1: Any reference to forward Thinking where we have a three
Speaker 1: person show. If you haven't check that out, you should
Speaker 1: definitely check that out. Lauren is a a very important
Speaker 1: part of that team. She's the one who makes sure
Speaker 1: that the things we say aren't entirely wrong. I also
Speaker 1: crack really inappropriate jokes, usually about bacteria. Yeah, we we
Speaker 1: everyone's got their job. Joe's the X man, you know,
Speaker 1: he's the one who wields the X. Yes, yes, absolutely true.
Speaker 1: We haven't. We have a mystical ax ever there, right,
Speaker 1: But to learn more about that, go check out that show.
Speaker 1: Like Lauren said, today, we are going to look back
Speaker 1: on the predictions we made and during the two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen Predicto rama, and uh, we like to really look
Speaker 1: at each one, kind of see how well we did,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of explore what actually unfolded in the year. Obviously,
Speaker 1: predicting stuff is tough, right, Uh yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: most of this episode is going to be devoted to
Speaker 1: precisely how wrong we were, or or hedging around a
Speaker 1: lot like well, if you squint and you tilt your head,
Speaker 1: we're kind of right, it's not entirely inaccurate. So why
Speaker 1: don't you start us off. I've got our our predictions
Speaker 1: written down essentially in the same order as we made
Speaker 1: them in the original show. All Right, the first one
Speaker 1: that we've got here, I said that would be the
Speaker 1: year that Facebook would go into serious decline and that
Speaker 1: Twitter would see more daily action than Facebook. Yeah. Um, well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Facebook certainly was starting to plateau because
Speaker 1: once you have a billion people in your you know,
Speaker 1: customer base, it's hard to add to that. You start
Speaker 1: running out of people. Yeah, there's not you know, there's
Speaker 1: like four point four billion people who don't have access
Speaker 1: to the internet. They are they are already outside of
Speaker 1: your area to grab, right. Um, but it it's growth
Speaker 1: didn't stop. It did slow, Yes, it certainly did not decline.
Speaker 1: Maybe with certain demographics. There were a lot of stories
Speaker 1: about how young people were either abandoning or never a
Speaker 1: opting Facebook, right, they were going for these other hit
Speaker 1: straight for other sites. But um, but you know, even then,
Speaker 1: it was more like growth rates were really small, not
Speaker 1: not not disappearing. And yes, and their CFO David Warner,
Speaker 1: in fact refused to break out the data for for
Speaker 1: the specific levels of usage across age brackets because he
Speaker 1: was asked point blank and he said, we don't have
Speaker 1: that for you or that or we're not we're not
Speaker 1: ready to share that at all. And interestingly, Twitter's growth
Speaker 1: also slowed a little bit, although it was still growing
Speaker 1: faster than Facebook. So I was almost not entirely totally wrong. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's see, I'm looking through the box here of things
Speaker 1: that have to be awarded to people after each one.
Speaker 1: We had the squids before you get apparently it's the
Speaker 1: awesome mix tape from Guardians of the Galaxy, but it's
Speaker 1: been taped over. Oh what has it been taped over with?
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's very Manilow played at the wrong speed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's what you get. That's yours. That's so well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Jonathan. You know, cherish it for minutes a fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably the best place to cherish it. My my
Speaker 1: first prediction was that we'll see more social media platforms
Speaker 1: that allow users to post messages that only exist for
Speaker 1: a limited time before being deleted, so things like Snapchat.
Speaker 1: But we didn't really see anything as high profile as snaps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing else really came up. I mean, of course, Snapchat
Speaker 1: did continue to be popular issue and had some massive,
Speaker 1: massive pr issues. I mean, there was a hack that
Speaker 1: got access to a lot of user data from Snapchat.
Speaker 1: The Snapchat CEO had some personal emails that leaked out
Speaker 1: that were incredibly misogynistic and awful. Um A punch, a
Speaker 1: bunch of apps came out that allow you to save
Speaker 1: images sent to you in Snapchat, which kind of defeat
Speaker 1: the entire purpose of s Chat an the worst. That's true,
Speaker 1: That's completely true. There there were some other ones, like
Speaker 1: there's one called Wicker that allows people to use to
Speaker 1: send pictures, text video that has a self destruct feature
Speaker 1: for those messages. Stealth messengers another one, and that quote
Speaker 1: unquote burns messages after a given amount of time. Flamo
Speaker 1: was another one. Uh Denote and Confide also let you
Speaker 1: send messages that only stick around until they are read
Speaker 1: and then they disappear. But none of these got traction
Speaker 1: in the way Snapchat did, so I think while technically
Speaker 1: I could say, yes, we saw more social platforms, we
Speaker 1: didn't see a lot of them, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: really consider that. So I get, oh, apparently I get
Speaker 1: a plastic lay from Hawaii with the flowers missing, So well,
Speaker 1: that's really it's plastic tubing with a couple of pedals on.
Speaker 1: That's sort of minimalist. It's kind of nice, I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to be all hipster ish. Alright.
Speaker 1: My next one was that um price over quality will
Speaker 1: dictate consumer purchasing decisions in and that therefore Apple would
Speaker 1: lose uh market share to Android as part of that.
Speaker 1: This is a hard one because we finding definitive market numbers.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of a lot of companies put
Speaker 1: out uh kind of suspected numbers and proposed reports, but
Speaker 1: they don't always come right out with how they arrived
Speaker 1: at those numbers. Sometimes they'll do things like they'll analyze
Speaker 1: traffic and they'll see, all right, well, this much traffic
Speaker 1: came from Windows based machines, and this much traffic came
Speaker 1: from Apple's based machines. So extrapolating from that data, we
Speaker 1: assume the market shares this. But that just assumes that
Speaker 1: the the browsing habits of both populations are exactly the same.
Speaker 1: Right what if what if Apple Apple folks just don't
Speaker 1: go on the internet very much? Yeah, maybe all we
Speaker 1: do is play but jewel, that might mean that you
Speaker 1: would get wrong answers. Anyway. The reason why we say
Speaker 1: that this is because it's it's tough to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is true. Android definitely has the market share over
Speaker 1: over iOS. Oh yeah, yeah. According to a July report
Speaker 1: from b GR, Android had sixty one nine percent of
Speaker 1: the US market share as opposed to Apple with thirty
Speaker 1: two point five. And then if you look at internationally,
Speaker 1: we're talking eighty two point seven percent market share for Android.
Speaker 1: That's huge. Um, that's in China specifically, and then seventy
Speaker 1: three point three in Europe. But when the iPhone six
Speaker 1: came out, because yeah, that's that's bound to have had
Speaker 1: an impact on the numbers, and it did worldwide, Android
Speaker 1: dropped about two point six percent but was still in
Speaker 1: the majority with yeah exact. So I mean, maybe the
Speaker 1: whole lose market share as Android became part of this
Speaker 1: that it's tough to say. I mean, to do a
Speaker 1: full year analysis, you would have to take a look
Speaker 1: at this. I would say that more or less, Uh,
Speaker 1: the iPhone six got people to come back because of
Speaker 1: the dramatic redesign, Like it was such a departure. We
Speaker 1: had gotten used to the iPhone just looking a little
Speaker 1: different each year. It had been a while since they
Speaker 1: had really gone back to truly redesigning that. So um,
Speaker 1: I think that might have had something to do with it.
Speaker 1: And then the rate, I think this one's about half right,
Speaker 1: half wrong, maybe maybe right wrong, because really Android still
Speaker 1: is dominant, So let me just root around in here. Uh,
Speaker 1: here we go. Here's a stretch armstrong um already stretched out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well but but I mean otherwise it's fine. He's not continry.
Speaker 1: He's just got really long arms. That's that's. I like
Speaker 1: long arms. That's good, you know. Uh, that's I always
Speaker 1: like getting a hug from someone, right right, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a big human cephalopod. Creepy. Alright. So,
Speaker 1: going back to mine, I said that smart TVs still
Speaker 1: won't take off in two thousand fourteen, largely due to
Speaker 1: the lack of a standardized experience, and a console and
Speaker 1: set top boxes would still be more popular choices for consumers. Okay,
Speaker 1: what I didn't think about because because here's here's my deal,
Speaker 1: I didn't consider the fact that if television manufacturers only
Speaker 1: make smart TVs and technically they'll be selling more smart TVs, right,
Speaker 1: because that's the only choice you have. I didn't think
Speaker 1: about that, which which in retrospect seems obvious. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't. I really didn't think I was
Speaker 1: with you on this one, I believe, and I really
Speaker 1: didn't think that that many Moore manufacturers were going to
Speaker 1: start integrating that necessarily. Yeah, I didn't either because I
Speaker 1: had seen so many um lackluster implementation is trying to
Speaker 1: come up with the word that didn't have a swear
Speaker 1: in it. Uh. But at any rate, well, smart TV
Speaker 1: sales didn't exactly skyrocket, but they definitely didn't hurt either. Uh.
Speaker 1: And consoles and set top boxes are still doing all right.
Speaker 1: It's it's just it wasn't It wasn't like a complete, um,
Speaker 1: a pretty picture like I was saying in my prediction.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of in the same boat, like
Speaker 1: wrong somewhere around there. So I get se of a sandwich. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have no idea how long that's been in here. Well,
Speaker 1: that's shady and I wouldn't recommend eating it. No, I
Speaker 1: think I'm just gonna put that next to the lay
Speaker 1: and just just forget about it for now. That sounds
Speaker 1: like a good plan. Well, well, Colin has Matt Team
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. Uh. My next prediction was that
Speaker 1: fitness trackers would really take off in like beyond early
Speaker 1: adopters to the mainstream, Like I believe that like your
Speaker 1: grandma and your cat are going to have a fitness tracker,
Speaker 1: which is I think it's what I said. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think you were right. I mean, the ownership of
Speaker 1: fitness devices doubled in two thousand fourteen, So now it
Speaker 1: was no longer that health nut down the street. Who
Speaker 1: who gets all the that marathon or that you know?
Speaker 1: It's right now, it's like everybody. I mean, I'm wearing
Speaker 1: one right now. I'm only not because mine was out
Speaker 1: of batteries today. Oh so you had to charge it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my charge mine last night. So the same sort of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I had added on to your prediction.
Speaker 1: I had said that wearable computers in general would get
Speaker 1: a big boost in two thousand fourteen, fitness tractors being
Speaker 1: in the lead, and you were also correct. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: turns out that Business Insider was saying that the market
Speaker 1: for wearables doubled in two thousand fourteen, not just for fitness,
Speaker 1: but for everything. And plus Apple announced it's smart watch finally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we won't be able to get our hands on it
Speaker 1: till two thousand fifteen. Right, But okay, so so doubled.
Speaker 1: Give me an idea of the numbers behind the word double, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that could mean like there were twenty last year
Speaker 1: and now there are forty that would not be that exciting.
Speaker 1: Two point five billion to five bill in dollars, that's
Speaker 1: that's a big amount of money. That is not small.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna keep getting bigger. So because we both
Speaker 1: were totally spot on, we both get it looks like
Speaker 1: a new fitbit. Oh no, wait, these are these are
Speaker 1: the old ones that cause you to break out. But
Speaker 1: it's still it's new ish to us. Hey, and I
Speaker 1: don't have an allergy to whatever semi precious metal was
Speaker 1: causing that problem. Yea, if it was nickel, I'm in bed, big,
Speaker 1: big trouble. But all right, um not. Now I had
Speaker 1: another one because I kind of added on to yours
Speaker 1: that wasn't officially mine. Yeah, this one is that I
Speaker 1: said NFC technology would still not take off in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. Now, I specifically was referring to the
Speaker 1: United States, right because as opposed to Europe where and
Speaker 1: time ago, they're wondering what we're doing and whether or
Speaker 1: not we will ever discover fire. Uh. But yeah, Apple
Speaker 1: pay was announced and of course the new Apple iPhones
Speaker 1: have NFC technology build into them, which was a huge
Speaker 1: departure and its first time Apple had done that. But
Speaker 1: Even so, while there was some excitement around it, I
Speaker 1: still think it hasn't truly taken off. I think it's
Speaker 1: more rare than than not more rare than common. Rather
Speaker 1: to find a store that has a terminal well, especially
Speaker 1: well at least in our area. And sure, I mean
Speaker 1: maybe in some parts, like maybe in New York City.
Speaker 1: You go down and there's like you know, New York City,
Speaker 1: they're half loon ways the Southerners coming out of me.
Speaker 1: But they may have NFC. Uh places like you know,
Speaker 1: lots of places that except NFC as a matter of
Speaker 1: a manner of payment. Um. But you know here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we hardly ever see it. I don't think it's it's
Speaker 1: as common. I think Apple is their push is really
Speaker 1: helping in a way. But you have a note here
Speaker 1: specifically the kind of points out something else besides Apple
Speaker 1: that could be encouraging an adoption of some other technology.
Speaker 1: Right right back in Bruary, following that really huge target
Speaker 1: data breach, um, you remember the one you know, in
Speaker 1: which forty million US customers had their credit card information
Speaker 1: stolen because basically the HVAC guy didn't have a good
Speaker 1: enough password security. True story. Um, So after that Congress MasterCard,
Speaker 1: the US Congress, not a company called Congress MasterCard, and
Speaker 1: Visa all kind of got together and made a whole
Speaker 1: lot of buzz about United States credit cards, all incorporating
Speaker 1: smart card technology. By late um. Smart cards, of course,
Speaker 1: are also driven by a form of near field communication technology,
Speaker 1: and some of the NFC terminals that are currently in
Speaker 1: circulation are in fact compatible with Google Wallet and Apple
Speaker 1: Pay and et cetera. So um, so we have seen
Speaker 1: more NFC stuff this year, um and I and I
Speaker 1: think that it might be that those two things together
Speaker 1: might drive the whole thing into an actual state of being.
Speaker 1: Maybe sixteen that's going to be the era of NFC
Speaker 1: finally making its way into the United States, whereas I'm
Speaker 1: sure by Europe they'll be paying by pure thought or
Speaker 1: something at that point. But at any rate, Uh, I
Speaker 1: I also thought it was. I think one of the
Speaker 1: other things that's been holding it back is that you
Speaker 1: have all these different competing standards for NFC. You know,
Speaker 1: Apple Pay, Google Wallet. There was a big story about
Speaker 1: CBS and right Aid uh saying they were not going
Speaker 1: to support Apple Pay, and upon closer inspection, it appears
Speaker 1: that maybe the reason for that is because they want
Speaker 1: to promote their own NFC payment called credit c something
Speaker 1: like that, our currency. I just remember reading about it
Speaker 1: at some point last year. So that's another issue. Is
Speaker 1: just just that when you have all these different proprietary
Speaker 1: approaches to something, some are more open than others, but
Speaker 1: all of them kind of have a big name behind them,
Speaker 1: then everyone wants to be that that guy. Everyone you know,
Speaker 1: they want all the payments to go through their system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense, but it also means can't
Speaker 1: we all just get a lot? Right? I just want
Speaker 1: to pay for but stuff, so I get Oh, I've
Speaker 1: got a defunct NFC chip, which is just as useful
Speaker 1: to me today as it was last year. Okay. My
Speaker 1: next one was that the PC, including both desktops and laptops,
Speaker 1: would continue its decline in as tablets became less expensive
Speaker 1: and more capable. So very similar to your your UM
Speaker 1: price over quality kind of approach, same sort of thing. Plus,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, we saw some really interesting trends.
Speaker 1: People are starting to hold onto their electronics longer than
Speaker 1: they used to because these are expensive things, all right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're spending five hundred bucks on a tablet, you
Speaker 1: probably don't feel a lot of urge. I mean, unless
Speaker 1: you have lots of discretionary income, you probably don't feel
Speaker 1: the urge to go an upgrade every year. Sure, especially
Speaker 1: seeing as how um like like software that you would
Speaker 1: be using on the internet, for example, is not advancing
Speaker 1: quite at the rate that it perhaps was back in
Speaker 1: the era of the desktop. Yeah, when it was just
Speaker 1: when you know, when when you had when a new
Speaker 1: game came out once a month and you were like, well,
Speaker 1: my graphics card can't handle this. And I looked into
Speaker 1: this and accorded to Gartner, traditional PCs have. In fact,
Speaker 1: they've declined yet again, two nine six million units to
Speaker 1: two seventy six million units in two thousand and fourteen.
Speaker 1: Now Ultramobile premium PCs, those super fancy, schmancy, sexy, sleek
Speaker 1: PCs that we're going on sale right after CS like
Speaker 1: two years ago. Ultramobile. Yeah, that's sorry, that's a buzz term.
Speaker 1: I mean it's only like that. I think of like
Speaker 1: the MacBook Air, you know, things that are just super
Speaker 1: easy to carry around. Yeah, that's the supposed Because I
Speaker 1: don't have one, so I can't. I mean, if someone
Speaker 1: wants to send me a MacBook Air for me to
Speaker 1: carry around. But yeah, those those actually went up, those
Speaker 1: sales went from twenty one point five to thirty seven
Speaker 1: point six. But even with that figure, you're still talking
Speaker 1: about a net decline and overall PC decline it and yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can see something something like a like a
Speaker 1: very sleep laptop like that obviously being a little bit
Speaker 1: outside the the area that I was discussing. You were
Speaker 1: looking at the general trend as opposed to like, well,
Speaker 1: there's always some segment of the population that you know,
Speaker 1: they like the they like the shiny shiny Sure. Of course,
Speaker 1: of course, UM tablets did see growth um from two
Speaker 1: hundred and seven million units in to two nine million. Yeah. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I mean your prediction was was pretty much dead on.
Speaker 1: So this was kind of a gimme. I mean, like
Speaker 1: I I felt like this was a gimme at anything.
Speaker 1: Even so, whenever we make a prediction, there's always the
Speaker 1: chance that someone is going to come along and and
Speaker 1: turn it on its head. Something that we think is
Speaker 1: completely obvious and completely like this is going to happen.
Speaker 1: You never know. Sometimes, like a new company comes out
Speaker 1: and they offer something that everyone suddenly wants for no
Speaker 1: apparent reason. Uh, girls started wearing their hair inside ponytails again. Well, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: will you get um to clay tablets? So here you go. Oh,
Speaker 1: they're a little bit heavy, They're they're a little heavy.
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of cuneiform that is, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm guessing that I just shouldn't read it
Speaker 1: out loud as soon as I figure out how to
Speaker 1: translate it. Yeah, that we ever, since we had the
Speaker 1: old ones come and take over the break room that day.
Speaker 1: I just don't like to to to tempt fate. It
Speaker 1: was a it was a rough lunch, it was, it
Speaker 1: was a rough morning. But I really like the smell
Speaker 1: of seaweeds, so it was kind of okay. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like three people lost their sanity, but in
Speaker 1: this place, who could tell? And Ben's recovering, well, he's
Speaker 1: doing much better than we should. All right, Luren, it's
Speaker 1: your turn again. All right. I said that Windows would
Speaker 1: essentially get pushed out of the tablet market due to
Speaker 1: lack of adoption by consumers. Yeah, and according to net
Speaker 1: market Share, again, we had to look at lots of
Speaker 1: different sources to get market share numbers. Android has about
Speaker 1: forty five point seven eight percent of the tablet market.
Speaker 1: Apple has about forty four point sixty one. That doesn't
Speaker 1: leave a whole lot of percent for anybody else. I
Speaker 1: know those of you counting along at home will notice
Speaker 1: that that's about It leaves Windows with about two point
Speaker 1: one three percent of the market, and the other takes
Speaker 1: up the rest. Actually other has more than Windows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but however, that was just one source. If you went
Speaker 1: to Statista, they had very different numbers. They said that
Speaker 1: Android holds seventy two percent of the market and Apple
Speaker 1: twenty two point three and Microsoft has a slightly more
Speaker 1: less depressing Yeah, it went up from two point one
Speaker 1: three under net market Share to five point seven under Statista.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing is that net market Share uses
Speaker 1: those web analytics I talked about earlier to look at traffic,
Speaker 1: and so they then extrapolate from like, well, this number
Speaker 1: of people were using iPads to access the site, and
Speaker 1: this number of people were using Android, this number of
Speaker 1: people were using Microsoft, and then we extrapolate from that.
Speaker 1: I don't know where Statista, how they how they generate
Speaker 1: their statistics. So uh, either way, you look at this
Speaker 1: and it's telling a story and The story is that
Speaker 1: Microsoft isn't also ran right, been in the tablet market.
Speaker 1: It's uh, and they had a lot of issues with
Speaker 1: Windows eight. You know, people having problems with it, people
Speaker 1: not really liking the design. Even in the tablet format,
Speaker 1: which it was really meant more for. It was suited
Speaker 1: for a touch screen interface much more than it was
Speaker 1: for a non touch screen interface. So I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that I got a Windows eight machine at home, and uh,
Speaker 1: and it does not have a touch screen interface. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I I like Windows well enough, but guess what,
Speaker 1: I don't use the tiled interface very much. I go
Speaker 1: to the desktop. So and part of that may just
Speaker 1: be because that's kind of how I trained myself, right,
Speaker 1: I'm used to the desktop. Part of it just might
Speaker 1: be the design is is it's better for the mouse,
Speaker 1: you know, point and click approach as opposed to a
Speaker 1: touchscreen of at any rate, you did get that, right,
Speaker 1: and you get a copy of Windows eight. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna add that to that fire where I'm cherishing that
Speaker 1: half speed Berry Mantelo tape. Yeah. Sorry, it's just whatever's
Speaker 1: in the box. Right, We're about to move. Actually, here's
Speaker 1: here's a little peek behind the curtain at how stuff works.
Speaker 1: We're we're going to our office is relocating, so we've
Speaker 1: been packing stuff up. But this is kind of the
Speaker 1: I think this is just what everyone's junk drawer got
Speaker 1: emptied into. Yeah, we've we've had this kind of growing box.
Speaker 1: It's got some slime coming out of the bottom. I
Speaker 1: think that was from that time you and I did
Speaker 1: that talk on slow Time. Oh yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: good talk. That was a good talk. Yeah, maybe we
Speaker 1: should have sealed those bottles. That might have been better
Speaker 1: than just putting it in cardboard, now that I think
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, that was a weird day, so we
Speaker 1: were really thinking clearly. At any rate. My next prediction
Speaker 1: is that we'll see more autonomous car technology incorporated into cars,
Speaker 1: things like collision detection, parking assistance, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But there will be no autonomous car on the market
Speaker 1: in two thousand and fourteen, which was such a gimme
Speaker 1: that I don't even know why I even made that prediction.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact, no one, no one would. I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone would realistically expect an autonomous car to
Speaker 1: be on the consumer market and anytime in the next
Speaker 1: couple of years, I don't know. I I feel like
Speaker 1: there was buzz around the end of last year that,
Speaker 1: you know, because we had just seen some of those
Speaker 1: Google prototypes and people were like, it's coming, It's coming tomorrow,
Speaker 1: Like no, kids, like Santa doesn't come until, you know,
Speaker 1: if you have to calm everyone down a little bit.
Speaker 1: So you tried, that's true. I'm maybe maybe you're being
Speaker 1: very fair. I'm going to say, yeah, maybe it was
Speaker 1: one more of a a kind of let's let's let's
Speaker 1: be a little more cautious and not pessimistic, but realistic
Speaker 1: in our expectations so that we don't get disappointed. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: because you know, we are seeing some of this technology
Speaker 1: being incorporated into, for example, high end luxury vehicles, and
Speaker 1: now it's getting into regular cars in the fleet. That's
Speaker 1: the cool thing. Like this is stuff that for a
Speaker 1: while you could only find in the premium stuff like
Speaker 1: the the super high end you know fifty stuff, and
Speaker 1: now you're getting it into the the regular cars that
Speaker 1: like you know, when I say regular cars, like you're
Speaker 1: going to go shopping for just you want sedan and
Speaker 1: you're looking at sedans, a lot of them are going
Speaker 1: to have some of these features built into the Yeah,
Speaker 1: your Toyota, your Honda or whatever it is. Part of
Speaker 1: it is that it's being mandated, right, These things that
Speaker 1: are being proven to help with with safety are now
Speaker 1: being mandated to be included in cars. So that's not
Speaker 1: like the manufacturers have a whole lot of choice in
Speaker 1: the matter. But it also mean it's adding cost to vehicles.
Speaker 1: I had Scott Benjamin on this show, and he pointed
Speaker 1: out how the price of cars has increased faster than
Speaker 1: inflation alone would explain. And part of that is because
Speaker 1: we're seeing some of this technology incorporated into our cars,
Speaker 1: driving the car price up. Uh. And you know, you
Speaker 1: figure they're making a profit too, so it's not just
Speaker 1: the raw cost of the person. So since I got
Speaker 1: most of that right, I'm getting Uh, it looks like
Speaker 1: it's a matchbox car, a little little Google prototype driving matchbox.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, no, this is actually one of the Google
Speaker 1: prototype cars. They're just that small. Okay, well that's fancy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no it is, Fanny. I mean I can't drive it anywhere.
Speaker 1: Well does it have a tiny, little shrunken person in it? Um? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just their fingers just right there on the stop button.
Speaker 1: Do we do we need to feed it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to look into it. I'll see if
Speaker 1: there's like a guide here. Why don't you take the
Speaker 1: next one? Sure? Sure, Okay. We asked both of ourselves
Speaker 1: whether the PS four or the Xbox One would reign supreme.
Speaker 1: We didn't even give the Wi you a fighting chance
Speaker 1: in this game, oh art sick burn Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I predicted that the Xbox One would wind up
Speaker 1: being the winner as far as sales go, and I
Speaker 1: said that they would be pretty much on equal footing
Speaker 1: by the end of the year. Um and again once
Speaker 1: we get to a point the fact that that the
Speaker 1: sales figures are not always shared by both Microsoft and Sony.
Speaker 1: But from what we can see, PS four, oh yeah
Speaker 1: it was. It was. I mean, I maintain that at
Speaker 1: this point last year I did not imagine that Sony
Speaker 1: was going to knock it out of the park the
Speaker 1: way that they did. But they, I mean, they were
Speaker 1: such they were like a dark steam horse, like they
Speaker 1: just ran with it. Well they had They had most
Speaker 1: of the same compelling games that Xbox One had, plus
Speaker 1: a lot that Xbox did not have that helped Um.
Speaker 1: There was more of a focus on gaming for the
Speaker 1: early part of Sony's approach, and it was only at
Speaker 1: the two thousan fourteen e three that they started talking
Speaker 1: about the other stuff, whereas Microsoft started the other way around,
Speaker 1: right They started by talking about here's all the entertainment
Speaker 1: things your Xbox can do, and then the next year
Speaker 1: doing oh, it plays games. So uh, it was kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting flip flop and strategies within these two companies.
Speaker 1: But yeah, p S four units just sold way more.
Speaker 1: Now the gap has been closing. According to Motley Full
Speaker 1: PS four sold thirteen point five million units in November
Speaker 1: and Xbox sold ten million. But but things may change
Speaker 1: infen we may see that kind of even out a
Speaker 1: little more. Um It'll really depend on the focus that
Speaker 1: each company gives that that division. And I think both
Speaker 1: Sony and Microsoft see the value in those divisions. But
Speaker 1: I think Sony might pay more attention the CEO of Microsoft.
Speaker 1: I think he knows that there's you too, the Xbox division.
Speaker 1: But when you look at Microsoft and how much money
Speaker 1: they make from their productivity software, Xbox is a drop
Speaker 1: in the bucket. So I don't know that the company
Speaker 1: overall values the Xbox to the same extent that Sony
Speaker 1: as a company values the PS four. I'm getting more
Speaker 1: and more of the feeling that nobody at Microsoft plays games,
Speaker 1: especially the people who work on Xbox either that they
Speaker 1: only play Flight Simulator. Yeah, that's the game that they play. Well.
Speaker 1: Since we both were off on this, we both get
Speaker 1: uh oh, we have to share a we you oh, Fox,
Speaker 1: I'll let you take it for I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't We'll worry about that later. Okay, so maybe my
Speaker 1: pug will like it. There you go. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen animals play with the little tablet
Speaker 1: thing on the Nintendo. We you We're gonna have so
Speaker 1: many Nintendo. First of all, you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about it, but I'm going to have kidding. I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: If anyone gave me a wee U, I would totally
Speaker 1: use it. I'm not I love Nintendo. Okay, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how many afternoons I've spent playing Super Smash Brokers.
Speaker 1: It's a great game, but it's that's the one about
Speaker 1: like Wall Street, right, Okay. My next prediction is we'll
Speaker 1: see a lot more low energy bluetooth beacon technology and
Speaker 1: operation at various venues and stores. This one depends on
Speaker 1: what you meant by a lot more. Yeah, got incorporated
Speaker 1: into more stadiums and arenas, so it was it became
Speaker 1: more of a thing at various sporting venues, but not
Speaker 1: not as much as I can tell, in a lot
Speaker 1: of stores. Like it was one of those things that
Speaker 1: was kind of being talked about at the end of
Speaker 1: this interesting idea of having all these little Bluetooth stations
Speaker 1: set up in your store so that as you the
Speaker 1: consumer walk around, you get things like coupons for stuff,
Speaker 1: or you get a notification on, Hey, you know you
Speaker 1: bought this one thing. Here are these other three things
Speaker 1: that are gonna look awesome with that one thing you bought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did a whole episode on that at some point
Speaker 1: last year. I did, We did, and if you would
Speaker 1: like to climb it. But but as it turns out,
Speaker 1: it didn't really get a lot of a lot of adoption.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those things that, like a
Speaker 1: lot of technology, you know, it was one of those
Speaker 1: things that got a lot of talk early on, and
Speaker 1: it's just taking time to get adopted, whether or not
Speaker 1: it ever gets rolled out in the larger format. I
Speaker 1: think some things that might hold it back again are
Speaker 1: the consumer experience. If you have to download an app
Speaker 1: for every single store you go to, that's not a
Speaker 1: good experience. No, no, not at all. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: already at a point like I have a phone that
Speaker 1: has very low storage, and whenever I'm trying just to
Speaker 1: update the things I already have on it, I get
Speaker 1: notifications saying you don't have enough storage space to update
Speaker 1: your apps, And I have to go on there and say,
Speaker 1: all right, well, what am I ready to get rid
Speaker 1: of you? Yeah? What happened I've been to in a year? Well,
Speaker 1: path goodbye or squares later. So yeah, so since that
Speaker 1: didn't get that, it looks like, um, I'm getting a
Speaker 1: blue tooth. Oh yeah, it's some someone's tooth. That is
Speaker 1: all right. Whoever at how stuff works keeps leaving teeth
Speaker 1: around here, seek help, preferably outside of this office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, because that's just super creepy. Uh My next
Speaker 1: one was that we will see data collection technology like
Speaker 1: fitness trackers extend to lots of different tech and feeding
Speaker 1: that info back to us. Now, we saw a lot
Speaker 1: of this, particularly with smartphones especially, and like Google now
Speaker 1: is a big one right where you do some browsing online.
Speaker 1: If you are signed into a Google account and you
Speaker 1: do some activity online, it gets connected to your if
Speaker 1: you have an Android phone, to your Android phone. So
Speaker 1: this can seem creepy or awesome depending upon your point
Speaker 1: of view and how it is presented to you. There
Speaker 1: are times when I thought, Wow, that was amazing, and
Speaker 1: there are other times when I thought, I need to
Speaker 1: be careful because the research stuff here at how stuff
Speaker 1: works all the time. Right, oh yeah, kind of really
Speaker 1: weird things. Yes, sometimes some of the stuff we talk
Speaker 1: about is a little on the weird side. And I've
Speaker 1: got I used Google Chrome and I'm signed it, so
Speaker 1: I don't think about it while I'm doing it. I'm
Speaker 1: just doing my job and so I'm but then I
Speaker 1: get a Google Now things saying hey, I know that,
Speaker 1: notice that you're really interested in blue teeth, blue teeth
Speaker 1: and squitting tattoos. There's there's this great bluetooth squitting tattoo
Speaker 1: parlor that's three ft away from where you're standing right now,
Speaker 1: and they're looking at you go on in their weird
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, well told them to expect you, And
Speaker 1: that's a little creepy. We booked an appointment for you right,
Speaker 1: um yeah, because because it will do the kind of
Speaker 1: thing like like, for example, if you have purchased a
Speaker 1: plane ticket, um, and it knows if you're a couple
Speaker 1: hours away from the airport that you are supposed to
Speaker 1: be at for when that plane is leaving, It'll send
Speaker 1: you a note like, hey, dude, you might want to
Speaker 1: get on that train. Right yeah. I'll even give you
Speaker 1: traffic directions things like that to say, like, in order
Speaker 1: for you to make your flight, this is what you
Speaker 1: need to do right now. Uh. Same thing for like
Speaker 1: theater tickets, like if if you've bought them and you
Speaker 1: use your your Gmail address as you're the one that
Speaker 1: you're you know, buying stuff for and now that Gmail
Speaker 1: and Google Wallet sync up, yep, then you can get
Speaker 1: these sort of messages too. Now granted that was just
Speaker 1: one implementation of what I was thinking of. I was
Speaker 1: thinking of also about stuff that gives you like real
Speaker 1: time usage data info that you you know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: put in the form of a chart or a graph.
Speaker 1: We've seen some of that too. Uh. Cars are definitely
Speaker 1: starting to use this more and more. Um. We saw
Speaker 1: that start off with things like the Prius where it
Speaker 1: would tell you how much gas you were using. But
Speaker 1: now we're starting to see it in lots of stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're also seeing it in security systems, where it'll give
Speaker 1: you reports on how many times your front door has
Speaker 1: been open in a day. That kind of thing, UM
Speaker 1: so interesting. I mean, you know, if you if you're
Speaker 1: like parents and you've got kids, then that might be
Speaker 1: a really valuable thing to say, like, oh, it was
Speaker 1: Billy home. If not, then do I need to go
Speaker 1: on the warpath that kind of thing. So we are
Speaker 1: seeing a lot more of this. So I get a
Speaker 1: notebook of just data, just raw data like ones and zeros. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's some scribbles in here. Looks I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure this is Josh's handwriting. Yeah, it says smells nice,
Speaker 1: just next to a bunch of ones. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to run that through translator at some point,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I'm gonna be alright. Similar to
Speaker 1: my cuneiform tablets, I'm going to suggest that you don't
Speaker 1: read it out loud once you figure out, yeah how
Speaker 1: to do so. Good point. Okay. My next one was
Speaker 1: that other big companies like Amazon would join the game
Speaker 1: to provide cloud storage and services, more focus being on
Speaker 1: the cloud and less on individual devices. So we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of of cloud services out there. I mean
Speaker 1: Google has Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft has the Azure old services, right,
Speaker 1: I meant to individuals, not to I mean, because they
Speaker 1: already had provided lots of cloud stuff to companies. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're starting to see some more of that. We're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot more infrastructure as a service that would
Speaker 1: be more to the companies, but uh, we're definitely seeing
Speaker 1: maturation of that. Like Google Drive has evolved over the time,
Speaker 1: and that I used, I mean we use that here
Speaker 1: time more or less continually. I have way more Google Docs.
Speaker 1: But I really want to think about at any given
Speaker 1: point in time, actually some point going to have to
Speaker 1: go and start clearing stuff out because I think I've reached, um,
Speaker 1: thirty something per cent of my full capacity and they
Speaker 1: give you like gigs of space or something. It's crazy
Speaker 1: at any rate. Um, So yeah, we've seen this continue on.
Speaker 1: You get some cotton candy in the shape of a cloud,
Speaker 1: I would warn you. I think this is also from
Speaker 1: that same trip where we talk. That's when Josh, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's like a year and a half ago. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna put this on the fire pile. Okay,
Speaker 1: sounds good. Uh. Next, I said that there would be
Speaker 1: a huge job opportunity in two thousand and fourteen for
Speaker 1: big data analysts, not not data analysts who are large,
Speaker 1: but analysts who analyze big data. Big data also a
Speaker 1: big opportunity for people who can produce infographics. And I
Speaker 1: was right on this one, and that trend is also considered.
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's gonna keep on getting bigger and bigger,
Speaker 1: so that well paying jobs, I mean really really well
Speaker 1: paying jobs, because I looked it up, are are opening
Speaker 1: up as an opportunity for people who have this kind
Speaker 1: of talent and skill for analysis and presentation of data
Speaker 1: in a way that's meaningful, so that you know, when
Speaker 1: you've got all this raw information, how do you present
Speaker 1: in a way that actually makes sense. Recruitment firms say
Speaker 1: that data analyst positions have been on the rise throughout
Speaker 1: the year and are expected to continue into So I
Speaker 1: get apparently I get analyzed at some point. Oh it's
Speaker 1: just a little coupon says you will be analyzed in
Speaker 1: terms of data or like psychoanalyzed. Um, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: find out when it happens, all right, Okay, well that's exciting. Um,
Speaker 1: the unknown is really cool. Yeah, it's it's only terrifying
Speaker 1: until you find out about it, and then it can
Speaker 1: be really terrifying, right, okay. My next one was that
Speaker 1: Windows eight won't really make it well, as as we
Speaker 1: have already discussed, since Windows ten came out in two thousand,
Speaker 1: they didn't even go to Windows nine that make it
Speaker 1: from orbit as distance as you can. Never mind, Yeah
Speaker 1: that was I think. I think that was also a
Speaker 1: GIMMI but but what do I get? Well still, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the fact that not just that didn't make it,
Speaker 1: but that Microsoft actually went forward and released a new
Speaker 1: version that quickly after. I mean, this is kind of
Speaker 1: Vista all over again. I think. Yeah, yeah, Well, according
Speaker 1: to this, I take back the Windows eight that I
Speaker 1: gave you. So you got it. But now now your
Speaker 1: gift is the removal of Windows eight. That's that's actually
Speaker 1: a lovely gift, all right, Sorry to the keeps on taking. Um.
Speaker 1: My next one is the US will be forced to
Speaker 1: re examine n s A policies in some way, but
Speaker 1: that it won't effectively change how things actually happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish, I wish I'd been wrong. I really this
Speaker 1: is the one that I was like, man, please prove
Speaker 1: me wrong. Uh, this is absolutely true. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: so true that in November, there was a bill that
Speaker 1: was going to actually uh target in essay surveillance practices.
Speaker 1: It had passed the House of Representatives, it had President
Speaker 1: Obama's backing, and it failed in the Senate. So absolutely
Speaker 1: right about this. Um. You know, we saw a lot
Speaker 1: of stories about the n s A surveillance and infiltration
Speaker 1: techniques throughout the year. Of course that that was carry
Speaker 1: over from the previous year. It just kept on going.
Speaker 1: And now we even though about their attempts to gain
Speaker 1: a real presence in global communications, insinuating themselves into various
Speaker 1: carriers across the world in the carrier's actual data centers
Speaker 1: so that they can just lift just kind of skim
Speaker 1: information right off the top. Yeah. It's um, it's not
Speaker 1: not an improvement, uh from my perspective. However, I do
Speaker 1: get one free month of surveillance, free surfing. That's cool.
Speaker 1: So for one month the US say, will stop looking
Speaker 1: at me according to this card. The next month while
Speaker 1: they hunt you down and kill you. They might just
Speaker 1: look at me twice as hard. I don't know how
Speaker 1: I meant real dodgy coupons. I might not catch those
Speaker 1: one free massage from Steve Balmer that's still in the box,
Speaker 1: so you never know it could pop up. Be careful
Speaker 1: about any other Microsoft. You've got three in a row
Speaker 1: coming up too. So all right, um I I said
Speaker 1: that personal and corporate encryption industries would get a boost
Speaker 1: due to the n Essays surveillance policies, and we've seen
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot of focus from the media, but
Speaker 1: this is really frustrating. It's one of those things where,
Speaker 1: despite being told over and over again, hey guys, this
Speaker 1: is really important and you need to know about this,
Speaker 1: most base level consumers are not changing their behaviors or
Speaker 1: aware of it, or it maybe burnout and maybe that
Speaker 1: thing where you're just like you get to a point
Speaker 1: where you just say, I can't be angry or sad
Speaker 1: or upset anymore because I'm just too overwhelmed. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: It's such a huge problem to how do I know
Speaker 1: about it? So it was you know, it's certainly from
Speaker 1: a corporate standpoint, this is really taken off quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Semantic which is which is I think
Speaker 1: the leading security firm in the US. Yes, UM announced
Speaker 1: that it's going to split into two companies so that
Speaker 1: the security branch and the information management management branch can
Speaker 1: operate independently and uh and grow as much as they
Speaker 1: possibly call powerful than you have ever imagined. This. This
Speaker 1: is the thing where you know, you have a company
Speaker 1: that diversifies, and then you realize, you know, if we
Speaker 1: could really focus on just one of these things, we
Speaker 1: could really blow it out of the water. And Semantech
Speaker 1: is already you know, that's already the leader in that
Speaker 1: in that industry. But now now they're talking about with
Speaker 1: the split, being able to focus even further on it.
Speaker 1: So let's see you get um. It looks like this
Speaker 1: is a lock. It looks like it was originally around
Speaker 1: part of a bridge. I don't know which one, but
Speaker 1: it's got initials on it. That's sweet. Here you go,
Speaker 1: oh thank you. Yeah. I keep getting all the heavy gifts.
Speaker 1: I you know, I have to move this box back
Speaker 1: to my desk when this is over. Okay, I bowled
Speaker 1: a lot the other day and I'm still a little
Speaker 1: sore in tired. Are are stuff Works holiday party was
Speaker 1: at a bowling alley. That's true. By the way, it
Speaker 1: ended up being Josh Clark versus Jonathan Strickland for six games.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of bowlingguage three games apiece. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so stuff you should know and tech stuff are equally good.
Speaker 1: That's what I get out of that. What I get
Speaker 1: out of that is that you guys need to have
Speaker 1: a death match coming up. Yeah, well I will be
Speaker 1: at a bowling alley tomorrow, so all right. UM, my
Speaker 1: next one is that we would see more mobile money management, um,
Speaker 1: like a rise in the use of bitcoin and other
Speaker 1: digital currency arise in square and digital all in one
Speaker 1: cards and etcetera. And this is kind of what we're
Speaker 1: going to be seeing a lot more of in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen because those mandates that have come down as
Speaker 1: a result of those hacks. You know, you mentioned the
Speaker 1: Target one. There were other ones to home Depot gut hacked,
Speaker 1: Amart got hacked. I mean, so it's it's definitely one
Speaker 1: of those things that's going to be pushed even harder.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, just less week, Microsoft had announced that
Speaker 1: it was actually going to allow people to use bitcoin
Speaker 1: for Windows and Xbox Store payments, which is kind of incredible.
Speaker 1: That mean, that's a huge vendors now. The way it
Speaker 1: works for them is it's kind of like buying Disney
Speaker 1: dollars in a way. You you can use the bitcoin
Speaker 1: to add money to your Microsoft account, and then you
Speaker 1: can use the money from that account to pay for
Speaker 1: stuff you can't You can't just go directly. You can't
Speaker 1: be like, here's a bitcoin, I want all of those things.
Speaker 1: UM and other options like Apple Pay show that consumers
Speaker 1: are really interested in using digital means to manage money
Speaker 1: and make transactions. So the coin all in one card
Speaker 1: is still on preorder that has not come out yet,
Speaker 1: but it's one of those things that also got a
Speaker 1: lot of interest when it first was Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean circumstantially. I have not been to a food
Speaker 1: cart or vendor booth in the past year that did
Speaker 1: not have a square Yeah. Yeah that. In fact, there
Speaker 1: are a few stores that I've seen that are essentially
Speaker 1: using iPads and swarms. Oh yeah, yeah, there's actually a
Speaker 1: bunch of them around town. So I'm not sure again
Speaker 1: if that's a local Atlanta thing or yes, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm seeing that a lot more too. I'm
Speaker 1: even seeing it in things like restaurants and places. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to see because it's so much
Speaker 1: lower cost than installing the whole system. So really well done.
Speaker 1: You get a bit of a coin. Oh that's I
Speaker 1: think this is the heads. You don't get the tails.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they split it. Yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. But it's small. Yeah, light weight. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like lightweight things. I'm lightweight. My next one is that
Speaker 1: the bitcoin bubble would burst and and the price of
Speaker 1: bitcoins would fluctuate wildly, wildly. Yeah, so towards the the
Speaker 1: end of two bitcoin was like near a thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was kind of crazy. And then uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely fluctuated, why oildly. The The current value
Speaker 1: is somewhere around the three hundred dollar range um. When
Speaker 1: I looked at this the other day, the low point
Speaker 1: of that date was three hundred thirty eight dollars and
Speaker 1: nine cents per bit point, and the high point was
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty dollars and seventy five cents. So you're
Speaker 1: talking like nearly thirty dollars. Okay, let's twenty difference in
Speaker 1: the low to the high in one day. That's within
Speaker 1: a couple. Yeah, that wasn't fold. It was like nine
Speaker 1: am in noon when I look at those things. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and at the height of it was worth about nine
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars per bitcoin. Yeah, and now it's
Speaker 1: down to around three hundred. I mean. This was also
Speaker 1: the year when we saw the bitcoin exchange Mount Cox,
Speaker 1: the the one that was named after a magic the
Speaker 1: gathering when it when it ended up going bankrupt because
Speaker 1: it was attacked by hackers who stole eight hundred fifty
Speaker 1: thousand bitcoins, seven hundred fifty thousand of those belong to customers,
Speaker 1: hundred thousand belonged to the company. Yeah, and that was terrible.
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, you got that exactly right. According to this,
Speaker 1: you get a share in Mount Cox's. That's very useful.
Speaker 1: If I have a time machine, I may have put
Speaker 1: some of these together last year. Maybe if I say
Speaker 1: that thing on the cuneiform out loud, that you'll magically
Speaker 1: be able to Maybe it's a time Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: time machine recipe. Well, we're down to the last couple here.
Speaker 1: So my next one was that Microsoft's new CEO will
Speaker 1: at best be an effective leader, but not an innovator,
Speaker 1: so we didn't know who was going to be the
Speaker 1: new CEO at the end of well, especially when we
Speaker 1: were recording this, because I think we were recording the
Speaker 1: Predictions episode early in December last year, so there was
Speaker 1: like a whole month that we could have gone through
Speaker 1: without that could have messed up our Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: saying a lot of things like anything could happen in
Speaker 1: the next day twenty days, but you might have already
Speaker 1: heard this happen because this episode will come out much
Speaker 1: longer after we recorded it. Well, Satya Nadela, who ended
Speaker 1: up becoming the next CEO, the current CEO of Microsoft,
Speaker 1: decided to really kind of refocus the company in a
Speaker 1: very dramatic way. UM. At one point he actually ended
Speaker 1: up leading the company through the largest layoff Microsoft has
Speaker 1: ever had, with eighteen thousand jobs cut, largely from Nokia
Speaker 1: because they had purchased Nokia and then they decided that
Speaker 1: it was they needed to refocus UM. They really looked
Speaker 1: at productivity software being like their bread and butter, and
Speaker 1: looking at ways of moving that towards the cloud UM
Speaker 1: and to try and make that more effective. He definitely
Speaker 1: had some missteps in there was a point where he
Speaker 1: was in an interview, he said essentially that the best
Speaker 1: way for women to get raises is not to ask
Speaker 1: for them, that they would just be getting them based
Speaker 1: on merit maybe you know a year or two after
Speaker 1: when they should. Yeah. I think that that's absolutely a
Speaker 1: clever system which has been in place for a very
Speaker 1: long time, and he's led to women making seventy cents
Speaker 1: on the dollar. Yeah. I um when I when I
Speaker 1: read that, I'm like, well, he's definitely not an innovator
Speaker 1: as far as women's right. So he's definitely towing that line. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did some backtracking. He did apologize for his statement. Um, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you gotta ut say, well, at
Speaker 1: least he took accountability for the thing he said, as
Speaker 1: opposed to just ignoring it. But still, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a it was a terrible thing to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's like a point and a half. That's all.
Speaker 1: I'll share part of your year old sandwich with him. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: he did oversee the purchase of Mojang or mo Yang
Speaker 1: if you prefer, the company that made Minecraft, but uh,
Speaker 1: and it was a big purchase. But you also he
Speaker 1: didn't get um notch you know Notch was the creator
Speaker 1: of Minecraft. He had left the company at that point,
Speaker 1: so or he shortly after the announcement he left. So
Speaker 1: you might wonder whether that purchase, like how valuable it
Speaker 1: actually because the company hasn't become known for releasing a
Speaker 1: string of hits, the one that kind of keeps developing
Speaker 1: and continuing. But so I think I was pretty much
Speaker 1: right on this. And I again, it's not that I
Speaker 1: want these companies to to kind of have issues or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just that was one of the things that I
Speaker 1: kind of foresaw based upon where Microsoft was, and I
Speaker 1: was hoping that maybe I'd be wrong, but I think
Speaker 1: I was right. And it looks like I get a
Speaker 1: copy of Destiny for Xbox One, but I don't own
Speaker 1: an Xbox One. So so you got a Frisbee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I've got. That's all right. I can I
Speaker 1: can just you know, watch Game of Thrones and listen
Speaker 1: to Peter Dinkledge and imagine that I'm playing the game.
Speaker 1: And no, that doesn't work. He actually emotes in the
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. See, I can burn other companies besides Nintendo.
Speaker 1: And then my last prediction was that Google would finally
Speaker 1: figure out what it's doing with Monola Mobile spin it
Speaker 1: off question Mark Well. In January, mirror days after this
Speaker 1: episode the original episode went live, Google sold off most
Speaker 1: to Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, a Chinese company, Lenovo for
Speaker 1: two point nine one billion dollars. Yeah, you're right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, I was right. I get a apparently I
Speaker 1: get a mobile made by Motorola from nineteen little tiny
Speaker 1: candy bar phone. If if you ever want to cause
Speaker 1: play from the matrix, that'll be really useful, or or
Speaker 1: later seasons of the xpot Oh. Yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: could be Skinner. That's probably the only character I could
Speaker 1: possibly Skinner. That would be amazing or assistant director rather sorry,
Speaker 1: sorry Skinner disrespect. Maybe it would be a flashback because
Speaker 1: I'm not as old as he was in the show,
Speaker 1: So I could be when he was an agent, and
Speaker 1: it'll be called Agent Skinner. Oh man, something I would
Speaker 1: watch the Agent Skinner show, you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: would to know think about it. So get on that Fox.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, that wraps up our report card and
Speaker 1: uh as always are highly scientific grading methodology. Yes I am.
Speaker 1: I am covered in the ruins of science right now.
Speaker 1: We're I'll get you a wheelbarrow to take that back
Speaker 1: to your desk and the fire pit. So, uh, Lauren,
Speaker 1: where can people find you now that you are are
Speaker 1: not on tech stuff every week? Well these days, as
Speaker 1: we alluded to earlier, I am on Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast twice a week. I did have a cameo in
Speaker 1: one video episode of Forward Thinking. I was a zombie
Speaker 1: that was trying to eat Jonathan's brains. Um. I vaguely
Speaker 1: remember that. I think only part of my brain was
Speaker 1: consumed that day. So you've got a lot of them
Speaker 1: to go around, so it's pretty good. Ah Um. I'm
Speaker 1: also on two of our video shows here at How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I'm on What the Stuff along with Jonathan
Speaker 1: and Brain Stuff also along with Jonathan. UM. So if
Speaker 1: you would like to find an of those, let's see
Speaker 1: you can go to fw Thinking dot com, brain Stuff
Speaker 1: show dot com, and to check out What the Stuff,
Speaker 1: you can find the how Stuff Works YouTube channel. Um
Speaker 1: it's called how Stuff Works. Yeah, we went wild and
Speaker 1: crazy with that one. Now, all of the all of
Speaker 1: these series, I mean, obviously I'm biased because I'm in
Speaker 1: all three as well, but all these series are fantastic
Speaker 1: and uh, and there are a lot of fun. So
Speaker 1: if you are into like I described brain stuff as,
Speaker 1: this is the show that answers the questions you didn't
Speaker 1: even know you wanted to ask. That's what we're aiming for. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's mostly basic science kind of stuff, like like weird
Speaker 1: stuff about your your your body, or psychology or animals, animals.
Speaker 1: Occasionally we get into some stuff like like linguistics. I
Speaker 1: just recently did one about the Transatlantic accent. That's the
Speaker 1: that's the old timing accent. You here all the time? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was That was a great video. That was.
Speaker 1: That was a fun one. So we've got those and
Speaker 1: go check those out. There are a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, one more thing. When this episode goes live,
Speaker 1: I'll actually be in Las Vegas getting ready for the
Speaker 1: biggest consumer electronics show of the year ce S two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. If you're also here in Las Vegas, you've
Speaker 1: gotta swing by the Sharp booth in Central Hall to
Speaker 1: say hi to me and to check out Sharp's ultra
Speaker 1: high definition televisions and other awesome innovations in display. You'll
Speaker 1: even have a chance to win one of their two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen line of products, So how cool is that.
Speaker 1: To learn more about all the exciting things Sharp is doing,
Speaker 1: follow the hashtag Sharp C E S, and remember for
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes, just write me. My email address
Speaker 1: is tech Stuff at how stuff parks dot com, drop
Speaker 1: me a line on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumbler. The handle
Speaker 1: it all three is tech stuff hs W, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again, maybe in person, really soon. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics because it
Speaker 1: has to works, dot com chis