
Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2015? - csomar
In the spirit of the old threads, let&#x27;s predict what will happen in 2015<p>2014: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6994370<p>2013: none?<p>2012: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=3395201<p>2011: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=1970023<p>2010: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=1025681<p>Please use lists (even a long bullet list) instead of very long paragraphs.
======
blubbi2
A couple of things:

1) webtorrent [1] will be used to build the next generation of The Pirate Bay.
Media companies will have to realize that suing teens for infringing copyright
is not an option, since participating in file sharing is no longer a
deliberate act when WebRTC is enabled by default.

2) io.js [2] will heavily influence the future of Node.

3) Angular 2.0 will probably be released at the end of the year [reference?].
People might start establishing an Angular fork (similar to what happened in
the Node world).

4) Full stack Google: Angular, Dart and Go.

5) We'll find out if there is a tech bubble [3].

6) One of the following will happen: 1) Developers might tend to use bigger
and bigger frameworks, or 2) substack-like extreme modularization (current
situation in the npm-world).

7) People will move away from native app development. [4]

8) More frameworks will evolve to "reinvent" the DOM. DOM updates will still
be expensive as hell. React was just the beginning.

9) Everything will be a SPA. Now that Google executes JavaScript [5], there is
no more reason to render websites on the server. (Unless you're using HN,
where 50% of the users are using Lynx).

[1]
[https://github.com/feross/webtorrent](https://github.com/feross/webtorrent)
[2] [https://github.com/iojs/io.js](https://github.com/iojs/io.js) [3]
[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/17/technology...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/17/technology-
bubble-uber-snapchat-buzzfeed) [4] Disclaimer: I work for famo.us. These are
my own thoughts and might not express the thoughts of the company I'm working
for. [5]
[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.nl/2014/05/understand...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.nl/2014/05/understanding-
web-pages-better.html)

~~~
MrDHat
> 7) People will move away from native app development

I don't really see this happening. At least not in 2015! IMHO nothing gives
better performance than native apis. Nothing at all.

~~~
blubbi2
Native apps might always be superior in performance. Nevertheless, I doubt
that the performance benefit of native over web will be big enough to justify
a significantly longer development time as we're approaching (near) native
performance. Things changed quite a lot last year: WebGL enabled by default on
iOS, Ionic had massive adoption, Firefox OS makes the web a first-class
citizen again. IMHO it's only a question of time.

~~~
pan69
Was Adobe Air way ahead of it's time?

------
proveanegative
\- Someone will get arrested with a 3D-printed gun.

\- At least one profitable, company-launching app will come out on Firefox OS
first. It likely won't be initially available in English.

\- The "freedom and democracy are incompatible" thing will get at least one
mention in the mainstream press that won't consist of outright mockery or
dismissal.

\- Police body cameras will become ubiquitous.

Edit:

\- Apple will release the Swift compiler as open source software.

\- Something someone at Y Combinator says will be presented as outrageous by
the online media. The story will be prominent enough to briefly reach the top
of HN's front page and will receive an official response.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Wha? Its not illegal to own a 3d printed gun. Oh, maybe that means 'during
commission of a crime'. With the easy availability of guns, I'm wonder why
this would be considered noteworthy.

~~~
joefreeman
Other countries exist :)

------
ulfw
The Apple watch will be too thick, too heavy, too expensive ,screen too small,
battery runtime too low, real usecases questionable and won't sell well after
an initial surge of sales to the Apple fanboy, tech-affine, first-mover crowd.

The second iteration will blow it out of the water though.

------
Numberwang
* Yahoo! will buy Fastmail

* Netflix will win in the same sense YouTube won

* Amazon will launch an OS

* Jason Statham will make between three and five Jason Statham movies.

~~~
hawkice
As regards Mr. Statham:

Motion picture timelines are pretty long, so I imagine you are correct. Of
particularly high likelihood (according to imdb) are: Furious 7, Wildcard, and
Spy (2015, 2015, and 2015 respectively). I'm curious to know how often new
movies come out quickly or secretly -- in particular, if I made the more
precise prediction "Jason Statham will be featured in exactly 3 movies
released in 2015", how likely is it that I'll be wrong?

~~~
jacquesm
You forgot about Transporter XII.

------
Zigurd
Mostly that things won't happen: No consumer business model or compelling apps
for IoT; No home automation standards that actually become standard; Smart
watches are still too big; Enterprise IT managers still think PCs are at the
end of their development without getting cheaper to support, but can't find
tablets to replace them. I could be wrong about the last one. An 11-12" 4k+
tablet light enough to hold in one hand should be possible, but where is it?

What will happen? Imaging and video will continue to get better faster than
ISPs and content publishers are ready to handle. Trust in US service and
technology providers will continue to erode, along with their overseas sales.
This raises the possibility of secure, verifiable, consumer friendly storage
and/or communications products emerging, but I'm not going to predict that
will happen in the US. The government in the US wants their nose in
everything.

------
yawboakye
HTTPS used by at least 90% of all websites because SSL certificates will be
free. We have 364 days and 5 simple steps [1] to achieve that.

[1]:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oRXJUIttqQxuxmjj2tgYjj09...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oRXJUIttqQxuxmjj2tgYjj096IKw4Zcw6eAoIKWZ2oQ/edit#)

~~~
sinemetu11
Are there any good blog posts on selling https everywhere to the business
folks? I'm an engineer and would like to see the product I work on have HTTPS
everywhere but I'm not sure of the ways in which I could convince people to
support it.

~~~
yawboakye
This helps? [http://mashable.com/2011/05/31/https-web-
security/](http://mashable.com/2011/05/31/https-web-security/)

------
jqm
-Increased effort by other countries to move away from US internet and tech dominance.

-More global economic shock towards years end.

-North Korea in the news more than last few years. Possible increase in US troop deployed on the Korean peninsula.

-The media decides for us that ISIS isn't really *that bad. Less radical acts coming from the group. The west starts making some concessions.

-4 new JavaScript frameworks arise as the "best way to do things". They get lots of users and press time, and will be largely abandoned by the years end.

-Something completely unexpected happens.

(I have to note the predictions for 2014 on HN were really really bad. Mine
probably aren't much better. So don't put much stock. Except in the last
prediction. That one is pretty much a guarantee.)

------
arjn
\- Oil will go lower, at least for a few months

\- US, China and World economy will fizzle and maybe tank.

\- More players and net-positive news from the Electric Car/Vehicle side.

------
LarryMade2
\- An full-featured ePaper smart watch will become popular as it will do more
with less bulk and a small price tag.

\- Agencies will experiment with "rapid response" quad copter and other
drones. (emergency, police, news, security, etc.) There will be talk of
drafting "drone traffic" laws.

\- Blockbuster finally goes bust.

\- People will really get fed up with facebook en masse and competitors will
be scrambling to be "the" next social network.

\- Microsoft will debut a BASIC geared for Windows 10 (targeted toward mobile)
and tie it into coding for education efforts.

\- Businesses needing to upgrade overdue long-term tools will seriously look
at Linux and other OSS platforms as commercial OSs have gone toward
subscription based walled gardens.

~~~
sssilver
> \- People will really get fed up with facebook en masse and competitors will
> be scrambling to be "the" next social network.

So not gonna happen!

------
Tangokat
1\. Tensions rise and the west and the east continue to grow further apart.

2\. More hacking scandals come to light and they are used as cover to restrict
privacy and empower the intelligence community.

3\. The world will continue to do close to nothing about the environment.

4\. More steps are taken to protect children online from piracy, porn and
controversial opinions.

5\. A major critical vulnerability will be exposed in Tor.

6\. Magic Leap will turn out to be a massive.. leap forward in technology.

7\. Consumer VR will take the world by storm.

8\. All the new encrypted email alternatives will fail.

9\. eSports will continue to grow and the League of Legends Worlds final will
have over 20 million concurrent viewers.

10\. An application of AI will blow everyone away.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Pessimist! Carbon emissions are way down; VR has been about to take the world
for a decade

------
gmuslera
* IPV6 still won't be at 50%+ of internet

* Privacy still will be a target to crush for governments, and so any activity/communication media/etc that could affect that main objective.

* More hacking incidents used as excuse for more rights limitations, or for punishing countries

* Cheap health/activity tracking devices will become more popular (xiaomi mi band price/capabilities range could be a baseline)

* Inequality will keep growing. The singularity in that direction should not happen this year anyway.

* More climate related big incidents, but still no worldwide meaningful actions regarding it.

------
joewalnes
* Apple open-sources Swift compiler, open-source server-side ecosystem emerges

* Internet Explorer starts using an open-source rendering engine (like WebKit)

* Google Code shuts down

* Apple will NOT open up iPhone 6 NFC APIs

* Google self driving cars start a war in Washington

* Apple Watch gives life to "intimate" social networks

* Uber launches a package courier service

Some of these sound far fetched, but there's a slight method to the madness.

Rationale here: [https://medium.com/@joewalnes/some-2015-tech-
predictions-1e7...](https://medium.com/@joewalnes/some-2015-tech-
predictions-1e78ff31cbfd)

~~~
ojr
Microsoft is coming out with a new web browser
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2890454/Is-
Mi...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2890454/Is-Microsoft-
set-kill-internet-explorer-Windows-10-set-come-new-Spartan-web-browser.html)

------
petercooper
\- The excitement for email newsletters will peak in 2015 and be considered
passé in 2016. Email will remain popular, but other formats will take hold and
have higher engagement rates. Targeting newsletter type material at other
media and platforms instead of email will become more significant in 2015
(such as direct to Slack channels, CRM systems, etc.)

\- Text chat and interactive systems will become more significant in a way I
can't put my finger on yet. But expect to see more Slack-style activity
creeping out to other types of app. Instead of "form filling", many types of
app will begin to request data in a more conversational way on a "need to
know" basis.

------
minthd
1\. Xiaomi's highly efficient business model will be largely copied by some
other hardware companies(not only in phones), and together with it's multi
product strategy - we'll start to see a big mess happening in the consumer
hardware sector.

2\. real time fmri will prove it's worth in the first clinical trial (for
treating traumatic brain injury). This will cause an in rush of investment in
the sector - both for applications in mental health , and applications in
"peak performance" .

3\. A long range wireless for the IOT will start deployment around most of the
us - and will become a very common target for IOT stuff.

4\. Deep learning will become usable by standard , non expert developers.

------
scottndecker
* Internet of Things will start coming into its own with some really cool stuff coming out at the end of the year

* Big data will get even bigger

* Companies will continue to become more comfortable with their data not being on-premise and cloud will grow larger as a result

------
coding4all
\- Flat design will evolve into thin design

\- Facebook will lobby for a national voting system that requires a Facebook
account.

\- ISPs will either merge with or be bought up by some of the world's largest
media companies.

\- Instead of phones getting thinner or having bigger screens, they'll start
having multiple screens.

\- The next big thing in the mobile software world will probably come out of
Africa or India.

\- Cooking and food related devices will become popular in the hacking
community.

\- Clojure and Rust will gain a great amount of new adopters.

~~~
AtTheLast
I really like the idea of 'thin design'. That would help with some of the
usability issues of flat design but still keep things simple.

------
goalo
\- Microsoft, Google have a better 2015

\- Apple wont sell much of iwatch and wont grow as much as they did in 2014.

\- 3d printing, bitcoin, virtual reality, IOT will be slower this year
although they still have a bigger future in 10+ years time.

\- Oil will drop a little further and then gain back to near 90 by end of
2015.

\- Number of commercial flights disasters will reduce in 2015.

\- US is going to do better in 2015.

\- Inequality to keep growing

\- World will be more peaceful in 2015!

------
melling
Virtual reality arrives. Oculus with Leap Motion, Nimble VR etc

[http://controlvr.com](http://controlvr.com)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_U3BmDlmtc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_U3BmDlmtc)

...or Magic Leap?

[http://www.magicleap.com/#/company](http://www.magicleap.com/#/company)

~~~
arjn
Also, the "CastAR"

~~~
melling
Looks like it was Yet Another Kickstarter Project:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/cast...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-
the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system)

------
juanbujanda
_-the first beacons physical web platform._ -physical web beacons outside
retail disrupt, assets management and buildings information management. _\-
ibeacons fail to get traction._ \- chrome phone _\- the "URL" physical web
beacons become in an unstoppable force on the internet of things. _\- let's
tag the world togheter *.tag

------
mdnormy
Xiaomi is the next big thing. They've done most things right, yet people don't
take them seriously yet, because "Apple-copycat".

For a start, I think they'll hire few more high profile people from prominent
SV company to build the brand in Western hemisphere.

Also, I predict this year, there will be much more interesting stuff coming
from the East in general.

------
surjoy
I think artificial intelligence is going to rule in 2015. With Cortana going
to be released in Windows 10 and Brainasoft doing research to make Braina -
[http://www.brainasoft.com/braina/](http://www.brainasoft.com/braina/) a
program that can learn like humans, I think 2015 is the year of AI.

------
potomushto
\- New implementations for App Containers (like Docker) written in Rust;

\- One of the next top AAA startups (like AirBnB or Uber) built almost
entirely with Clojure/ClojureScript;

\- SublimeText 4;

\- Accepted Pull Requests to github.com/Microsoft/Browser;

\- You have to be highly motivated by serious reasons to stay in Russia rather
than relocate to more startup-friendly country.

------
Nib
\- People will realise that Apple can't be cool without Steve Jobs.(After the
Watch fails to impress anybody).

\- Something cool related to Wearables/Motion Sensing will happen. I think the
next thing would be Google open-sourcing Glass hardware and Facebook using
Oculus Rift technology for something other than gaming.

\- Paul Graham will write a number of pretty cool essays. [He does this every
year, no surprises :P]

\- Privacy will become more mainstream. After apps like DarkMail are
introduced, Google and the other players will start to reconsider privacy and
we, the people will gain.

\- Functional programming will be at a better state. Currently, it's rather
under-rated and programmers are rather confused about how to treat it.

\- Swift will be open-sourced and we'll see Cross Platform support for it.

\- I will sleep less. That's my resolution for this year.

~~~
qznc
I am very doubtful about the privacy thing. The core problem I see is
economical. People will use free messaging (E-Mail, WhatsApp, etc), but the
usual business model "Ads" does not work well with end-to-end encryption.

------
11thEarlOfMar
\- Putin formalizes his autocracy

\- China political turmoil becomes frightening to the rest of the world

\- US advisers directly engage ISIS in combat

\- Four YC companies graduate to the $ 1 Billion valuation club

\- Two YC companies graduate to the $ 10 Billion valuation Club

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The Putin thing - didn't he do that already, by inventing a govt position for
himself where he doesn't get voted out?

~~~
cmpb
He has cemented it, but I think op means formalized with express intent of
autocracy.

------
gingerlime
According to "Back to the Future II", by Oct 21st, we'll have:

* hoverboards * flying cars * pizza hydrators * size-adjusting-and-auto-drying jackets

------
lihorne
Ethereum will be released and much of what happened to Bitcoin we will begin
to see happening with Ethereum, only it will likely grow much faster.

------
htapiardz
2015 will be the year with a boom in wearables, and it is a crucial year to
know, if this gadgets will fly or die.

------
frankyy
More Machine Learning/Deep Learning/Artificial Intelligence articles/software

------
kaolinite
A few predictions, mainly around Apple, mobile and wearables:

1\. Apple Watch will be successful, although Wall Street will not perceive it
as such, and sell over 20 million units. It will not sell in iPhone numbers
and as a result will be initially dismissed as a failure by major news
companies. It will be the catalyst required to launch the wearable market and
sales of wearables by other companies will increase considerably.

2\. As a result of a burgeoning wearables market, low to medium end mechanical
Swiss watch companies and many lower-end quartz watch companies will see a
small drop in sales. None will be in trouble yet. High end Swiss watch
companies will have nothing to worry about and will likely continue to see
increases in sales.

3\. A number of Swiss watch companies will release their own wearables
(Montblanc recently did this actually[1] but we'll see a lot more in 2015) -
they will mostly be ignored due to lack of features, poor craftmanship, buggy
software and high prices.

4\. Android Wear will continue to develop rapidly however there will be fewer
quality apps on the platform. Many Android Wear devices will not see daily
use. Tim Cook will mention this on stage at WWDC later this year.

5\. Fitness companies, such as Fitbit, will see a decline in sales but will
not be in any significant trouble this year.

6\. Apple will improve iCloud reliability significantly, restoring some
developer trust but not all. Problems with app review will re-emerge as Apple
struggles to define the boundaries for the use of new features in iOS 8 (and
9) and on the new Watch platform.

7\. Companies will still continue to mainly launch on iOS first although there
will be an increased need to be on both platforms (if not at launch but soon
after). This is how it has been this year, I don't see any indication that the
trend of iOS-first is going away.

8\. Over the year, Google will increasingly control Android and the Play
Store. It won't become as strict as the App Store next year however long term
users of Android will express concern.

9\. Profitability of mobile devices will continue to fall. Samsung's profits
will decline in the face of competition from companies such as Xiaomi. Apple's
global marketshare will either stay fairly level or increase slightly however
their cut of the phone industry profits will continue to increase with them
making considerably more money than all other players.

[1] [http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/introducing-the-montblanc-
timew...](http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/introducing-the-montblanc-timewalker-
urban-speed-e-strap-the-first-foray-into-digital-wearables-is-upon-us)

------
judah
\- Samsung will introduce a foldable screen on a premier Android phone.

------
gowan
My wish list:

* reproducable build for docker images

* generate randomized test cases for web flows

~~~
mattzito
My big prediction is Docker hits the trough of disillusionment this year. It's
just moving too fast, with too many immaturities for the enterprise. Everyone
will kick off pilots, figure out everything is a mess, run back to VMware
until things settle down.

~~~
yawboakye
The Docker model (containerization) won't die off even if Docker (the
implementation) is wrong. And if containerization is better, faster, lighter
than full-blown VM then we would return to VMware only because they did
containerization better than Docker. If I were to predict, I'd say this is the
Year of Containers. (And it'd be seen in how programming languages, fault-
tolerant systems implement error handling.)

~~~
mattzito
Containerization is indeed better, _for those applications that work well in
containers_. Many applications don't always behave well in containers, and the
container model requires not only that your app work in container
environments, but that your development and deployment process works with
containers.

I suspect that many organizations will start to migrate apps to containers,
see that they require a fundamentally different set of tools and processes,
and migrate back. The reason VMs work as well as they do is that they look
just like regular servers.

That does not mean that containers will never succeed, just that it will take
a long time for the tooling and processes and knowledge about containers to be
common and commodity enough for many organizations to take advantage of them.

------
read
Lisp will emerge as a threat to Javascript.

------
IndianAstronaut
Wow, amazing how accurate karolisd was with their first few predictions for
2014.

 _Spark will gain more traction in the data mining world._ Companies running
on linux will opt to have their codebase in C#. _we will likely see a dip in
the economy which will affect all includijg tech workers._ Julia will start to
appear alongside Python and R for data analyst/mining positions.

~~~
Lewton
"Wow, amazing how accurate karolisd was with their first few predictions for
2014."

I don't get it. Is this sarcasm? He's pretty much completely wrong on all
counts

