Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with text Stuff from half Stuff.
Speaker 1: Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to tex Stuff. I
Speaker 1: am Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: that time that we like to put off as long
Speaker 1: as we possibly can, where tech Stuff puts on its
Speaker 1: prognosticator hat, stairs into the future and says, what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen y'all? Now before we even start to reveal some
Speaker 1: of the predictions we have made for the next year
Speaker 1: a couple of different things. Instead of our usual approach
Speaker 1: where we just alternate back and forth, but we've actually
Speaker 1: kind of divided up our predictions into different categories. We
Speaker 1: talked about them beforehand a little bit enough to see
Speaker 1: where we had overlap and just to organize this so
Speaker 1: that it doesn't end up being, oh, you know, when
Speaker 1: you made that prediction about such and such, I've got
Speaker 1: a prediction. You know, we wanted it to be nice
Speaker 1: and clean and also keeping line that we are recording
Speaker 1: this particular episode on December twelve, two thirteen, so we're
Speaker 1: coming to you from the past, Yes, from the incredible past.
Speaker 1: There is a possibility example, an asteroid in the latter
Speaker 1: half of December fell on Facebook, Facebook headquarters then and
Speaker 1: we make a prediction about Facebook that obviously could not
Speaker 1: come true because of those facts. Uh, that's why it
Speaker 1: hasn't happened to us yet. Yes, the same sort of thing,
Speaker 1: like there's um specifically, there's a bit about Microsoft and
Speaker 1: it's CEO, which that answered that question. May be resolved
Speaker 1: before we go into the new year. It would surprise me,
Speaker 1: but it might not, like it won't. But um, so
Speaker 1: my first prediction is about Facebook. What Okay, so what
Speaker 1: is your prediction. My prediction is that is that will
Speaker 1: be the year that Facebook goes into serious decline. Wow.
Speaker 1: That's that's big. That's a big prediction. I I know
Speaker 1: that it's the ruler. It is a bold prediction, um.
Speaker 1: And I know that it is very much right now
Speaker 1: the ruler of the social media platform roost um as
Speaker 1: of this podcast. As of September anyway, Um, they had
Speaker 1: seven seven million daily active users on average and uh
Speaker 1: one point one nine billion monthly active users. And okay,
Speaker 1: so that's a bunch of people, y'all. I understand that. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, and I'm not saying that there's going
Speaker 1: to be a mass exodus. I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: that like, by the end there'll be three people on
Speaker 1: Facebook and one of the will be your mom. Right.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, I think that I think the
Speaker 1: people are going to stay on Facebook as a personal identifier,
Speaker 1: Like I think that right now, it is really the
Speaker 1: social network that is used by I mean, obviously is
Speaker 1: used by most human people as a kind of base present.
Speaker 1: But um, but I think that people are going to
Speaker 1: start moving to other platforms, uh Tumbler, Twitter, I'm not sure. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, even even Facebook themselves. During a third
Speaker 1: to earnings call, chief financial officer David A. Ebersman acknowledged
Speaker 1: that Facebook had been seeing a decrease in daily users,
Speaker 1: and especially Americans around the thirteen to fourteen years of
Speaker 1: age kind of brains. So it may be that we're
Speaker 1: talking about a shift because as the demographic gets older,
Speaker 1: you don't see an influx of new users, and the
Speaker 1: people who start to go away aren't being replaced by
Speaker 1: by new folks, right right, And you know, like people
Speaker 1: aren't deleting accounts yet, but they are checking the site
Speaker 1: less often. And meanwhile, Twitter's audience is starting to skew
Speaker 1: younger than the rest of the entire Internet. And see
Speaker 1: you know, there's certain things I think that really feed
Speaker 1: into this. I mean, there there there's more and more
Speaker 1: information that comes out that makes it plain to the
Speaker 1: average user what Facebook, you know, why? Why how Facebook
Speaker 1: makes their money? I mean, the fact is that the
Speaker 1: users are actually the product, right, That's what Facebook is
Speaker 1: selling and serving advertising to to those users. And how
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah, and they you know, doing things like
Speaker 1: having AutoPlay videos happen in the news feed, including possibly
Speaker 1: AutoPlay ads. That's not necessarily a feature that a lot
Speaker 1: of users are going to like. And then you know,
Speaker 1: on the on the corporate side, anyone who's or just
Speaker 1: on the organizational side, anyone who has a Facebook page
Speaker 1: as and not not their own personal page, but a
Speaker 1: page for something a brand or a band or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: they are discovering this getting harder and harder to hit
Speaker 1: their reach. Like they might have thousands of fans who
Speaker 1: are following them, but when they post a tiny percentage
Speaker 1: of those people are seeing whatever those posts are, uns
Speaker 1: they pay money to pay it out to more to
Speaker 1: more users. Yeah and um, and all of this I
Speaker 1: think is making making Facebook seem more more corporate and
Speaker 1: less like a like an innovative play space to those
Speaker 1: really critical younger users. Right, So unless something major changes
Speaker 1: that you see Facebook having at least uh a market decline,
Speaker 1: some thing that we could look at and say, all right, here,
Speaker 1: here are some quantifiable numbers that show that it's it's
Speaker 1: didn't have a great year. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: have a poor year. I I do not. I cannot
Speaker 1: in good conscience predicted that, um that either Tumbler or
Speaker 1: Twitter or snapchatter, etcetera going to overtake Facebook in terms
Speaker 1: of user numbers. But um, but I think that any
Speaker 1: any one at least some probably Twitter, okay probably Twitter
Speaker 1: will will seem more daily action than Facebook will. Gotcha. Well,
Speaker 1: along those same story of lines, my social media prediction
Speaker 1: is that we're going to see more of the types
Speaker 1: of social media platforms that allow you to post things
Speaker 1: for just a specific amount of time and then after
Speaker 1: that time it's gone. So Snapchat mission impossible. Message that Yeah,
Speaker 1: within thirty seconds of message self destructs. Yeah, because Snapchat.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen it or used it.
Speaker 1: I actually haven't, which means that I'm really old and uncool. Right.
Speaker 1: It all depends on the kind of friends you have.
Speaker 1: But what's your experience of Snapchat is going to be.
Speaker 1: But the idea being that you know, you can take
Speaker 1: a picture and share it with your group of friends
Speaker 1: on Snapchat, and it only exists for a set number
Speaker 1: of seconds, and you can determine how long it exists,
Speaker 1: and after that it deletes itself and the person cannot
Speaker 1: go and look at it again. And uh So in
Speaker 1: that case, it may be that we're going to see
Speaker 1: more and more of these sorts of social media um platforms, partly,
Speaker 1: I think because we've got some people who are starting
Speaker 1: to finally care about privacy, especially in light of things
Speaker 1: like the n Essay story from those fifteen, which I
Speaker 1: know is going to keep on going. So I predict
Speaker 1: that by the end often we're going to see other
Speaker 1: several other social media platforms that have the sort of
Speaker 1: temporary presence where you can post something and then not
Speaker 1: worry about it haunting you later because it's gonna go
Speaker 1: away um And so we should have a few of
Speaker 1: those by the end of twenty four. Team And in
Speaker 1: defense of this, one of one of the news items
Speaker 1: that has happened over the past couple of months, I'm
Speaker 1: only white who was the former um, Facebook director of
Speaker 1: Business Operations with with Instagram. UM Instagram within Facebook, UM
Speaker 1: left to become the CEO of Snapchat Snapchat, so that
Speaker 1: you know, as as of the last round of investment,
Speaker 1: they had raised some like seventy million dollars. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's definitely interest there. And Snapchat skews younger, right,
Speaker 1: so uh in the same sort of thing, like I
Speaker 1: think Instagram is another one of those things that had
Speaker 1: you know, it's skewed younger too, and then Facebook was like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's move in on that. And then
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, you got Facebook on my Instagram. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's move on. We have a different
Speaker 1: category you want to talk about now, hardware. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: have a prediction that UM that devices that the rule
Speaker 1: of device sales in is going to be price over quality.
Speaker 1: So something that's less expensive is going to be more
Speaker 1: popular than something that is by some measure made better,
Speaker 1: right and UM. And furthermore that UM that that in
Speaker 1: this trend, Apple is going to lose market share to
Speaker 1: to Android. UM. And you know, I mean, okay, so
Speaker 1: so I think that I think the mobile devices are
Speaker 1: going to be really big. That's not really a prediction
Speaker 1: as much as like duh um, because everyone wants it
Speaker 1: portable and plans are still expensive. And so I think
Speaker 1: that that the entry price of the device itself is
Speaker 1: really going to be become the divider among the winners
Speaker 1: and losers here UM, and that you know, the push
Speaker 1: is going to be for creators to to be streamlining
Speaker 1: their components UM rather than really innovating new technology, and
Speaker 1: and that that kind of sucks for everyone. However, I
Speaker 1: do think it's going to be awesome for software because
Speaker 1: more people are going to need to be creating, UM,
Speaker 1: creating programs that make more efficient use of what they
Speaker 1: have to work with. And you know, if you if
Speaker 1: you look at what how Apple has behaved in the
Speaker 1: last quarter of that's not a big you know, that's
Speaker 1: not a big jump from that. You know, you had
Speaker 1: Apple for the first time offering a lower cost version
Speaker 1: of the iPhone at the same time as an updated version,
Speaker 1: you know, out of the gate, not not discounting an
Speaker 1: older model, but rather coming out with a new lower
Speaker 1: price model. UM. So you know, it may very well
Speaker 1: be that they're they're seeing something similar in the future. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that they think that they got scared this year,
Speaker 1: they um you know, they dropped from almost of the
Speaker 1: market share in late back down to um more like
Speaker 1: which was their end of year numbers, and so that's
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, so they're they're kind of hovering around
Speaker 1: the same spot and occasionally seeing a little boost every
Speaker 1: now and then. So my prediction was that, you know,
Speaker 1: I bet I'm going to see a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: smart TVs at c e S when you guys who
Speaker 1: are listening to this, I'll be at c e S
Speaker 1: next week and um from when we're recording this, it
Speaker 1: will be several weeks either way. My feet are all
Speaker 1: a hurting in anticipation. But at any rate, uh, smart
Speaker 1: TVs or something, I expect I'll see a lot of
Speaker 1: We've already seen examples of the plenty of them in
Speaker 1: the past, but we're gonna see it more and more
Speaker 1: of those where the smart television stuff is incorporated directly
Speaker 1: into the TVs. I still don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: really take off, partly because you know, there's not like
Speaker 1: a unified experience out there. Obviously, any particular vendor is
Speaker 1: going to have their own kind of application software, their
Speaker 1: own user interface, and that's going to cause things to
Speaker 1: slow down. It's not gonna be a fast adoption. I
Speaker 1: just don't think, I mean, unless someone has come up
Speaker 1: with a truly innovative approach, I don't think it's going
Speaker 1: to be enough to start selling lots of TV sets.
Speaker 1: I think that things like consoles are going to hold
Speaker 1: that still. You know Xbox one for example. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's way too many smart boxes or or media consoles
Speaker 1: that can do this kind of thing. And TVs are
Speaker 1: such a big purchase um for for for most people
Speaker 1: to to make right now, you know, the same way
Speaker 1: that I think that price is going to drive uh
Speaker 1: mobile cells. Yeah, sales, it's going to be kind of
Speaker 1: the same thing. But I'm wondering if such a big
Speaker 1: ticket unitasker is ever going to take off honestly, unless
Speaker 1: companies stop making non smart TVs, right if if Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be one way forcing everyone to move to it.
Speaker 1: Another way is if you open up your your user
Speaker 1: interface enough so that lots of different types of devices
Speaker 1: can interact with it. Because when you restrict it, you know,
Speaker 1: you forced someone to go into one ecosystem. That's not
Speaker 1: great for the consumer. So my prediction ultimately is that
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, smart TVs on the
Speaker 1: consumer market will not be a huge deal. Like, it
Speaker 1: won't be It won't be an industry that takes off
Speaker 1: like tablets did. Um, and I think it's if they
Speaker 1: are going to take off, it won't be okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: My next hardware related uh prediction is that and and
Speaker 1: actually this is one that both of us had really
Speaker 1: had to be to be entirely fair, um, is that
Speaker 1: fitness trackers are going to really take off. I mean
Speaker 1: not that they not that they have not taken off already,
Speaker 1: but that, um, that the kind of people who are
Speaker 1: not the early adopters of technology, like like like your
Speaker 1: grandma is going to have one of these. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: proliferation of these is going to be insane in fourteen
Speaker 1: is essentially what the prediction is. I agree with that.
Speaker 1: I actually went further and saying that it would be
Speaker 1: wearable computing in general, although I think out of the
Speaker 1: entire wearable computing industry, the fitness trackers are going to
Speaker 1: be the one that take the lead. They They've to me,
Speaker 1: the fitness trackers have done this better than the other
Speaker 1: types of wearable computing, and by that I mean specifically
Speaker 1: smart watches, I mean, and also, fitness trackers have the
Speaker 1: benefit of UM of being able to specialize, whereas I
Speaker 1: think that smart watches are trying to do a lot
Speaker 1: of things, especially for the processor size that they have
Speaker 1: to work with UM. And and also I mean, you
Speaker 1: know you can with with a with a fitness tracker,
Speaker 1: you can really get get it down to to a
Speaker 1: size that it can wear and look like jewelry, which
Speaker 1: is what more people out there. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: as much as I do love the the kind of
Speaker 1: quirky eighties design aesthetic of the pebble, that's not something
Speaker 1: that everybody wants to wear. It's not the sleekest of profiles.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I understand, I agree, And so I think
Speaker 1: I think we are going to see a big jump
Speaker 1: I think wearable computers, whereas I think smart TVs are
Speaker 1: not going to be the tablet of I think wearable
Speaker 1: computers are going to be the tablet often. I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that someone is able to make a smart watch that
Speaker 1: really resonates with the general market and not just you know,
Speaker 1: geeky tech guys like me. I would love to see
Speaker 1: that happen. I don't know if it's going to happen,
Speaker 1: But I am pretty confident that wearable computers in general
Speaker 1: are gonna be crazy popular. Yeah, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's um. Tim Bahran for PC mag was predicting that
Speaker 1: smart watches are going to die in and I think
Speaker 1: that that's way overly pessimistic. Yeah, I mean, I understand
Speaker 1: where that comes from, in the sense that a lot
Speaker 1: of the smart watches that have come out so far
Speaker 1: just haven't really captured imagination. But every time, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've still seen ads where they have the
Speaker 1: Dick Tracy wrist watch in the ad, and I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: this is an idea that isn't gonna die. As soon
Speaker 1: as someone figures out how to really tap into it,
Speaker 1: that market takes off. It's just that I don't think
Speaker 1: anyone's created the implementation where everybody wants one. We haven't
Speaker 1: found the iPhone right exactly, That's exactly it. Um. So
Speaker 1: my next prediction is one that I had for twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen that I'm I'm centually saying dido on, which is,
Speaker 1: remember remember when I predicted that in NFC technology wasn't
Speaker 1: really going to go anywhere in the United States? Did over.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna happen. Uh. The technology itself
Speaker 1: is fine, It's just that I don't think anyone is
Speaker 1: ready to adopt it. It's not in enough handsets for
Speaker 1: it to be have a penetration level where vendors are
Speaker 1: going to spend the money to upgrade to get NFC
Speaker 1: technology into theirs. You know, you're gonna see it in places,
Speaker 1: but not it's not gonna be widespread. And Uh. Also,
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that we never see NFC takeoff
Speaker 1: in the United States and instead have to wait for
Speaker 1: some other technology that essentially does the similar thing but
Speaker 1: through a different implementation. So in other words, like NFC
Speaker 1: is just one of those things that could have worked
Speaker 1: had we invested the money in it, but we just
Speaker 1: never did, and then eventually some other technology overtook it,
Speaker 1: and that's what we went with. That's what I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that we're going to get that technology inteen. I
Speaker 1: just don't see NFC going anywhere. Sure, no, I agree,
Speaker 1: and that is basically all that I have. You you
Speaker 1: just said everything that I have to say about it. Um.
Speaker 1: So my next hardware prediction a lot of these are hardware, UM,
Speaker 1: is that the the PC is going to continue its decline. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, as as tablets get get cheaper and more capable, Um,
Speaker 1: the that that that drop off And by PC I
Speaker 1: mean PC and laptop this time. Actually, UM, it's just
Speaker 1: just going to continue to decrease. You know, people are
Speaker 1: going to be holding on to to their heavy duty
Speaker 1: tech like that for longer in an attempt to save
Speaker 1: a little bit more money and turning to some of
Speaker 1: these incredibly cheap mobile devices in order to satisfy some
Speaker 1: of their new gadget cravings. I completely agree. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's a little subnote in our notes where it's almost
Speaker 1: the same wording, where I'm like, yeah, PC sales are
Speaker 1: going to continue to decline in UH, that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean that every UH computer manufacturer is going to see
Speaker 1: a decline. It's possible that Apple might actually do fairly well.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I say that is that, UH,
Speaker 1: if I'm in a position where I want to buy
Speaker 1: I'm going to invest in a new computer, then I'm
Speaker 1: probably going to try and go for something that's gonna
Speaker 1: that I perceived to be a truly a powerful, high
Speaker 1: quality computer. And whether whether you agree that Apple products
Speaker 1: are that high quality that's the public perception, right or
Speaker 1: you know, at least something comparable. And I think that
Speaker 1: Apple is is a little bit more um user friendly
Speaker 1: than like, I don't know, like like alien ware or
Speaker 1: something like. Well, I certainly have like that aesthetic is
Speaker 1: really appealing. It's it's impossible to deny how appealing that
Speaker 1: their design aesthetic, as Johnny ives is a genius and
Speaker 1: so um, you know, and and again like guys, I'm
Speaker 1: not an Apple fanboy. So before all the people out
Speaker 1: there who want to call me an Apple fan boy
Speaker 1: right in remember this is the same guy who back
Speaker 1: in the day was lambasted on iTunes for having a
Speaker 1: quote anti mac bias. In the quote he still makes
Speaker 1: fun of me for having an iPhone. Sometimes I'm not
Speaker 1: fun of my wife too, so but but yeah, it's this.
Speaker 1: This is backed up by a little bit number. The
Speaker 1: I d C is predicting a six percent to climb
Speaker 1: in PC sales next year, which is better than this
Speaker 1: year's ten percent to climb in piece of sales. So
Speaker 1: it's gonna be declining, but not as quickly. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's good news. Um, But they're also predicting the worldwide
Speaker 1: tablet sales will grow by eighteen percent, in smartphones by
Speaker 1: a twelve percent. Right. I don't think that two for
Speaker 1: one devices are going to save laptops either. There are
Speaker 1: several that we've seen in the past where it's a
Speaker 1: tablet that can convert to a laptop or vice versa.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that those are going to be
Speaker 1: a huge hit, mostly because their price point tends to
Speaker 1: be higher than what a tablet on its own would be.
Speaker 1: And going back to your price versus quality type argument,
Speaker 1: even if you were to demonstrably prove that the two
Speaker 1: and one is a better quality machine, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people will be like, yeah, I just don't need,
Speaker 1: don't care. Yeah. Um and and actually this this wasn't
Speaker 1: recorded in the notes that we shared earlier, but if
Speaker 1: I can make a very bold related prediction to all
Speaker 1: of this, um, I think that Windows is going to
Speaker 1: get shunted out of the tablet market. I cannot imagine
Speaker 1: what they could possibly do to attract enough developers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, they would have to have
Speaker 1: a lot of other manufacturers buy into the Windows eight
Speaker 1: operating system. Because the surface just hasn't done it. The
Speaker 1: surface has not really performed very well in the market
Speaker 1: compared to other tablets. And it's not that, you know,
Speaker 1: the surface is a bad product, it just hasn't caught on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I think the Windows eight is part
Speaker 1: of that problem. But I'll talk more about that in
Speaker 1: a minute. So going on to another where this might
Speaker 1: sound a little weird for it to be a hardware thing,
Speaker 1: but it kind of fits in. We didn't have a
Speaker 1: category that fit in better, so we put it in here. Uh.
Speaker 1: I said that we're going to see a lot more
Speaker 1: autonomous car technology incorporated into the models of cars that
Speaker 1: are coming out this year. We're gonna see a lot
Speaker 1: more of that, things like collision detection, parking assistance, that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, lane assistance, but we will not see
Speaker 1: a fully autonomous car on the consumer market. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Now I completely agree with this one. Everyone's talking like
Speaker 1: ten years for a completely autonomous car and um and
Speaker 1: you know, even though we've already got cool stuff like
Speaker 1: like Mercedes has a steering assist which uses a radar
Speaker 1: to detect the speed of traffic around you, and stereoscopic
Speaker 1: cameras mounted in front of the windshields were mirror that
Speaker 1: monitor your position within a lane. Um, and and we'll
Speaker 1: kind of beep angrily at you if you if you
Speaker 1: move out of it. I mean that that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff is is amazing and really cool and helps with
Speaker 1: with safety standards and all of that is beautiful. But
Speaker 1: and I do think that that kind of like you
Speaker 1: were saying, yeah, line is going to see incorporation of
Speaker 1: a lot more of those kind of things, and a
Speaker 1: lot more less than Mercedes Class kind of sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like you know, Toyota was working on all
Speaker 1: this stuff where it be a collision detection for pedestrians,
Speaker 1: like what the pedestrian is crossing the street that the
Speaker 1: car itself could detect and even slam on the brakes
Speaker 1: without you having having even noticed yet. So that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I can see that kind of stuff being incorporated. Again,
Speaker 1: not fully autonomous car, but a lot of these these
Speaker 1: various pieces that are necessary for an autonomous car to
Speaker 1: work will be incorporated into more and more cars. Um
Speaker 1: Our next note is gaming hardware, um the PS four
Speaker 1: versus the Xbox One. And I'm sorry, we you you're
Speaker 1: just not even in this equation right now, um, But
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's really hard to make a prediction
Speaker 1: on this one because Microsoft is being squirrely about their
Speaker 1: numbers as of this recording, and there aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of compelling games for either cons all right now, so
Speaker 1: far the sales seem about equivalent. Um. But but I'm
Speaker 1: going to go ahead and predict that I think that Xbox,
Speaker 1: with its kind of family media center, uh, is going
Speaker 1: to wind up being the winner of this game. It's
Speaker 1: it's interesting because this is a strategy we've seen incorporated
Speaker 1: over and over, and it might be that we're finally
Speaker 1: at the point where it will work. Because if you remember,
Speaker 1: all the way back in the three d O days,
Speaker 1: I mean we're telling the nineties, we had companies coming
Speaker 1: out with gaming consoles that were meant to be the
Speaker 1: entertainment center, but they were so expensive and so I
Speaker 1: mean just poorly executed. Yeah, they were mishandled on multiple ends.
Speaker 1: They were badly marketed. They had some terrible games with
Speaker 1: lots of full motion video and them for no reason. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, and we might finally be at the point
Speaker 1: where all of that doesn't matter and and this could
Speaker 1: actually take off. I you know, I don't know. I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: I think personally, if I'm going to make a prediction.
Speaker 1: I'll say that by the end of fourteen, uh, the
Speaker 1: PS four and Xbox one will be more or less
Speaker 1: on equal footing, assuming that they get the titles that
Speaker 1: they want to get. I assume they're going to be
Speaker 1: more or less in equal footing. Um, and that to
Speaker 1: see a true leader in that space is going to
Speaker 1: probably require more like three or four years. Wow. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's fair. I mean, and I do think that
Speaker 1: the PS four is going to be more successful with
Speaker 1: gamers because from what I've heard so far, it seems
Speaker 1: like they've got a much better developer lineup. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they cater to gamers, and they also cater to independent developers, yeah,
Speaker 1: which which I think is is going to really help
Speaker 1: them out. And I mean, I mean help them make
Speaker 1: a name for themselves within the rest of the independent
Speaker 1: console sector and and and hopefully I mean for them
Speaker 1: from the point of of of Sony beat out some
Speaker 1: of those smaller right. They also finally made a controller
Speaker 1: that doesn't make my hands cry after five minutes of
Speaker 1: playing the you know, The Last of Us or something crazy.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, thank you Sony for finally coming out with
Speaker 1: a dual shock that I can play alright, so, um,
Speaker 1: let's see my My last one in our hardware category
Speaker 1: is that I think we're going to see a lot
Speaker 1: of low energy Bluetooth beacon type technology. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a specific type of Bluetooth that requires very little power
Speaker 1: to operate. Uh And if you were to create a whole,
Speaker 1: uh say, network of these beacons in a small area,
Speaker 1: you could broadcast information across that entire area, but you're
Speaker 1: not consuming a lot of power to do so. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can put these things out of strategic locations around, um,
Speaker 1: a shopping center or a sports arena or so. Let's
Speaker 1: say that you are you are at some event and
Speaker 1: it's an event. It's almost like a second screen experience, right,
Speaker 1: like the idea of being home watching a television show
Speaker 1: and having a laptop open so you can find out
Speaker 1: what else that guy has been in because you recognize
Speaker 1: that guy, but you don't know what that guy's name is.
Speaker 1: Do I do that with everything I watch? Me too? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Does you think you're unique? No? We all do that.
Speaker 1: Stop kidding yourself anyway. Um, yeah, they the idea here,
Speaker 1: well one idea, one implementation, it's just one. Is that
Speaker 1: you could put this and say like a sporting arena,
Speaker 1: and when there's a sports event, of which I am
Speaker 1: told there are many and some of them are popular, uh,
Speaker 1: and you are are made of some kind of leather.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that you can hit a hail Mary
Speaker 1: pass in a basketball park. One of them is an
Speaker 1: oblong spheroid. Yes, anyway, there. You know, if you're a
Speaker 1: sports fan or you know a sports fan, you probably
Speaker 1: know someone who has this kind of uh fandom where
Speaker 1: they love the statistics of the game. And so this
Speaker 1: could be something where you're at a sporting event, you
Speaker 1: opt in, you turn on your phone, you opt in
Speaker 1: into this network, and it feeds you real time information
Speaker 1: that pertains to the event you are at. So if
Speaker 1: you're at a football game and stuff is going on
Speaker 1: on the field, you'll get updates about what's happening. You
Speaker 1: might even get updates to players statistics, which could be
Speaker 1: important if you're a fantasy football player. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting way of creating a more rich experience
Speaker 1: for real life locations. It kind of taps into the
Speaker 1: Internet of Things concept a little bit, but only in
Speaker 1: a It's it's really a one way communication from what
Speaker 1: I've seen, like it's broadcast out, not a communication two
Speaker 1: way things. Yeah, I I've heard the example that in
Speaker 1: stores it could, um, it could push coupons to your
Speaker 1: phone for you or something like that. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: you if you're someone who's like this sounds awful, then
Speaker 1: I would suggest not installing any apps that would interface
Speaker 1: with that. Sounds completely awful to me. I I personally
Speaker 1: don't need my my smartphone to to have its battery
Speaker 1: drained by a little bluetooth pings by anything. And I
Speaker 1: need all the things, and I'm perfectly comfortable getting my
Speaker 1: coupons from email like our ancestors intended. I tried to,
Speaker 1: but my wife hates it when I cut up our
Speaker 1: computer screens. All right, So that wraps up our our
Speaker 1: section on hardware. We've got some more predictions, but before
Speaker 1: we get into those, let's take a quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. Alright, So now we're moving on to software,
Speaker 1: and my first prediction is that we are going to
Speaker 1: see data collection um technology. You know, we've already seen
Speaker 1: it in those fitness trackers right where you get real
Speaker 1: time information about what your body is doing while you
Speaker 1: are exercising, like heart rate and how many calories it
Speaker 1: estimates that you're burning off. That kind of stuff. I
Speaker 1: see that extending to all sorts of different types of
Speaker 1: technology and in feeding the information back to us in
Speaker 1: easily digestible ways, whether it's in charts and graphs or
Speaker 1: or some sort of running tally. And so we're gonna
Speaker 1: see more and more of our lives turn quantifiable. By that,
Speaker 1: I mean, you'll see it in things like car technology,
Speaker 1: where it will keep a track on your fuel consumption
Speaker 1: on your average drive. Things like that where you know
Speaker 1: you might notice like, huh, it's year because I drove
Speaker 1: to work, you know, four times this week, and one
Speaker 1: day I did a lot of you know, apparently I
Speaker 1: consumed a lot more gas than I would did on
Speaker 1: the other days. What happened? That kind of thing. That's
Speaker 1: the sort of stuff I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: a lot more of where we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to analyze our lives on this sort of mathematical level.
Speaker 1: And uh, part of me thinks that's really cool, and
Speaker 1: part of me things like it sounds exhausting. No, that
Speaker 1: that sounds like exactly the kind of incredible future that
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to. I I am a little bit
Speaker 1: pessimistic that that's going to be out for anything other
Speaker 1: than like extreme early adopters. Yeah, I might not be.
Speaker 1: It might not be that we'll see a lot of
Speaker 1: adoption this year, but I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: a lot of examples. In fact that when I go
Speaker 1: to C E S, I would be shocked if I
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of examples of this cool. UM.
Speaker 1: I think uh kind of relatedly to that, UM that
Speaker 1: that that our our transition to the cloud is nearly complete,
Speaker 1: and that um other service providers than Amazon are going
Speaker 1: to go really big, right, and this is this is
Speaker 1: part of that entire um you know, mobile device popularity
Speaker 1: thing that I think is is going to be happening.
Speaker 1: You know, where we're going to be looking for for
Speaker 1: more software, more services, more software as a service, and um,
Speaker 1: more sinking tech and not caring as as much about
Speaker 1: about big device purchases and uh and and you know,
Speaker 1: therefore all of these kind of infrastructure systems are going
Speaker 1: to be growing up a lot more. Yeah. So here's
Speaker 1: an example, a practical example that pertains to me. I
Speaker 1: use a password manager that I can install on multiple machines,
Speaker 1: and the passwords are you know, I've got this whole
Speaker 1: cloud based system where if I log into any one
Speaker 1: of those machines and then decide to change my password,
Speaker 1: I do it through the system. When I log onto
Speaker 1: my next machine, it will update, and then I'll have
Speaker 1: access to all those passwords, even though I changed it
Speaker 1: on a completely different one. That's a simple example of
Speaker 1: something that you're talking about propagating across multiple industries, and
Speaker 1: we've already seeing examples of this too, things like you know,
Speaker 1: Google Drive is a great example of how it's not
Speaker 1: just cloud we're talking about as entire enterprises are moving
Speaker 1: to that. That's when we're talking about truly big data.
Speaker 1: We're talking about massive amounts of information that's being generated
Speaker 1: and it has to live somewhere and be accessible and
Speaker 1: be understandable, right right, Yeah, the the I d C
Speaker 1: is predicting that the cloud is going to drive a
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars worth of spending up over including the
Speaker 1: kind of hardware that cloud service providers are going to
Speaker 1: need in order to keep up with this demand. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: one of my predictions is that because we're seeing big
Speaker 1: data gets so important, that there is an incredible job
Speaker 1: opportunity out there for people all right, So if if
Speaker 1: you're really good with numbers, and if you're really good
Speaker 1: at parsing information and understanding what's important when you're looking
Speaker 1: at huge sets of data, and you're also artistic and
Speaker 1: able to put that in a way that's visually accessible,
Speaker 1: this is the year for you, my friend, because as
Speaker 1: data visualization is going to take off, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about data sets that are that large, it's really hard
Speaker 1: for the average person to get a grasp on what
Speaker 1: is going on. But if you're able to make like
Speaker 1: a simple series of charts or other graphics that explain
Speaker 1: the concept in a way that just latches onto a
Speaker 1: person's brain, then you are going to have no shortage
Speaker 1: of clients in fourteen. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And
Speaker 1: and my my kind of related tag on prediction to that.
Speaker 1: This is again one of the ones that we both
Speaker 1: pretty much agreed on out of the gate, is that
Speaker 1: the big data is going to be named the sexiest
Speaker 1: tech of the year. Um and I have a snarky
Speaker 1: quote from Geeka System about this. They they they said
Speaker 1: the Harvard Business Review, a noted authority on things that
Speaker 1: are sexy, has declared data scientists to be the sexiest
Speaker 1: career of the twenty one century. Um, but no, seriously, guys,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's we we still haven't made really scalable,
Speaker 1: sellable ways to process all of the data that we
Speaker 1: are increasingly creating and collecting. And it's a lot, and
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be it's gonna be hot. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you're it's there's no way we could actually exaggerate
Speaker 1: how big it's gonna be, right, Um, no way at all,
Speaker 1: not at all. I mean we could sit here for
Speaker 1: a billion years and say nothing but Big Dad is
Speaker 1: the most important thing that ever existed ever and even
Speaker 1: the Okay, maybe then we can take Big Dada all
Speaker 1: the way with the hyper Bowl. Now I'm gonna hiss exactly,
Speaker 1: I'm going to. I'm going to. However, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: issue with one thing. Uh. I think if you're talking
Speaker 1: about Harvard, the sexiest thing out of Harvard is Harvard Lampoon.
Speaker 1: So I'm just saying lampoon friends to the sexy. Alright, Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: I've got one more one more software note and I
Speaker 1: kind of sort of already made it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But um, I don't think that Windows eight is going
Speaker 1: to make it yet, Sad Trombone. Windows sevens share of
Speaker 1: the market as of right now is about of the
Speaker 1: top os. Um, it's still it's still on the rise.
Speaker 1: So what what's Windows XP? If I might be so bold,
Speaker 1: do you have that? I bet it's still pretty high. Um,
Speaker 1: but but Windows eight has leveled off as a Q
Speaker 1: three and it's still under ten percent. And you know
Speaker 1: they've recently update the Windows eight point one, but it's
Speaker 1: still I mean, yeah, all right, well then let's move
Speaker 1: on to the next category. This one only has one entry.
Speaker 1: This is one that I came up with them and
Speaker 1: we just couldn't figure out where else to put it,
Speaker 1: so we called policy. Yeah. And also, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a big enough single entry that I think that that's
Speaker 1: a fair point. Yeah. So I said that the United
Speaker 1: States government is forced to re examine the n S
Speaker 1: as policies. But even though they are forced to do
Speaker 1: it like that, you know, there are members of Congress
Speaker 1: who are very much adamant about let's let's bring this
Speaker 1: to light and really talk about it. Yeah, because because
Speaker 1: some of our policymakers are just as freaked out as
Speaker 1: we are about all of this n S. A prism stuff,
Speaker 1: even keeping in mind that it looks like the majority
Speaker 1: of America still really don't either care or know about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, as though it's wildly complicated and
Speaker 1: severely misunderstood by the press themselves. Maybe so I think
Speaker 1: that the government is going to have to address this
Speaker 1: inteen in some way. However, I also think it's not
Speaker 1: effectively going to change how things are actually happening. So
Speaker 1: even if the the outcome of this, you know, policy
Speaker 1: discussion ends up being, uh, you know, we've got to
Speaker 1: stop this, I don't think we're going to stop this. Yeah. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: and relatedly, I do think that although there I agree
Speaker 1: with you that there's not gonna be any movement within
Speaker 1: the US government on this kind of thing. I think
Speaker 1: that UM personal incorporate encryption industries are probably going to
Speaker 1: get a boost um all things D reported that Google, Yahoo,
Speaker 1: and Microsoft are already beefing up their efforts, and right
Speaker 1: I think I think that that's I think it's going
Speaker 1: to turn a large consumer trend towards being more cautious.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these larger companies too. You
Speaker 1: are also a big reason why we will see something
Speaker 1: happening in the US government because you've got them demanding
Speaker 1: not just maybe it's not the the US population, but
Speaker 1: some of the biggest companies that also happened to be um,
Speaker 1: you know, campaign contributors are making a fuss. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: In in digital finance, I think that we are going
Speaker 1: to see a lot more mobile money management. I think
Speaker 1: that people are really starting to lose their fear of
Speaker 1: taking their money digital. Um. You know, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like a rise in the use of bitcoins, um, and
Speaker 1: through stuff like coin base, which just had a had
Speaker 1: a twenty five million dollar investment through Inder sine Horrowitz
Speaker 1: and um uh you know, like a rizon in square usage,
Speaker 1: the debut of digital all in one cards like one coin.
Speaker 1: I think that this kind of stuff is is going
Speaker 1: to be really big. Wow. Okay, yeah, I can see that. However, um,
Speaker 1: what do you think about bitcoin specifically, Lauren? Um. I
Speaker 1: think I think that bubble is gonna burst. Um it's
Speaker 1: done it before, and it certainly has. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: so so it went from like twelve to thirteen bucks
Speaker 1: per coin at the beginning of two more and right
Speaker 1: now it's it's background like a thousand bucks per coin,
Speaker 1: but that kind of pricing just is not sustainable. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to fluctuate wildly. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's again one of those things where it's not just
Speaker 1: the confidence in the currency itself, it's lots of complicated factors.
Speaker 1: And I won't go into my full rent again because
Speaker 1: I just did it about five minutes ago, even though
Speaker 1: for you guys it might have been last week. So anyway,
Speaker 1: if you really want to hear my rent, listen to
Speaker 1: our two thousand thirteen year in wrap up, and I
Speaker 1: pretty much did it, then yeah, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's going to plumb it all the way back
Speaker 1: down to twelve or thirteen bucks necessarily unless it's on
Speaker 1: a on a one off. But so I guess now
Speaker 1: we have to move on to corporate news, and this
Speaker 1: this is the Jonathan Show right here, so um, just
Speaker 1: really quickly now, as of the drying this podcast, Microsoft
Speaker 1: does not have a new CEO. Balmer has retired, but
Speaker 1: he's still acting CEO while they try and find a replacement,
Speaker 1: and they have not done that as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast. If that changes before the new year,
Speaker 1: then obviously this is a moot point. But what I
Speaker 1: actually it kind of still holds because I said that
Speaker 1: the new CEO of Microsoft will at best be an
Speaker 1: effective leader, but not an innovator in the sense that
Speaker 1: you know, when I look at the candidates that are
Speaker 1: being mentioned, I'm seeing people who have proven their ability
Speaker 1: to lead large, complicated companies. But don't see anyone who's
Speaker 1: going to lead Microsoft in a new direction that makes
Speaker 1: it the name in some industry that it hasn't already
Speaker 1: played a part in or even regained the control of
Speaker 1: an industry where it once reigned supreme. But now is
Speaker 1: you know, fighting for market share. Yeah, the the really
Speaker 1: big name right now and the running is Forward CEO
Speaker 1: s Um Forwards CEO Alan Malally Malally who uh you know.
Speaker 1: As of the recording of this podcast, Ford wants to
Speaker 1: nail down Malali. In fact, I think tomorrow on again,
Speaker 1: December twelve is when we're recording this. I think on
Speaker 1: the thirteenth is when Ford has demanded that they talked
Speaker 1: to Malally and have Malali give them a straight up answer.
Speaker 1: Are you being courted to? Like? Are you just are
Speaker 1: you considering becoming the Microsoft CEO? Oh? At the very least,
Speaker 1: I mean, even if it winds up and if he
Speaker 1: if he winds up not being the first choice. I
Speaker 1: do think it would be very savvy of them to
Speaker 1: hire that kind of that kind of charismatic stop gap
Speaker 1: who can sort of work within Microsoft to train a
Speaker 1: successor who's more fulfilled, familiar with the industry and um
Speaker 1: and the inner workings at the company. So I think,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it may even be whether it's
Speaker 1: Malali or someone else. I believe that even if they
Speaker 1: get a truly effective leader, they won't be they won't
Speaker 1: become a true innovator in their space. They might they
Speaker 1: might be able to stop some hemorrhaging in a couple
Speaker 1: of yearsions, I think they've got a lot of recovery
Speaker 1: to Yeah, they do. And uh and so I think
Speaker 1: now that's the best case scenario. The first case scenarios
Speaker 1: they end up with someone who's who also is not
Speaker 1: an effective leader on top of not being an innovator.
Speaker 1: So I hope, and I'm saying all this, I hope
Speaker 1: that I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope that
Speaker 1: whomever Microsoft ends up getting as the new CEO is
Speaker 1: able to lead Microsoft onto new greater heights. Because we're
Speaker 1: gonna benefit from a company that does well. We don't
Speaker 1: benefit from companies that don't do well. Yeah, especially that
Speaker 1: someone as big as Microsoft. That's never a good thing.
Speaker 1: So so, so don't get me wrong, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: like down with Microsoft. I want to see them succeed,
Speaker 1: all right. Next, I have that Google finally figures out
Speaker 1: what it's doing with Motorola Mobile. Be about time they bondit. Uh.
Speaker 1: They said that they weren't going to use it as
Speaker 1: a means of creating exclusive hardware. They said they didn't
Speaker 1: want to do that, they didn't want to give preferential
Speaker 1: treatment to it. But they haven't really done much with
Speaker 1: it at all. So one of the things I think
Speaker 1: is possible is they might spin off Motorola as an
Speaker 1: independent company that still has direct ties to Google that
Speaker 1: will create Android based hardware for Google and become kind
Speaker 1: of like a manufacturing arm, but that they are not,
Speaker 1: you know, under the direct Google umbrella. They'll be their
Speaker 1: own little independent entity. I think that's a possibility. So
Speaker 1: I think that that would make that would make perfect sense.
Speaker 1: There we go. Yeah, so that wraps up all of
Speaker 1: my predictions and now we wait months and see how
Speaker 1: wrong we were, Yeah, Well, you know, we've been batting
Speaker 1: pretty well. I think it's not. You were very hard
Speaker 1: on yourself when we did our wrap up, but I
Speaker 1: think you did much better than you were getting think.
Speaker 1: I think I was fair, but I still I still
Speaker 1: accumulated many squids, So I feel pretty okay about that's true.
Speaker 1: We are we are squid rich right now. We don't
Speaker 1: have any kind of squid flow in this office is amazing.
Speaker 1: My my squid cooin account is just overflowing. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: while we go and do a Scrooge McDuck dive in
Speaker 1: to our giant vet of squid, I want to remind
Speaker 1: all of you that it's a new year. But you
Speaker 1: can still contact us the old way. That's by sending
Speaker 1: us an email. All adds is tech stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can always drop us a line
Speaker 1: on one of the many social media platforms that we
Speaker 1: happen to hang out on that includes Facebook, includes Twitter,
Speaker 1: includes Tumbler. Just look for tech stuff H S. W
Speaker 1: and Lauren and I will talk to you again really
Speaker 1: soon for more on this and bousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Does it have staff works dot com