
10 predictions for the world of January 1, 2020 - peter123
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/01/10-predictions-for-world-of-january-1.html
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jacquesm
1) no way, my data certainly won't.

2) Android and Iphone will take a larger marketshare, but RIM will come back
with a much revamped blackberry, and microsoft will re-do their windows mobile
and this time they might even get it right.

3) facebook will die and will be replaced by the next fad

4) 3D displays are a lot harder than it seems, those that you can buy right
now are all seriously inferior to people used to Hi-Def and 3D doesn't offer
that much more of a user experience unless the user is completely free to go
around the display.

5) is probably spot on

6) I don't think so, but what will happen is that people will be a lot more
careful. 1987 to 2009 took 22 years, I think the next economic crash is a
little further out, but eventually it will happen. All that it takes for that
is to wait long enough, eventually people forget the previous one.

7) is pretty US centric, if you want a fixed health care system tomorrow move
to Europe, Cuba or Colombia.

8) There is no drug war, that's just a figment of some peoples imaginations.

9) The energy solutions will immediately be offset by an increase in
consumption by the developing world, I figure the energy-almost-crisis will be
here for at least another 50 years. The only thing that will solve the energy
crisis is cheap, pollution free fusion power. That will take a while.

10) The internet will force transparency on to politicians at a level that
they are not used to and might actually bring something good, but the
evolution of politics in America starts with making it a real democracy first,
until then the two party system will rule. The day there is a 'coalition'
government in the USA will be the day that there is a real possibility of
change, instead of just 'lipservice' change.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
3) I think facebook is here to stay. Whether it lasts through time to be
google status is yet to be seen, but I really think it could be. It's
interesting hearing paul's predictions as he saw google become GOOGLE.

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jacquesm
Google is a business essential service. If facebook would go down it would be
an inconvenience but the world will continue.

Google has literally become mission critical for millions of people doing
their everyday job from doctors to scientists. Someone should make a little
program to track how many google searches you do on a daily basis, that would
be a really interesting bit of knowledge.

~~~
cookingrobot
Search is essential. If Google went down, people would start using Bing or
Yahoo, and would be fine.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I just posted a poll and I already clued in
to that before I finished writing it.

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lunchbox
_2\. Android and iPhone kill off all the other mobile phone platforms. Android
will be bigger (it will run on all of the "free" cell phones), but iPhone will
still be "cooler", and will work more seamlessly with Apple's tablet
computer._

This is more of a 2012 prediction than it is a 2020 prediction. Mobile
technology is evolving so quickly, and there are so many potential competitors
(not just Google, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia), that there is no way to
know what systems will power 2020's mobile devices.

~~~
paul
If the answer were obvious, the prediction wouldn't be interesting :)

That said, I think this is like the early PC market -- many platforms, but
most (Commodore, Atari, etc) won't survive because they lack purpose. RIM,
Nokia etc will switch to Android or disappear.

~~~
gaius
It sounds like wishful thinking to me. What does Android have that other
smartphone OSs lack, apart from the Google marketing machine behind it?
BlackBerry's USP is its email integration. WinMo's is that you can take your
Office stuff with you on the road. Symbian's is that it's technically mature
(and that isn't enough to be commercially successful). iPhone's is that it's
easy to use works seamlessly with Apple everything-else. Android's is... It's
Google?

~~~
rick_2047
Android's is that its open. So there would not be only one company pumping in
resources into it but many small developers and even other big firms who want
to use it as a profitable platform. In this Android gains resources,mostly
free marketing and probably some great breakthroughs.

~~~
potatolicious
The same argument has been made about Linux in the past - and it has panned
out; many individuals and companies pour resources into Linux development
(Redhat, IBM, Oracle, etc), but yet it is still not a ubiquitous desktop OS.

I've given up on the belief that anything will succeed merely on the notion of
being open.

~~~
rick_2047
Android has what linux lacked -- Marketing.

Linux didn't have the name of a company like Google associated with it, a name
many of us trust (or at least know). Linux didn't succeed because there was no
PR,no marketing and it was hard to set up. Android will not have to be setup.

Also there is the case of compatibilities. Although linux was developed by
1991 but it didn't enter the mainstream market then.Android, on the other
hand,is not entering a market which is already dominated by some other
incompatible format. So standards can be built and dealt with.

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jasonlbaptiste
I certainly see something like number 1 happening much sooner than later. I
actually think something that works _like_ dropbox could achieve this. Keep a
copy locally on my machine, but have it all sync'd and stored online. There
wasn't really a need for this 10 years ago. We pretty much had one _computer_.
Now we have many, and the number will only grow larger. Mobile phone, kindle,
tablet, game console, netbook, desktop pc,etc. are all computers. Someone
needs to create something so all of these devices can be in sync/talk to each
other. I envision a day where any system I buy or log in to can access the
same settings, files, etc. instantly.

~~~
mattmanser
Are you totally crazy? point 1 = end of privacy, freedom and sanity which is
why we must pray that it will never, ever happen.

~~~
paul
Do you keep your money in a bank, or under your mattress?

I think you're underestimating the security of Google's servers and
overestimating the security of your own computer.

~~~
gloob
All the security in the world won't protect Google's servers from a subpeona,
and no black hat on the planet can break into my wallet without being in
immediate physical proximity to me.

~~~
stanleydrew
Are you suggesting your personal computer is somehow immune to subpoenas?

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orangecat
Your personal computer is less likely to be compromised as part of a fishing
expedition, like when the feds tried to get Google to turn over an entire
week's worth of search history to help them defend of one of their "for the
children" laws. I could easily see them demanding access to all Google Docs
containing certain keywords.

~~~
ErrantX
> I could easily see them demanding access to all Google Docs containing
> certain keywords.

IANAL but I have experience in this rough area. That is pure scare mongering
and I don't think there is even the remotest possibility they would get away
with it. If they even tried Google would wrap them in counter-defence so fast
it would be funny.

Also, for the record, your search history may be criminally suggestive but it
is not something they could use to actually prosecute you (this is something I
do know about). They still need a subpeona on your personal machine :)

Fishing is expensive; forces tend not to do it too much (despite what the
politico's want to suggest otherwise). :)

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ErrantX
I personally think predicting the next 10 years is a bit difficult. Because
you generally can't predict broad sweeping changes in
culture/society/technology and dealing in specifics is hard (who would have
predicted the iPod and iPhone in 2000? considering their secrecy).

A year ago tablets were pretty much a dead end. If the decade had ended in
2008 no one would have predicted tablets making a comeback (probably, though
the Crunchpad might have caused speculation). Now the Apple rumours mean it is
high on our prediction lists, right?

I think if were going to do this we should go for Jan 1, 2050... (and my only
prediction there that I will make off hand is that Man will have
commercialised space travel properly and reached the Moon again - if not
beginning to settle / talk about settling there.)

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sage_joch
"New movements will arise and gain power very quickly. Obama beating Clinton
was the first hint of this."

I would argue that Howard Dean's 2004 candidacy was an earlier hint of this.

~~~
philwelch
Yes, but the MSM torpedoed his candidacy after the Iowa caucuses. That didn't
happen to Obama, largely because he was telegenic enough to impress the old
media as well as the new.

I actually think the internet's effect on politics is overstated. Ron Paul won
the internet in 2008, but got single digit percentages of the vote.

~~~
s3graham
Ron Paul might have won reddit, but he sure as shit didn't win "the internet".

~~~
jimmyjim
I would say he did. He won Digg (which has a considerably larger userbase than
Reddit), a sizable portion of Fark, and many other similar social-bookmarking
websites.

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rmason
Sorry Paul but solar (despite the massive investment) will still be a
technology that is perpetually always twenty years into the future.

The winner will be the green nuke, Thorium. Once people understand that it has
all the advantages of our current uranium based plants with few of the
negatives public opinion will shift.

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mark_l_watson
I expect that 6. is spot-on. For me, 1. is almost here: all of my important
data is in a git repository on a managed server in Texas, and backups are in
Amazon zone east 1-b.

His predictions on AI also seem reasonable.

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lunchbox
For those interested in long-range predictions, here's an amusing site that
tracks predictions from the past:

<http://www.paleofuture.com/>

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motters
This is pretty much a "more of the same" prediction.

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borism
_assuming civilization doesn't collapse first_

interesting assumption that might be worth expanding

~~~
mseebach
Naa, not really. We might all die due to some extreme natural disaster or
nuclear war, but civilization is a very strong trait. Even in the most abject
poverty and the most horrible wars, glimpses of the beauty that is human
civilization appears.

Our lives may change significantly for better or for worse, but civilization
isn't going anywhere.

~~~
borism
well, civilizations die to be replaced by new ones all the time you know.

whether we can overcome deeply fundamental crisis our western civilization
faces remains to be seen, but looking back at 2000-2009 i am not convinced.

~~~
mseebach
Yes, single civilizations come and go - but the OP you quoted said
"civilization", not "this" or "our", which I read as the concept of
civilization as such, and I don't see that going anywhere.

