
Ask HN: 2011 Predictions - zmmz
As we near the end of the year, one realises how busy 2010 has been. There is already a post to show off what has been done, but I am interested in what changes and trends you predict will happen in<p>-the general IT fields (mobile hardware, net neutrality and other broad topics)<p>-your domain specifically (ie, what disruption can we expect where?)<p>-your life (what are you working on?)
======
Kilimanjaro
Camera and facetime for the iPad.

iPads and macbooks coming in colors.

Web of things will kickoff with arduino and programmable toys that can be
controlled from and ipad/iphone.

Geolocation businesses are the new black. One can possibly disrupt eBay or
craigslist.

Facebook IPO will be the best evar in terms of hype and money made. Just to
deflate at the end of the year and leave the tech world in ruins.

Google IS the cloud.

Mac mini 'soapbar'. More power that fits in your hand.

Firefox 4 will never catch up to Chrome. Too late. Too sad.

Ubuntu thinks about re-branding in order to pass the 10% market share. They
are that good.

Apple TV? They slowly got the trademarking and patents issue solved. They'll
go for a screen now, a real TV that streams and record your shows/movies.

But not until 2012...

~~~
rorrr
Firefox 4 beta is already faster than Chrome.

<http://arewefastyet.com/>

~~~
cryptoz
I don't think OP was referring to JavaScript speed, but to user adoption.
Chrome is rising _fast_ and Firefox share is pretty stable. Chrome's got the
momentum.

------
jawee
Software: I expect Android to become a very widely-implemented operating
system and to become popular in not only phones and tablets, but more types of
embedded devices and netbooks, even if this isn't what Google intends.

I expect Flash to become very insignificant, much in the way Java currently is
on the web: good for a few complex applets here and there and on legacy sites,
but most people could care less.

The Web: I expect the governments to try to continue to gain more control over
policing the web, as well as corporate back deals.. but I don't think web will
be much more different from now until next year except that more of it will go
over cell networks instead of through the home broadband connections.

Hardware: More people will opt for Tablets and phones for the majority of
their computing needs.

Programming: I can see projects like Google App Inventor leading to a plethora
of new applications and interest in development.

~~~
olliesaunders
It's could _not_ care less.

------
TomOfTTB
General IT

=============

* I think the biggest trend is we’ll see computing further redefined. As tablets, Chrome based netbooks and more advanced smartphones flood into the market we’re going to see a bunch of people who realize they just don’t need a home PC anymore.

* In business I think we'll see a big increase in user-focused design. Too many corporations are running into problems with employees using web based solutions on their own to avoid the cumbersome software the company used (that was built based on corporate requirements rather than user friendly ones)

* In startups I think you're going to see the VC industry try to self regulate in the hope of preventing a bubble. So you'll start to see a coordinated effort to lower valuations and force startups into business plans that become profitable faster. ===========================================

My Domain (Mental Health Care & Education)

===========================================

* Mental Health: I think you'll finally see the cloud start to move into solutions that are HIPAA compliant (meaning they meet privacy standards).

* Education: Schools are reaching a cross roads where the teachers unions can no longer bully the districts into keeping teachers they can't afford (because there's simply no money left). With those schools trying desperately to teach more kids with fewer teachers I think you'll see a boon for technology.

=========

My Life

=========

My professional goal for the next year is to push more and more cloud based
solutions (which I believe in more and more) and to try to use my connections
to get cloud solutions to support the above mentioned confidentiality rules.

My personal/professional goal is to play around with the Kinect and try to
find a way teachers could use it to give more interactive lectures (we already
have projectors so if the teacher could control the content while lecturing
I'm thinking there's a lot that could be accomplished)

~~~
smallhands
dude i am with you on this one not only teachers but stage presentation in
general

------
iuguy
\- General IT

I see phone apps becoming more important than they are now. Apple TV will flop
again, but the concept will start to gain traction with cable boxes (BT, Sky
and Virgin Media already have this in the UK - I see them integrating the
ideas into their set top boxes to cut people like Boxee out).

\- your domain

Next year will be the year of cybersecurity. All the boxes you saw this year
that deal with identity management will be rebranded as cybersecurity boxes
next year. Bruce Schneier will eventually learn the difference between CNE and
CNA and will finally start to talk sense on the subject (it took him about two
to three years to get airport security mostly right, he's been doing cyber for
about a year).

Someone will release a big bug in something important. A bunch of information
will be stolen from somewhere. We'll all act like it's something new, when
it's not really.

Sorry, I'm highly cynical about my industry.

\- your life

I'm hoping to work on iuguy 2.0 once minklinks is out of the way. With luck
and the will of the FSM I may well spawn before the year is out. Minklinks
will go live at worst in 2011. iuguy 2.0 may follow in 2012.

------
treyp
the wakemate will finally ship

~~~
trafficlight
Will a copy of Duke Nukem Forever be included? Word on the street is that it
will be released in 2011 as well.

~~~
zavulon
My prediction: Duke Nukem Forever will NOT be released in 2011.

(would be cool if it did though)

------
pjscott
This post got me started thinking about computer hardware, and I made some
predictions for the next five years, along with technical explanations of what
they mean and why they're likely:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1970884>

tl;dr summary: More cores; optical off-chip interconnect; network-on-chip
interconnect; 3D integration for better yield, as well as memory bandwidth and
latency; tighter integration of CPU and GPU. Widening gap between server and
desktop/mobile processor designs. Also solid state drives, but that's pretty
obvious.

------
ucsd_surfNerd
2011 is going to be the another year all about web 2.0. I think there is going
to be an increase in popularity for mobile web development using html5, css3,
javascript and frameworks such as PhoneGap and Sencha Touch. The ever
increasing number of mobile platforms will have developers looking for ways to
maximize their exposure with minimal effort.

I also think there is going to another generation of social networking apps
that build on top of Facebook and Twitter giving us new ways to analyze and
use social data.

Overall I would say get yourself into some web development

------
knowsnothing613
2011 will be the year of the dealpool.

Myspace deadpools. Digg deadpools. Flickr deadpools/shut down by Yahoo.

~~~
joshbert
Myspace? Sure. Digg? Maybe. Do you care to elaborate on Flickr though?

------
maguay
\- A solid Android powered iPod Touch competitor in the ~$200 price range.
Amazed nothing like this has taken off yet

\- A new Zune HD, this time powered by full Windows Phone 7 without the phone
stuff. Only makes sense to compete against the iPod Touch (which vastly
increases the reach of iOS and the App Store).

\- I'd love to see Apple make an unlocked iPhone 5 starting at $229 or so for
the base model and drop the iPod Touch. If you really don't want a phone, you
could just use it without a sim or new plan. This would also give them a leg-
up against Android or Windows Phone 7 based iPod Touch competitors. Sadly,
though, I don't think this one is very likely to happen.

------
sz
PCs are going to be like trucks: [http://video.allthingsd.com/video/d8-steve-
jobs-on-the-iphon...](http://video.allthingsd.com/video/d8-steve-jobs-on-the-
iphone-origin/3BBFA695-DC39-4834-9E39-7097C9CE1243)

------
jules
A new paradigm / abstraction in programming languages, like macros, OOP,
closures, will be adopted by early adopters in the industry. Will improve
coding productivity by 50%.

~~~
russell
The curious thing is that they are already here, e.g. Python/Ruby vs Java.
According to Clayton Christensen it takes a paradigm shift of over 5x
improvement before anyone notices.

I dont think the shift will be programming language based because the decision
makers dont pay attention to programmers. (I'm speaking the enterprise world
here, not startups.) But I hope you're right, not me. :-)

~~~
jules
Right, I'm thinking that X will happen to Python/Ruby like Python/Ruby
happened to Java.

A 5x improvement is a lot to ask for...I don't think that Python/Ruby offers
5x over Java, and to get 5x over Python/Ruby will be very hard. Even
describing software in reasonably precise English probably doesn't offer 5x
over the state of the art.

On the other hand, 50% is definitely feasible. The form this will take is a
combination of, among other things:

\- Moving away from the dynamicism of Python/Ruby: by sacrificing just a
little bit of the dynamicism (like assigning to a variable by string name) you
can gain a lot in terms of what IDEs can do and what compilers can do to
optimize.

\- New constructs that replace the dynamic metaprogramming in Ruby/Python with
static metaprogramming, like Lisp's macros and F#'s type providers.

\- Merging OOP with functional programming by unifying FP's abstract data
types and pattern matching with OOP's classes and runtime dispatch. The
resulting system will be something like multimethods or predicate dispatch.

\- Testing tools will get more powerful. Randomized testing will play a more
important role. We'll get statistical analysis in IDEs that can sometimes
pinpoint the line that's causing a bug by running the randomized tests and
computing the correlation of "line n was executed" with "the test failed".

\- Last but not least, the days of ASCII based programming are over.

> I dont think the shift will be programming language based because the
> decision makers dont pay attention to programmers. (I'm speaking the
> enterprise world here, not startups.) But I hope you're right, not me. :-)

I agree. As usual the enterprise world will lag a few years behind...around
the time they adopt Python/Ruby/F#/etc, the startup world will have new
languages and tools.

~~~
russell
Actually I agree with you completely. The 5x improvement is what it takes
BigCo management to notice you. However startups are getting the 5x advantage
all over the place. Nimble platforms plus smarter people plus stripped down
organizations give you your 5x.

I have been inclined to think for quite a while that a good IDE / compiler
combination would achieve a lot with a language Python. (I've been doing my
Python development with an ordinary editor.) Python 3 allows type
specification, but doesnt do anything with it. Have the IDE get feedback from
the execution profile to advise the programmer on possible type errors.

Testing tools: I would like a tool that can read a method and some annotation
to generate a set of unit tests.

Given your list I think it results in way more than 50% improvement.

------
SideSwipe
Gamification is going to take off.

Everything in your life will be quantified and if you want recorded.

You can see actual stats and progress in your life.

A lot of boring things including our jobs will become more fun and merit based
rewards at work will accelerate in growth around the world.

We talk a lot about this on our wiki at <http://gamification.org> .

------
Keyframe
I expect something big from Microsoft - something really really big.

~~~
tocomment
I don't understand why you say that. If the last ten years are any indication
then nothing big will come from ms.

~~~
Keyframe
Last ten years are indication to me that something big should happen right
about now, or else... the spiral from the top down continues.

All of the competition aside (across various spectra in competes in), let's
just look at Microsoft itself. It's a beast with huge muscles that lost focus.
It's numerous heads are biting all over, but with lost focus and strength. It
needs to toughen up and straight it's shit together, and now is the time more
so than ever.

------
smallhands
id rage will ship 2011 and it is going to be huge

------
cloudwalking
Green energy.

------
chailatte
Next year austerity and rising interest rate will take root in major
economies, forced by runaway inflation in food, gas and commodity prices -
caused by massive printing by US/Europe/Japan/China. This will result in money
in flight from risky investments (emerging countries, startups, expansions) to
safe investments, which will cause job losses in many of those sectors.
Healthcare and Food industries will grow. Entertainment, Advertising,
Construction and Transportation industries will wither.

~~~
russell
This is a curious expectation, but it feels right to me (with a degree in
economics). Recessions are usually preceded by inflation, not followed,
However, wars are usually followed by inflation. Since 1960 inflation has been
over 600%, energy about 850%. My expectation, is that a huge amount of money
has been pumped in to the economy to pay for the wars and the bail-outs. The
money is being absorbed by the wars and the trade deficits. I think the
current situation is unstable and it will blow up, perhaps in 2012. Certainly
any austerity program that hits the middle class hard, and all the Rep.
proposals do, will trigger political thrashing and immense hardship, something
approaching the severity of the Depression, or we will get the typical end of
war inflation.

~~~
RobGR
I agree with you, but I think your terminology is inexact when you say:

"The money is being absorbed by the wars and the trade deficits."

Wars do not absorb money, they absorb wealth -- money is paid to make a
bullet, and after the bullet is shot the money remains to decrease the value
of all money, and the bullet is gone.

Trade deficits can move accumulated wealth (or money) around, but they also
don't absorb it; a foreign country might absorb money, if they decide to
stockpile it.

~~~
russell
It felt awkward when I wrote it. You are right. The wealth is
absorbed/destroyed, but the money is still there with fewer goods to purchase,
hence inflation (eventually).

------
donspaulding
General IT: Sales of MSFT's Kinect will surpass XBOX sales.

Web Development: Python will get a library/framework that is a paradigm shift
in writing apps for real-time clients. Something that ties together Twisted's
reactor with Django's approachability with socket.io.

Personal: I will finish building my house, then focus on shipping a single
side-project.

------
klbarry
IT:

\- Increasing success of Android

\- New FB feature of being able to split up who your messages go to by groups,
massive profit for Facebook.

My Domain:

\- A lot of move in fashion towards more sustainability, the biggest changes
will be in five years though, not one:

\- I've written about it at changingclothing.recojeans.com, more specifically
changingclothing.recojeans.com/eco-friendly-clothing/

