

Ask HN: Tech predictions for the next 10 years? - b_emery

The recent posting of the 10 Predictions [1], got me thinking. What predictions do people on HN have? Focus on tech. Upvote the best ideas.<p>This could be very interesting ...<p>[1] https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/ten-predictions
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logn
Mac OS X will still be on version 10.

Java, C, and JavaScript will be the three most dominant languages. Languages
will be built atop them to handle better concurrency without programmers
handling threading. Android and Mozilla will dominate cellphones, both
supporting fully JavaScript apps.

Broadband fiber and broadband (cell) wireless will dominate home connections,
with cable and phone lines rapidly dying.

There will be much hype over electric cars but super-efficient gas-powered
cars will still dominate.

The database and app server will finally converge with successors to CouchDB.

We will live in a police-state with ubiquitous surveillance and nobody except
hackers and civil libertarians will care.

The stock market will have crashed worse than '09 due to banks failing yet
again.

Cannabis will be completely legal in about 20% of states and the federal
government will tolerate it or add exemptions for states voting it in.

Apple and Microsoft will be niche players in a market dominated by Google and
Amazon.

Mars will still be a fantasy after several high-profile deaths on missions
there. We'll be anticipating faster-than-light travel and dedicate our efforts
to finding Earth-like conditions and space mining.

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gigantor
* Windows desktop will still thrive on Enterprise and BigCo's, as politics and bureaucracy will ensure data will not live in the cloud

* Return of the dumb terminal: The home desktop will die out in favor of tablets connected to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and your ISP will double as your Desktop/Amazon AWS provider.

* If above scenario happens, NVIDIA/ATI will no longer produce consumer level hardware

* Death of the thick client gaming console as cloud computing and faster networks will be able to stream Crysis 3 at 72FPSin 1080p. The Steambox-like devices would only be periodically upgraded with a faster ethernet connection.

* Conventional phone lines will go 'dark' as everything will be TCP/IP based, with redundant Wi-Max like networks

* SPAM will be finally completely eradicated

* Car2Go will transform into a legally approved self-driving car rental service

* You will still need a several years of experience to be a decent developer, regardless of how much languages evolve

* The Roomba will dust as well as vacuum

* New York Times will go bankrupt and Tesla will become a huge force to reckon with, as electric cars become commonplace, their technology patented and licensed out to major car manufacturers

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melling
* The mobile device becomes the desktop computer. Sit it next to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and it transforms into the desktop. No wires needed!

* Home robotics are common place. Autonomous lawn mowers and leaf gathering. Even autonomous vacuum cleaners that actually work graduate to most households.

* General purpose CPU has a thousands of cores. Core i12. And it'll sip 1 watt.

* The wireless Internet is everywhere and our cell calls become IP calls.

* China has 5000 miles of maglev trains. Some will be "low-speed".

There's lots of cool stuff that will happen in the next decade. Medicine...
detect the first few cells of cancer as soon as they occur, more robotic
surgery, personalized medicines, ...

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LarryMade2
\- Cleaning up email will be a priority - outgoing messages will probably be
signed by the source server (or isp) and only accepted on the client if the
email key and server keys (requested via http or other route) validate. Thus
reducing anonymous spam and identifying compromised systems, also better
identification of suspect routes/sources.

\- Fax machines will evolve into some sort of fax via internet machine,
probably merge into email but still be a plug and go option for businesses.

\- Phone books will be dead - there will be a new cloud based directory
(likely government subsidized or regulated to enforce access and consistency)

\- The desktop wont die, but the mass consumer market will move onto cloud
appliance stuff.

\- Land Line phones are become very obsolete.

\- With the transition to the internet there will be government
subsidies/programs/grants for every citizen to have a reachable "address" and
be educated on access to the internet. Postal service will change....?

\- Green energy generation and battery storage will have major milestones.

\- Some 'damn fool' kills himself while doing some sport in low earth orbit.
More fools gladly follow.

\- Global warming is called a boom - for the construction, fossil fuel, and
mining industries.

\- Self-Driving cars will be popular in large cities - transportation
subscription plans will reduce number of privately owned cars in those areas
as well.

\- Cops will implement wide-range quadcopter drone first-response to record
incidents and track suspects.

\- People my figure out that money != economy... maybe not...

\- Armband computing (bigger than a watch but still fashionable... bracer
sized with snap on space for peripherals?)

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nkorth
* CPU speed will get vastly more ridiculous, but battery life probably won't improve significantly (on x86 laptops).

* ARM will have around 50% market share as tablets become ubiquitous and laptops move to ARM. Those laptops will run some form of Windows, but Windows will continue to sell poorly on tablets.

* Reliable, reasonably fast internet will be available to almost all of the US.

* Cloud computing still won't be fully adopted. More computer users will do most of their work in a browser, but smartphones and tablets will still run many apps locally and desktop OSs will still be structured similarly to today's.

* Something huge and crazy will happen to education and Khan Academy will be involved in it.

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oellegaard
My prediction:

New social websites where you either pay for subscription or they are
distributed, so you in the end own your own data. This will happen after a few
public scandals where sensitive information was leaked or sold to companies or
the public.

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mikecane
Too Much. There will be Too Much of everything: music, video, books, social,
advertising, etc. Artificial Scarcity will be the New Thing because people
still need to pay for non-digital things, like rent and food.

~~~
suyash
+1 Information Overload will happen much sooner than 10 years but in 10 years
there would be many solutions to combat this problem.

People will be spending a lot more time in their digital devices than real
people.

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Houshalter
I think that ad blocking software will become commonplace like spam filters
are now. I don't know how advertisers will adapt.

------
devonbarrett
Wearable tech will be a big thing

Google Glasses will be just the start of things.

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patrick_curl
* Google launches self-driving cars that disrupt Taxi Services, Delivery Service (think mobile vending machine put cash in vehicle and your dinner pops out - nearly theft proof), Cars become shared assets via time-share and are scheduled very dynamically via mobile apps, less people will own their own cars - especially in big cities.

* Robotics takes over more industries requiring some sort of robotic tax to help keep the economy going for those under-employed.

* The internet of things will explode.

* Google Fiber becomes airborne and nationwide. 1gig access in all major and minor metropolitan areas via wifi-- allowing cars, bikes, law mowers, chainsaws and everything to have some internet connectivity.

* Patent trolling becomes near impossible as patents will require a prototype/MVP be built within 6 months of Patent application or automatic denial of patent.

* SF / Silicon Valley's startup draw comes to an end as developer realize that they can build awesome things in smaller Communities like Dayton Ohio, kinda like the Dayton Ruby School is trying to accomplish.

* Moore's law is shattered by nano-technology, and pc's become crash resistant and resemble bio-engineered organisms. CPU speed goes through the roof.

* USA gets a small amount of MAGlev trains finally (towards end of decade, and only after seeing how much it helps places like China grow and thrive.) -- side note China becomes the major super power in the world.

* Open access to media / news / social sites breeds more democracy throughout the entire world, and also helps bring back honesty and integrity to american capitalism in things like lobbying, and campaign finance.

* Game of Thrones series is finally completed, HBO executives commit suicide out of frustration getting George R R Martin to stop playing World of Warcraft and get back to writing.

* Mind/technology interfaces will become reality. Think downloading memories to flash drives and sharing them with people. Microchips that can improve memory and learning. Gaming/controlling pc's by brain activity. Etc.

