Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Com. He there, and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And if you've been listening to my
Speaker 1: show for more than twelve months, you know that every year,
Speaker 1: with the exception of this next coming year, I make
Speaker 1: predictions about what may or may not happen in the
Speaker 1: tech world over the course of the following twelve months.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of those twelve months, I
Speaker 1: go back and I look at the predictions I had
Speaker 1: made for the year previous and see how it all
Speaker 1: turned out. Generally speaking, I do really poorly. So let's
Speaker 1: see how I did for Here's what I predicted and
Speaker 1: here's what actually happened. So the first prediction I made
Speaker 1: was that VR headsets like Oculus, Rift, HTC, Vibe and
Speaker 1: others will have another lackluster year. Now the result here
Speaker 1: is somewhat mixed. I was certainly right for the first
Speaker 1: half of those numbers were not doing well. Several news
Speaker 1: outlets and analysis firms would release reports throughout they cited
Speaker 1: declining sales for VR headsets in general throughout the year.
Speaker 1: The Oculus Go was an exception in the first half
Speaker 1: of the year. It saw some growth early on, but
Speaker 1: still not a crazy amount. Reports have cautioned that this
Speaker 1: does not mean VR is going to fizzle out again
Speaker 1: the way it did in the mid nineties, but rather
Speaker 1: that the market is still finding its foundation. It's still
Speaker 1: figuring out where it is, and there was an upturn
Speaker 1: in the third quarter in bolstered largely by holiday sales
Speaker 1: and particularly the PlayStation VR headset. Things were even worse, however,
Speaker 1: if we're talking about VR head sets that don't have
Speaker 1: a screen, so in other words, i'm talking about the
Speaker 1: headsets that you use in connection with a smartphone that
Speaker 1: that's running a particular app. So Samsung's Gear VR headset
Speaker 1: year over year sales were down by fifty eight point
Speaker 1: six per cent. That's dreadful. Some of the more recent
Speaker 1: Samsung smartphones don't even support that particular feature, which suggests
Speaker 1: the company may be extricating itself from the VR market entirely.
Speaker 1: So the only headsets that we're doing well, not even well,
Speaker 1: but weren't losing ground like that were the tethered ones.
Speaker 1: Back to that third quarter. As I said, the improvement
Speaker 1: was largely due to the PlayStation VR headset. The Sony
Speaker 1: headset helped reverse the declining trend in that third quarter
Speaker 1: of and actually pushed the market up to an eight
Speaker 1: point two percent growth year over year, or a quarter
Speaker 1: over a quarter. I guess the p S VR headsets
Speaker 1: sold four sixty eight thousand units total. That's an increase
Speaker 1: of twenty six over the previous year. Oculus would follow
Speaker 1: in second place, and HTC held up third place by
Speaker 1: the end of the year. So the third quarter growth
Speaker 1: was a nice thing to see, but that was after
Speaker 1: four straight quarters of decline and it remains to be
Speaker 1: seen if this is actually sustainable growth. So I'd say
Speaker 1: mixed results on that. The whole year wasn't a loss,
Speaker 1: but you had two quarters of decline followed by a
Speaker 1: third quarter of modest gains. Eight point as good, but
Speaker 1: it's not great, So I will give myself, you know,
Speaker 1: a thumb in the middle here, not like thumb up
Speaker 1: or thumb down. Prediction Number two was that Microsoft Mixed
Speaker 1: reality headsets, being the relative new toy on the market,
Speaker 1: will get some initial buzz in the early part of
Speaker 1: but will largely suffer the same fate as VR, and
Speaker 1: this one I was absolutely right about. Out. We saw
Speaker 1: prices get marked down a couple of times in eighteen
Speaker 1: for mixed reality headsets, and interest failed to build into
Speaker 1: a lot of actual action. There weren't a lot of
Speaker 1: sales even with the reduction in price. Now again, this
Speaker 1: may just be a case of the technology not quite
Speaker 1: being sophisticated enough to convince people to make the jump.
Speaker 1: According to research firm I d C, augmented or mixed
Speaker 1: reality sets only made up three percent of the market
Speaker 1: for these types of things. The really advanced headsets, the
Speaker 1: stuff like hollow lens or magic leaps new headset, those
Speaker 1: cost thousands of dollars and they're primarily intended for professional
Speaker 1: use or developer use, not for your average consumers. So
Speaker 1: those sets aren't meant for you and me. We're not
Speaker 1: meant to go out there to like a Best Buy
Speaker 1: or something and pick one off the store shelves and
Speaker 1: take it home and play games or use it for
Speaker 1: other applications. They're meant either for industrial use things people
Speaker 1: are using hollow lens in order to help train people
Speaker 1: to work around equipment, make repairs that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: or They're meant for developers to get hold of the
Speaker 1: hardware and start thinking about ways that they can, you know,
Speaker 1: leverage that hardware, what kind of software can they build
Speaker 1: for it, and then sometime down the road, presumably we'll
Speaker 1: get a consumer version of those pieces of hardware. That's
Speaker 1: kind of how Oculous came about as well. So, uh,
Speaker 1: they absolutely right, big thumbs up on that one. Prediction
Speaker 1: Number three was that we would see autonomous car service
Speaker 1: rolled out for real, not just as a limited test case,
Speaker 1: and at least one market in the United States before
Speaker 1: the end of this was a pretty aggressive prediction that
Speaker 1: I made. As it turns out, I think this is
Speaker 1: another thumb in the middle situation. I would not give
Speaker 1: myself a full thumbs up, but I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a full thumbs down either, I think, if I'm being
Speaker 1: totally honest, I just ba early missed this one because
Speaker 1: Weymo one, which is a driverless car service from the
Speaker 1: Google spin off Weymo, launched in Phoenix, Arizona, so that
Speaker 1: did happen this year. However, as of the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast, it is a very limited launch. It is
Speaker 1: not it's not widely available to anyone only people who
Speaker 1: signed up to be quote unquote early riders with the
Speaker 1: service are actually eligible to use it, and it works
Speaker 1: pretty much like any ride hailing app and that users
Speaker 1: would select a pickup point and a drop off point.
Speaker 1: The only thing that's different is that the vehicle that
Speaker 1: comes to pick them up is a driver less one,
Speaker 1: although there is a safety operator behind the wheel, because
Speaker 1: we're not quite at the point where I think any
Speaker 1: company would be comfortable and having a truly driverless cargo
Speaker 1: and pick people up and then potentially get into an
Speaker 1: accident and then you've got an enormous lawsuit on your hands.
Speaker 1: So we're not even at the point where it's a
Speaker 1: real robot car when no human behind the wheel at all.
Speaker 1: The Early writer program is limited to just four people,
Speaker 1: and the area of service is also GEO fenced, which
Speaker 1: means the cars will not go beyond certain designated areas.
Speaker 1: They their services limited to specific regions. So it's a
Speaker 1: very contained case and way Moose pitching it like it's
Speaker 1: an actual launch, But really I would say this is
Speaker 1: a pilot program, or maybe I should say a pilotless program.
Speaker 1: So with all the qualifiers, I don't think it meets
Speaker 1: the level that I had uh imagined when I made
Speaker 1: that prediction last year, but still a lot further along
Speaker 1: the what the more pessimistic version of me thought might happen.
Speaker 1: The pessimist in me thought we won't even see this
Speaker 1: much of a rollout, so to speak. Now, I think
Speaker 1: it makes way more sense to do this deployment this
Speaker 1: way rather than just try to jump in wholeheartedly. That
Speaker 1: would to me seem to be irresponsible. So I think
Speaker 1: this is the better choice. But it's really more of
Speaker 1: a closed beta program. Okay, So that was a thumb
Speaker 1: in the middle prediction. Number four. Congress will give the
Speaker 1: nod to the Disney twenty first century Fox acquisition after
Speaker 1: several months of discussion. Disney will hold a sixty percent
Speaker 1: ownership of Hulu, but we'll still go ahead and developing
Speaker 1: its own streaming service on top of that. Okay, the
Speaker 1: big thumbs up for me. I mean, I would also
Speaker 1: say this was not a particularly bold prediction, as pretty
Speaker 1: much writing on the wall kind of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: there there could have been pushed back from the US
Speaker 1: government on the acquisition, but based upon who's in the
Speaker 1: various branches of government, I thought that was unlikely largely
Speaker 1: because they are pretty friendly to big business. So the
Speaker 1: seventy one point three billion dollar acquisition was approved by
Speaker 1: the United States government in June of and company shareholders
Speaker 1: also approved did in July. So first the government said,
Speaker 1: we don't have any problems with this. Then they went
Speaker 1: to the shareholders and said, are you guys cool with this?
Speaker 1: They said totes, and then it went on. So technically
Speaker 1: the closing for this acquisition has not happened yet. It
Speaker 1: will actually happen on January one, nineteen. And yes, Disney
Speaker 1: does still plan to launch its own streaming service called
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, and it will also oversee Hulu. It will
Speaker 1: have controlling uh interest or controlling steak in Hulu. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we watch as we sadly see various Netflix Marvel series
Speaker 1: mysteriously get canceled, like you know, Daredevil and The Defenders,
Speaker 1: despite critical and public acclaim which suggests that perhaps Disney
Speaker 1: is preparing those to migrate over to a different streaming service,
Speaker 1: perhaps for a total reboot, and may not even have
Speaker 1: the same actors involved. We aren't quite sure what Hulu
Speaker 1: is going to look like following this acquisition. Even now,
Speaker 1: right now, before the acquisition is complete, Hulu technically has
Speaker 1: three major owners. There's Disney, Fox, and Comcast. There are
Speaker 1: also some other owners on top of that, but those
Speaker 1: are the three big ones. So with the acquisition, Disney
Speaker 1: will hold the majority stake, and that might mean that
Speaker 1: Comcast and NBC will be less eager to form agreements
Speaker 1: for the properties that they have to air on Hulu.
Speaker 1: It may also mean we'll see the emergence of yet
Speaker 1: another streaming service to cater to those properties. So yea,
Speaker 1: it's getting worse than cable prediction number five. After numerous
Speaker 1: heated discussions, Congress will overturn the fccs decision in December
Speaker 1: to reverse the decision classifying broadband Internet as a public utility.
Speaker 1: M hm now yet uh, FCC did overturn it in
Speaker 1: um earlyen they announced the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which
Speaker 1: seems to be a bit of a comedic title for
Speaker 1: what it is. It rolled back pretty much all the
Speaker 1: changes that the previous FCC had made, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that we're gonna see that get returned
Speaker 1: super soon. There were a lot of discussions about net neutrality,
Speaker 1: but still very much a unresolved question within the United States,
Speaker 1: so thumbs down. On that one, I would say prediction
Speaker 1: number six. By the end of twenty eighteen, the number
Speaker 1: of cord cutters in the United States will hit thirty million.
Speaker 1: In seventeen, it was twenty two point two million, which
Speaker 1: was up from sixteen point seven million in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I said that trend would not only continue, but
Speaker 1: would accelerate as more people would turn to virtual subscriptions
Speaker 1: using smart TVs, consoles, and other solutions to get access
Speaker 1: to live TV while abandoning satellite or cable options. Big
Speaker 1: thumbs up. In fact, I was being apparently conservative. Um
Speaker 1: midway through eighteen, analysts had already projected that we would
Speaker 1: hit thirty three million cord cutters by the end of
Speaker 1: the year total, not thirty three million alone, but total
Speaker 1: in the United States. So I was actually three million
Speaker 1: people shy even though I thought, well, this is an
Speaker 1: accelerated rate, I'm gonna go with it. It turns out
Speaker 1: I was being too conservative. The reasons cited for the
Speaker 1: increase we're pretty much what I have said. People are
Speaker 1: focusing more on internet delivery services and less on television.
Speaker 1: And while a lot of TV services were forming partnerships
Speaker 1: with companies like Netflix, the takeaway seemed to be that
Speaker 1: customers were interested in just getting those Internet entertainment services,
Speaker 1: not television plus those services. Now, at this point, I've
Speaker 1: seen analysts like Dan Robin Robbins predict that this trend
Speaker 1: is only going to accelerate further in twenty nineteen, so
Speaker 1: we may see an even a larger number of cord
Speaker 1: cutters joined the fray in the following year. I have
Speaker 1: more to say about the predictions I made at the
Speaker 1: end of twenty seventeen, but first let's go take a
Speaker 1: break to thank our answer prediction number seven. There will
Speaker 1: be at least one, probably more security breaches on the
Speaker 1: scale of the Equifax breach in ten, because while we
Speaker 1: pay a lot of lip service towards security, it's way
Speaker 1: easier to talk about being secure than actually doing it. Plus,
Speaker 1: we're human beings and we're wackyo, So this is another
Speaker 1: big thumbs up. Unfortunately, I wish it weren't, but we
Speaker 1: had so many data breaches that happened in or were
Speaker 1: made public in Some of the data breaches actually happened
Speaker 1: years ago, but we didn't find out about them until
Speaker 1: this year. So let's go over some of the big ones,
Speaker 1: shall we I'm just going to concentrate on the ones
Speaker 1: that were larger than Equifax's breach. That one affected an
Speaker 1: estimated onety three million people. So while I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: at some big ones, just know that there were also
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other ones. They just didn't hit
Speaker 1: the hundred forty three million victim mark. So in February,
Speaker 1: not even to the two months into the year, and
Speaker 1: we hit one and unauthorized party and that's how they
Speaker 1: defined it gained access to user information belonging to people
Speaker 1: who had the My Fitness Pal app that that includes me.
Speaker 1: And the data that the unauthorized party got access to
Speaker 1: included encrypted passwords, email addresses, and user names. The estimated
Speaker 1: number of people affected one hundred fifty million. A data
Speaker 1: security expert was poking around on databases belonging to the
Speaker 1: data broker Exactus, and they found a database that had
Speaker 1: information on pretty much every US citizen in it. That
Speaker 1: was actually a quote from a news article about this event.
Speaker 1: It was publicly ex pessible. In other words, there was
Speaker 1: an unprotected, unsecured database containing information about people. This is
Speaker 1: beyond a breach. This is like leaving the vault door
Speaker 1: open in the bank. The estimated number of people affected
Speaker 1: is three hundred forty million people. Yikes. Then in September,
Speaker 1: we learned about a data breach in the reservation database
Speaker 1: for Marriott Starwood Hotels, which may have exposed the information
Speaker 1: of five hundred million people half a billion people. And
Speaker 1: that includes stuff like passport numbers, reservation dates, payment information,
Speaker 1: and more. So there are a lot of not just
Speaker 1: data security things, but privacy issues. Tons of problems there.
Speaker 1: The largest was one that didn't get a whole lot
Speaker 1: of coverage in the United States, but it was phenomenal
Speaker 1: in its scope. It made the UH the hundred forty
Speaker 1: three million people look like nothing in comparison. It affects
Speaker 1: did India's government I D database, which in turn meant
Speaker 1: that it affected the information of around one point one
Speaker 1: billion people. That's billion with a B. It was all
Speaker 1: made accessible. The fault lay with a state owned utility company.
Speaker 1: They had an unsecured API which gave backdoor access to
Speaker 1: all of this information. So if you got hold of
Speaker 1: this API, which you should be able to do. It's
Speaker 1: an application programming interface, you know, it's meant for developers
Speaker 1: to get hold of. They could get this access to
Speaker 1: all the information, including I D information, biometric information, information
Speaker 1: on connected services like bank accounts. It's mind boggling in
Speaker 1: scope and impact. One point one billion. So yeah, big
Speaker 1: thumbs up on the prediction, Big thumbs down on how
Speaker 1: bad all this is. Prediction number eight. Apple's next iPhone,
Speaker 1: which I'm betting won't have a number associated with it,
Speaker 1: will be an incremental upgrade to the iPhone X or
Speaker 1: iPhone ten. Johnny Eys was once again taking has once
Speaker 1: again taken the helm of design over at Apple, but
Speaker 1: his influence isn't likely to be seen in products for
Speaker 1: another generation or so because it takes more than a
Speaker 1: year of work to produce one of these things. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, when the iPhone ten debuted, the next
Speaker 1: iPhone was already well in development at that stage, and
Speaker 1: this was another one that was a gimme. I think
Speaker 1: I got it absolutely right, So another thumbs up. But
Speaker 1: again I don't think this wasn't necessarily a very uh
Speaker 1: courageous or outgoing or crazy prediction. It was kind of
Speaker 1: you could see the writing on the wall. So the
Speaker 1: iPhone ten R and the iPhone ten S are incremental
Speaker 1: evolutions of the previous models, or if you prefer x
Speaker 1: R and excess. Apple has phased out those previous models
Speaker 1: much earlier than it had done with older iPhone models,
Speaker 1: which was interesting. I guess the biggest change in the
Speaker 1: design was the notch. That's the section at the top
Speaker 1: of the face of the phone where the camera and
Speaker 1: sensors are. Other smartphones have since adopted that notch approach,
Speaker 1: which can sometimes encroach a bit on the screen if
Speaker 1: you're trying to watch something in wide screen format. But yeah,
Speaker 1: no super revolutionary iPhones came out in Prediction number nine.
Speaker 1: While we'll see a rise in cord cutting, which will
Speaker 1: have a big effect on advertising, will also see a
Speaker 1: rise in add blocking online. This will encourage more sites
Speaker 1: to use ad blocker detectors, which will likely inspire more
Speaker 1: people to file lawsuits against such practices. And it's going
Speaker 1: to be a big mess, and it will bring the
Speaker 1: question everyone is worried about closer to the foreground, which
Speaker 1: is how do you make money creating content on the
Speaker 1: Internet in a way that doesn't alienate your audience or
Speaker 1: your customers. This one, I would say, I say my
Speaker 1: thumb was pointing more down than up, maybe somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle, but kind of leaning downward. The trend has continued. Certainly.
Speaker 1: Many sites are using what ad blocker services called ad
Speaker 1: blocking walls, and that's lines of code that detect if
Speaker 1: someone is using an ad blocker. That's an you know,
Speaker 1: if they're using a browser they're trying to connect to
Speaker 1: a web page, there's a detection that the client request,
Speaker 1: that is, the browser is including an ad blocker, and
Speaker 1: that means the server will send a pop up window
Speaker 1: or something similar saying Mike, we see you're using an
Speaker 1: ad blocker, could you you know, not do that or whatever,
Speaker 1: or even going so far as to block you from
Speaker 1: being able to see the site at all until you
Speaker 1: disabled the ad blocker or white list the site. Now.
Speaker 1: According to the team behind ad block Plus, which is
Speaker 1: a fairly standard response here, they could block those messages,
Speaker 1: but they choose not to because they feel it's important
Speaker 1: that people understand that revenue has to come from somewhere,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to find some way to pay
Speaker 1: for the content we access or else everything falls apart
Speaker 1: because if you don't have any money, like if you're
Speaker 1: not making money from people coming to visit your content,
Speaker 1: you have no way to pay the people who make
Speaker 1: the content and most people are justifiably not super cool
Speaker 1: with the idea of creating stuff for free, because, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, you can't pay the rent that way.
Speaker 1: You gotta make your living. I do this podcast. If
Speaker 1: we didn't have advertising on this podcast, then this podcast
Speaker 1: wouldn't make money, and then there'd be no no money
Speaker 1: made to pay my salary, which means I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing this. I wouldn't you know, I'd have to do
Speaker 1: something else in order to make money so I can
Speaker 1: make a living. So that's just the way the world works. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of advertisers that have created extremely
Speaker 1: irritating and um intrusive ads, and also there have been
Speaker 1: apples of malware posing as legitimate advertising or compromised ads
Speaker 1: that harvest data without user knowledge or consent. So there
Speaker 1: are legitimate uses for ad blockers in the context of
Speaker 1: user privacy and security. You know, it's I can't blame
Speaker 1: someone who says I use an ad blocker because I'm
Speaker 1: scared that if I go to a website that has
Speaker 1: one of these compromised ads on it, I could end
Speaker 1: up with malware on my computer, or I could end
Speaker 1: up with my information stolen without my knowledge, those are
Speaker 1: legitimate concerns, and they're definitely things that have to be addressed.
Speaker 1: I don't think any one party is totally in the
Speaker 1: right here. I think that companies that want to make
Speaker 1: money through advertising, I think that's legitimate. I think the
Speaker 1: advertising companies that serve ads are for the most part legitimate.
Speaker 1: Some of them might be a little more shady. And
Speaker 1: I think the people who are installing ad blockers because
Speaker 1: they want to protect themselves, I think that's a legitimate concern.
Speaker 1: So this is a tough situation. It's there's not an
Speaker 1: easy answer. It's more of a dilemma. Google Chrome version
Speaker 1: seventy one, which came out just before I recorded this episode,
Speaker 1: has an expanded ad blocker in it that's meant to
Speaker 1: protect people from abusive AD experiences. This is significant largely
Speaker 1: because Google makes his money through advertising, so it's a
Speaker 1: company that both depends upon ads for revenue and recognizes
Speaker 1: how they can be predatory nor that people can compromise them.
Speaker 1: But there was no rash of lawsuits that popped up
Speaker 1: around this, as I had predicted. Ad block Plus did
Speaker 1: win a legal battle in Germany in April, but we
Speaker 1: didn't see a ton of people take companies to court
Speaker 1: for ad blocking walls. So I'd say this one again
Speaker 1: is kind of a thumb in the middle, maybe leaning
Speaker 1: downward a bit, because it wasn't It wasn't that rash
Speaker 1: of lawsuits that I thought was going to happen. Prediction
Speaker 1: number ten that we were headed toward a subscription service
Speaker 1: crash in which we would see such a saturation in
Speaker 1: the market for subscription based entertainment service is I'm talking
Speaker 1: about stuff like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube Premium, that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that there would be a general backlash, And I said,
Speaker 1: I think we'll get through before this happens. So it's
Speaker 1: couching my bets here, but things will be heating up
Speaker 1: towards the end of the year with more consumers disenchanted
Speaker 1: with how many different competing services there are and what
Speaker 1: they're expected to do to get all the content they want.
Speaker 1: So I'd say I've got thumbs down mostly. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: there is some discussion about this. There are growing concerns
Speaker 1: that with the huge number of services that are popping
Speaker 1: up that if you wanted to get everything that you liked,
Speaker 1: you'd be subscribing to, you know, half a dozen or
Speaker 1: more services, and if you're talking about ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: that starts to add up pretty quickly. But we did
Speaker 1: get through without some sort of reckoning. But I think
Speaker 1: one is still coming. As of December twelve, there are
Speaker 1: numerous new streaming services that are planned to join the
Speaker 1: ones already out there are so right now we've got
Speaker 1: stuff like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, but
Speaker 1: now we're gonna also get Disney Plus. There's an unnamed
Speaker 1: Apple streaming video service on the way. Warner Media under
Speaker 1: a T and T, assuming the appeals court upholds the
Speaker 1: legality of that acquisition, has one plan. There's probably more
Speaker 1: that are going to launch in twenty nineteen, but the
Speaker 1: crash hasn't happened yet. The backlash hasn't been widespread. I've
Speaker 1: seen a few articles talking about this, but I haven't
Speaker 1: seen a general like reaction or resistance to it. I
Speaker 1: just I think it's still coming. So thumbs down on
Speaker 1: that one prediction number eleven. This was a prediction about
Speaker 1: dollars spent on e commerce versus retail stores. But I'm
Speaker 1: not even gonna bother talking about what the specific prediction was,
Speaker 1: because honestly, and this is just me having to come
Speaker 1: forward and admit something. It was based off of me
Speaker 1: being an idiot, at least that's my guess. I had
Speaker 1: not looked at this prediction since I had made it,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what frame of mind I was
Speaker 1: in when I made it, but was clearly based off
Speaker 1: of absolutely the wrong conclusions I was. I don't know
Speaker 1: where I got the idea that e commerce had really
Speaker 1: started to catch up to retail. That's not the case.
Speaker 1: E Commerce is growing year over year, but it makes
Speaker 1: up less than fifteen percent of all dollars spent UH
Speaker 1: in that sense, like retail is still way way ahead.
Speaker 1: Physical stores are in the lead, though the growth they
Speaker 1: experience you over year is much lower than what online
Speaker 1: online sales are experiencing. So both brick and mortar stores
Speaker 1: and e commerce are seeing year over year growth, but
Speaker 1: e commerce is seeing way more of it. So e
Speaker 1: commerce is getting bigger, faster, but retail is still way ahead.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I was looking at
Speaker 1: growth figures rather than the overall figures, and that's a
Speaker 1: good lesson for me to learn. E Commerce sales could
Speaker 1: increase by at and retail sales could increase by just two.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's what I was thinking, was that, you know,
Speaker 1: because e commerce sales were increasing so fast by the way,
Speaker 1: I was just making up those numbers. But let's e
Speaker 1: commerce sales are increasing so fast, they're ahead. That's not
Speaker 1: what that means. It just means they're growing faster. And
Speaker 1: I know all you know that I'm reminding myself that
Speaker 1: it's it's a weird mistake I made. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. So this prediction was so incredibly wrong.
Speaker 1: That's not just thumbs down, it's everything down. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just I don't know, but it just reminds me.
Speaker 1: I am human. I make mistakes. It's embarrassing, but I
Speaker 1: decided I had to at least acknowledge it. Let's move on.
Speaker 1: Before you know, I just throw myself at the wall.
Speaker 1: So prediction number twelve. Google will start to roll out
Speaker 1: WiFi based internet services to some cities, similar to how
Speaker 1: it rolled out Google Fiber, but with the goal of
Speaker 1: having faster deployment. The company will encounter similar issues involving
Speaker 1: where they can set up their transmitters, you know, their towers,
Speaker 1: but it won't be nearly as tough as it was
Speaker 1: to get clearance for stuff like utility pole access. This
Speaker 1: is another thumbs down. It did not happen. Google Fiber
Speaker 1: is still sort of kind of a thing. In the
Speaker 1: places where Google actually began to deploy Google Fiber, there's
Speaker 1: still service there, although I read a report that a
Speaker 1: lot of that service went out in Kansas City just
Speaker 1: before the recording of this episode. But the company has
Speaker 1: pretty much put a stop to doing more of that.
Speaker 1: They they've said they're not going to deploy in any
Speaker 1: other cities. Uh. They never did really fully deploy in
Speaker 1: Atlanta at last I saw. They still say they're going
Speaker 1: to get around to it, but I haven't heard anything
Speaker 1: definitive about that. It hasn't Maine moves to build out
Speaker 1: wireless services either. However, five G technology is right around
Speaker 1: the corner. That's the next generation and of wireless data
Speaker 1: transmission technology, so we might see many companies jump in
Speaker 1: to provide wireless broadband connectivity and shake up the market.
Speaker 1: They're already talks about laptops and other technologies having five
Speaker 1: G capability baked into the systems. I'm sure i'll see
Speaker 1: more of that when I go to c e S
Speaker 1: in January. But don't hold your breath, because it's still
Speaker 1: going to require building out the infrastructure to support all that.
Speaker 1: We probably will see some of that coming online in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, but I suspect most of it won't happen
Speaker 1: until well. I've got a little bit more to say
Speaker 1: about the predictions I made for but before I get
Speaker 1: into that, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Prediction number thirteen. By the end of automation will have
Speaker 1: eliminated more jobs than it creates. This isn't necessarily the endgame.
Speaker 1: It will create more jobs along the way, and maybe
Speaker 1: we'll see things even out or even see automation create
Speaker 1: more jobs that displaces than the short term as in
Speaker 1: the next few years, it's going to be pretty bleak
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. Uh no, thumbs down. I
Speaker 1: must have been watching episodes of Black Mirror before I
Speaker 1: did that prediction. Automation did not eliminate more jobs than
Speaker 1: it created, not by a long shot. There are increasing
Speaker 1: concerns about the impact increased automation is going to have
Speaker 1: over the next few years, not just from eliminating jobs,
Speaker 1: but also in how automation will incorporate into jobs, whether
Speaker 1: it will end up being more profitable to do that.
Speaker 1: The effect it might have on things like unionization is
Speaker 1: also a concern, and there are other concerns as well,
Speaker 1: But it has not eliminated more jobs than it created.
Speaker 1: That is, Gardner still predicts that by five one out
Speaker 1: of every three jobs will be done by robots or
Speaker 1: computers or some combination of those, but it also says
Speaker 1: that's starting a I will be creating more jobs than
Speaker 1: it eliminates. So while we will have a robot or
Speaker 1: AI taking over one out of every three jobs, in general,
Speaker 1: there will be more jobs for everyone, not just robots,
Speaker 1: but for people, and that these technologies will be used
Speaker 1: to help companies become more efficient and profitable, but not
Speaker 1: necessarily at the expense of human employees. Rather, the machines
Speaker 1: will help humans do their jobs, not make humans superfluous.
Speaker 1: So that's great. That's a very optimistic view of what
Speaker 1: automation will do, and it's very different from the fears
Speaker 1: that have been talked about over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Here's hoping the optimistic one is right. Prediction number fourteen.
Speaker 1: The trend that started in twenty seen of women stepping
Speaker 1: forward to reveal how they have been mistreated abused and
Speaker 1: worse will sadly continue in twenty eighteen. I say sadly
Speaker 1: not to suggest these women shouldn't come forward, but rather
Speaker 1: that I suspect the problems they've experienced are deeply ingrained
Speaker 1: in our society in general, anti tech world in particular.
Speaker 1: I expect we'll see a dozen or more major stories
Speaker 1: about harassment or worse in the technosphere. In My hope
Speaker 1: is that though these stories are, through these stories, we
Speaker 1: can shake things out to make a better environment for
Speaker 1: everyone moving forward. It's going to be painful, but absolutely necessary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely happened. That's another I hate to say thumbs
Speaker 1: up because I didn't want this. This is another prediction
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be true. I just felt pretty
Speaker 1: certain it was true. And the Me Too movement really
Speaker 1: took center stage in many arenas, not just the tech industry,
Speaker 1: you know, the entertainment industry certainly had its share as well.
Speaker 1: Uh not even the overall business industry was the only
Speaker 1: place where this happened. We saw it everywhere, and it
Speaker 1: absolutely should. I want to be clear about that, the
Speaker 1: me too movement should take center stage because honestly, it
Speaker 1: harms everybody if we don't address these problems, and that
Speaker 1: includes just acknowledging that there are, in fact problems. If
Speaker 1: we say no, there's no problem, we're making things worse
Speaker 1: for everyone. By acknowledging the problems, by confronting the fact
Speaker 1: that they exist, and then working to resolve them and
Speaker 1: to prevent those things from happening in the future, we
Speaker 1: can create a better environment for everyone, not just the
Speaker 1: people who are being victimized, but the people who are
Speaker 1: being victimized. If if things are better for them, then
Speaker 1: they get to do better things, they get to contribute
Speaker 1: more back to society, so we all benefit when we
Speaker 1: improve things. This isn't just a you know, not all
Speaker 1: men type of argument sort of thing, which is by
Speaker 1: the way, I'm exhausted hearing about that. I think everyone
Speaker 1: understands that not every person of the male gender is
Speaker 1: constantly being a predator or anything like that, but rather
Speaker 1: that we have enough of that, and enough of that
Speaker 1: is baked in systemically and things like business, politics, general culture,
Speaker 1: that we really need to address it. We really need
Speaker 1: to acknowledge it and figure out how to fix things
Speaker 1: to make the environment better for everyone, and again, we
Speaker 1: all benefit from this. This is something we should be selfish.
Speaker 1: We should all want this to happen so that we
Speaker 1: get better stuff. Alright, Prediction number fifteen. No, wow, I
Speaker 1: just read it again. Yeah, this one was dumb. Star
Speaker 1: Sitisen will not emerge from beta, in which seems the
Speaker 1: safest bet ever. A Star Citizen is a computer game.
Speaker 1: It was kick started in tw It also has had
Speaker 1: various ways of raising money. It raised more than a
Speaker 1: hundred seventy million dollars. In fact, that number is old,
Speaker 1: that's a year old number that was from when I
Speaker 1: was making these predictions. But it's a persistent science fiction game.
Speaker 1: Sold spaceships and the possibility of purchasing in game real
Speaker 1: estate and also at facial capture technology so that you're
Speaker 1: supposedly gonna be able to transmit your expressions onto your character.
Speaker 1: That kind of stuff. This is kind of like predicting
Speaker 1: water will continue to be wet. Star says, and is
Speaker 1: still in development. It has not been released, so big
Speaker 1: thumbs up here. However, I do want to say a
Speaker 1: little more about it. The most recent version of Star Citizen,
Speaker 1: which has parts of the game finished, has the designation
Speaker 1: Alpha three point three, so it's not even in beta.
Speaker 1: But while it's still in development. There are parts of
Speaker 1: the game that are playable. People who supported it and
Speaker 1: are in the alpha can actually play those parts of
Speaker 1: the game. And I'm talking about stuff that's legitimately impressive.
Speaker 1: This isn't like wire frames that just tell you, Okay,
Speaker 1: well here's a placeholder. It's gonna look really awesome later on.
Speaker 1: So I don't mean to say the game is never
Speaker 1: coming out. I don't mean that the developers aren't working hard.
Speaker 1: They clearly are. The evidence is there. It's a hugely
Speaker 1: ambitious project. Hope fully it's a hugely ambitious project that
Speaker 1: one day will be a full game, even if that
Speaker 1: means a game that gets continuous updates and additional content,
Speaker 1: Maybe the kind of game that releases and the full
Speaker 1: game part continues down the road. I'm hoping for that.
Speaker 1: Right now, it's still one of those things that people
Speaker 1: are kind of worried will always be in development and
Speaker 1: never be released. Prediction number sixteen. There will be a
Speaker 1: bitcoin value crash in ten but it will recover at
Speaker 1: least to the point where it returns to around ten
Speaker 1: dollars per bitcoin, but at some point the value will
Speaker 1: drop significantly. For a while, I was wrong about this,
Speaker 1: I would say, um, I was wrong about the timing
Speaker 1: and I was wrong about the recovery, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give a thumbs down on this. However, the important note
Speaker 1: to to really know here is that bitcoin's value did
Speaker 1: drop drastically in twenty eighteen, but it did so over
Speaker 1: the course of the entire year. It wasn't like a crash.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a moment where the value plunged lower and
Speaker 1: then never recovered or recovered up to ten thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: because it hasn't done that yet. Instead, what we've seen
Speaker 1: is this steady decline. The value UH started at around
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars at the beginning of the year, and
Speaker 1: as I record this, the value is closer to three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars per bitcoin. So fifteen thousand to three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred that's a huge drop. It's significant, But again,
Speaker 1: it happened over the course of twelve months. There wasn't
Speaker 1: a sudden crash. There were some pronounced dips throughout the year,
Speaker 1: and by that I mean there were some pronounced drops
Speaker 1: in value, not there were pronounced idiots. I'm sure there
Speaker 1: were those two, but not necessarily connected to bitcoin. One
Speaker 1: of them is talking into a microphone right now. Prediction
Speaker 1: number seventeen. We're going to see a big, serious push
Speaker 1: and podcasting. This is fuel from successes like S Town
Speaker 1: in the serial series, as well as some of the
Speaker 1: old standards that have stuck around for years. Cough, tech
Speaker 1: stuff cough. Expect to see a flood of new shows,
Speaker 1: some of which are limited series with a set number
Speaker 1: of episodes, others that are open ended and will publish
Speaker 1: until people stop listening or the hosts decide to do
Speaker 1: something else. But we are going to see more development
Speaker 1: of programming in this space as if it were more
Speaker 1: akin to radio or TV series. Big thumbs up here,
Speaker 1: It's absolutely true. And remember I made this prediction before
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio came in and acquired our company. We
Speaker 1: saw tons of new podcasts debut in, including mini series,
Speaker 1: and I feel like maybe half of them came out
Speaker 1: of our office. But at the time I made this prediction,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was gonna happen. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: put out a lot of podcasts. Um nothing quite got
Speaker 1: the buzz of S Town. I feel I don't think
Speaker 1: anything quite captured the public. Uh, you know, like the
Speaker 1: water cooler talk like s Town did, but people still
Speaker 1: were listening. There were numerous shows that debuted in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: They included high profile podcasts, celebrity hosted shows. A lot
Speaker 1: of true true crime shows came out in ten and
Speaker 1: more Prediction number eighteen. More bots, whether it's voice activated assistants,
Speaker 1: automated customer service representatives, or some other implementation, will see
Speaker 1: a growth in the use of boats as a point
Speaker 1: of service. Thumbs up. We saw a ton of this,
Speaker 1: and we saw a hint of the future, like Google Duplex,
Speaker 1: which was equally impressive and unsettling. That's when Google would
Speaker 1: show off this uh, this artificial intelligent assistant. During the
Speaker 1: IO event Um, they had someone tell the Google Assistant
Speaker 1: make a make a hair appointment for me at such
Speaker 1: and such a place around noon. The assistant made a
Speaker 1: phone call to a real human being at a hair
Speaker 1: salon and actual we got to listen to the recording
Speaker 1: of the phone call and the assistant, this artificial intelligent
Speaker 1: assistant made the arrangements and it sounded almost human like.
Speaker 1: The assistant actually said things like uh um while responding
Speaker 1: like a human would, like we don't have anything in noon?
Speaker 1: Would one o'clockwork, Um, do you have anything between ten
Speaker 1: am and noon? That was an actual thing that the
Speaker 1: assistant said. So that was impressive and a little unsettling,
Speaker 1: but it gave us a hint at what might be
Speaker 1: to come. There have actually been discussions since then that
Speaker 1: such an assistant should identify itself at the beginning of
Speaker 1: a call that it is in fact an AI assistant
Speaker 1: and not a human being, because there's a worry that
Speaker 1: it would feel deceptive and creepy otherwise. So how do
Speaker 1: you think I did. I think I had a better
Speaker 1: success rate this year than and I did most years,
Speaker 1: apart from that ludicrous mistake I made about online sales
Speaker 1: versus retail. I still don't know where I got information
Speaker 1: that made me think something that was so far from
Speaker 1: the truth was accurate. It blows my mind. It would
Speaker 1: have been like saying we're gonna find out in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen that the Earth is flat. It just seems ridiculous. Now. Anyway,
Speaker 1: those were my predictions for I will not be making
Speaker 1: predictions for twenty nineteen. I've decided this year to do
Speaker 1: something different. I'm going to make a wish list. So
Speaker 1: in our next episode, you will hear what I'm wishing
Speaker 1: for for twenty nineteen, and I'll explain more on that episode.
Speaker 1: But it has been a heck of a year, a
Speaker 1: year where for six months of the year I was
Speaker 1: doing five episodes a week and we're back down to
Speaker 1: doing three episodes a week now. It's two new ones
Speaker 1: in one classic, and that's going to give me a
Speaker 1: lot more opportunity to really focus on individual shows and
Speaker 1: make them the best I can. So I'm very happy
Speaker 1: about that. Plus I'm gonna be working on some other
Speaker 1: stuff outside of Tech Stuff, so keep an ear out
Speaker 1: for that. If you guys have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, because it's gonna keep on going,
Speaker 1: send me an email. The addresses tech Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Make sure you pop on over
Speaker 1: to our website that's over at tech stuff podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's where you can find ways to contact me on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter, and don't forget to visit our merchandise
Speaker 1: stores over at t public dot com slash tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm just watching try try and guess what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say next. She thinks that I do this exactly the
Speaker 1: same way at the end of every episode, and she's wrong,
Speaker 1: I tell you, but seriously, go to our merchandise store
Speaker 1: because if you buy stuff, it helps our show and
Speaker 1: we greatly appreciate it. I'll see you guys in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. For more
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