NerdyBlog.com

Tech Predictions Megapost

Posted on Sunday, 24th February 2008 by The Phil

Over the past few years, I have made a tradition of making predictions for the world of technology and then the following year, reviewing those predictions and again posting predictions for the next year. I have not done so yet this year and now that I work at Nerdyblog.com, I’ve decided that I will review my last 2 years of predictions while making this year’s predictions. I hope you guys enjoy this lengthy post.

Predictions after the jump!

January 2006

“Audio
There is a new audio codec of some sort just making itself known in which you can tell where the audio is in 3d, it’s a 3d sound, not surround sound, but above and below as well. This new audio is amazing, I have listened to an example of it and it’s mind blowing. Here’s the sample. So yah, I think that this new thing will get people using it and we’re gonna have some amazing audio. Will it happen within a year? Idunno but definitely within 3 if something better doesn’t come along.”
I have no idea what happened to this mp3 audio codec but I guess it just didn’t get picked up and used. It’s unfortunate as it was quite a great new codec.

“HDDVD or Blu-Ray?
If I had to choose one that I think will win out, I would say Blu-Ray and it will be because of Microsoft not wanting to take a big profit loss risk. The deciding factor for this war comes down to console gaming, yes you heard me right. Blu-Ray is going to get it’s big introduction to mainstream life with Sony’s Playstation 3 that comes out sometime between spring and summer of this year. This has always been sony’s plan as it is a smart plan. Think of all the PS2’s they sold when it first came out. When buying a console, many people think of the functionality… “Can I do more than gaming with this thing?” This I know for a fact. When Microsoft released the Xbox 360, they did so without a HDdrive which was their HUGE downfall in this war, this was the not wanting to take a big loss in profit over a risk I was talking about. PS3 will have HD in the form of bluray from the getgo. This will make buyers flock to PS3 when they find out from word of mouth and such that it is better than 360. The only way microsoft will be able to fight this war would be to release an addon to the 360 that will be an addon hd-dvd drive for gaming and movies. Now it’s pretty much certain that Microsoft will make this move by the time PS3 comes out but rumor has it that it might only be an addon drive for movies, not games which still gives PS3 a HUGE advantage. Not to mention that addons are not great sellers COUGHps2harddriveCOUGHgamecubemodemCOUGH. Now you see why I think Bluray will win over HD-DVD. There is one more thing to think about though… There is a company trying to make a chip that will be able to read both types of disks which will make the war pointless and solve the problems for consumers if brought out in time. If this chip can work flawlessly, expect many non-sony, non-microsoft brands to buy into this so they don’t have to choose and shut themselves off from half the market. It’s a potential %50 percent risk of loss.”
Wow, I’m quite happy with these predictions from just over 2 years ago. So much of this was right. Sure, Blu-Ray’s win wasn’t mostly due to console gaming as I thought it would be but rather it was due to big name companies choosing Blu-Ray all at once. I was right about the hd-dvd drive, it did okay but not as great as Microsoft and Toshiba hoped and now it’s dead.

“Gaming
A lot of it was explained in the topic above. So let’s compare. If you had to choose from getting a console and then having to buy a separate drive or to get a console with it already built in, which would you choose if around the same price? Hey look, PS3 wins. I’m not a fanboy, just a realist. I was asked by nrgspoon (a friend) what I thought of Nintendo Revolution or we got into the topic and I really think that Revolution cannot be placed in a category with PS3 and 360. Revolution is a completely different machine. I think Revolution will make tons more money than 360 and PS3 combined but wouldn’t consider that winning the console wars cause I just don’t consider them in the same class anymore. With the revolution you are getting less in graphics and capacity but more in gameplay and user-ease. With PS2 and 360, you’ll get better graphics/realism, more capacity, traditional control (controller). To me it’s like apples and oranges.”
So the PS3 has not dominated the market as I thought it would. Xbox360 is clearly beating ps3 and to a point is still beating the Wii (codenamed Revolution at that time). I personally still think the Wii should not be classified in the same category is PS3 and 360 as it’s a casual gaming machine. I don’t buy a Wii for the same experience as the 360 or PS3.

“TVs
Everything is going HD, that’s what is big. It’ll be next to impossible to find a tv without component-in by end of this year.”
True, HD is what is big but I was way too soon on my prediction about not being able to find standard definition enabled tv’s by 2007. Looks like that prediction won’t be true until 2009/2010.

“Portable Media
I don’t know if it will happen this year but I see a portable satellite tv being HUGE within 3 years. It would work like XM or Sirius but instead of audio, it would be Video. This would be the new way to get TV first via mobile players but then via home tv’s and such as well. A great example of this is what they do with cell phones but my prediction is for them to use satellite.”
Satellite video is not going to happen. Will it happen in the future? Who knows, it could, would it work? Probably not. Everything is going over mobile now so it took it’s place. Yes, I know, the satellite in tv’s was a really stupid prediction as satellite tv had been around for a long time previous… I wasn’t thinking.

“Podcasting
I think Podcasting will continue it’s big popularity boom throughout this year but afterwards it will phase out and video podcasting will be the big thing, tv networks will hate the big inevitable boom of the video podcasting era. You think podcasting was big, just wait.”
Podcasting hit it’s wall as it hasn’t found that point of ease where everyone is wanting to know and learn about the benefits of podcasting. It’s become more popular but it stopped it’s boom. I think the biggest thing that stopped the podcasting boom was Youtube as the ease of use is far better than finding the rss feed for a podcast and adding it to an aggregator.

“Ipod Phone
It is bound to happen but when? My guess is that they are just trying to figure out a great design for it and see if they can start up their own cell phone service. I think we’ll get an announcement by end of year but this product will not be released until 2007.”
Wow, right on the money about 2007. The iphone came out but Apple did not become it’s own carrier. Instead they went with AT&T on a GSM network which people weren’t happy about as web browsing is much better on a 3G network but that’s getting off topic.

“Next Big Thing For Cell Phones?
Re-Introduction of GPS and nifty applications to take advantage of this technology like find-a-friend.”
GPS just isn’t being cared about by customers as a big feature even though if it was taken advantage of, people would find the benefits very intriguing. Instead, GPS is slowly becoming a throw-in feature to cell phones.

January 2007

“Audio:
I don’t really see audio changing at all. MP3s will still be dominant. Podcasting will continue to be used with slight growth of people who get into it. Satellite radio will start to lose interest. Were coming into a hard drive based prominent technological society. More people will resort to mp3 players than radio and satellite radio. Hell, it’s rare to even see a CD player these days.”
Right on the money, there is nothing to add to this, right all around, haha.

“HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray vs Downloading
I have said it in my review of my 2006 predictions. Sony has made so many mistakes, it will be difficult to win the war now. HDDVD will pretty much when it comes to next gen discs. Though, as I said above, we are becoming a society who prefer to download content to our machines of choice. It’s easy access, it’s right away. The only things that are stopping downloading from winning right now is our low bandwidth and all the stupid DRM practices being used. If those 2 aspects were to be dealt with, Downloading media content would win out. Honestly, I see downloading winning the battle but not this coming year. It’s a ways off… Maybe 2008. In the meantime, I see HD-DVD continuing to succeed as it is beginning to do now.”
Alright, so I chose HD-DVD for winning the format war due to many mistakes by Sony. I was wrong. Though my predictions about digital distribution are coming true more and more every day. You have stuff like PPV on demand, Itunes music, Itunes renting, netflix watching movies online, virtual console, Xbox Live. The only thing slowing down the inevitable digital distribution outcome is our generally low internet bandwidth.

“Gaming
This one is easy since next gen has become current gen and we can all see how things are progressing. PS3 will deal with it’s problems and be known as a great gaming console once gaming companies can properly develop for them. The question is, will it be too late? Will all the problems Sony has dealt with be their downfall in the end? It’s looking grim for the PS3 as it seems to be going the way of the PSP and that is not good at all. BTW: Sony will make a last ditch effort with the PSP with a new model that has a hard drive and will go completely the way of downloading to get most of it’s content (another bold step but lil too late I think). The XBox360, it’ll keep turning out great game titles and will continue to turn people onto the bought media downloading era. I think a big thing Microsoft will do to gain a stronger hold onto both the gaming market and the HD disc market is they will upgrade the firmware of the 360 so that HD-DVD games will be able to be played via the HDDVD add-on. This will boost sales in the add-on, HDDVD movies, and if they then make the disc drive in all future 360s HDDVD compatible without the addon, it will boost sales of the console itself. And as for the WII… I think it’s obvious that the Wii will continue to be a popular console but I also think people will get over the controls of it and then be left with a Gamecube 1.5 that has some great added features and awesome backwards compatibility. I think the way to really keep people interested is to make sure they don’t do that same mistake with the Gamecube, do not focus on children as your target market. Wii is going to get the children no matter what, so there needs to be a bevy of games that are targeted at adults, this will be a big factor for Wii’s even bigger success. Nintendo did this well with the DS, they target adults as well as children and continue to gain success from the DS to this day. Oh, btw, watch out, Pokemon Pearl and whatever is coming out around April… That’s going to be a huge seller for the DS as it already has been in Japan. I see the Pokemon fad coming back for a short time because of this.”
Well Sony has pretty much saved it’s baby, the PS3 by winning the format war. Since PS3 is a bluray player, they have a second chance and my prediction for PS3 could be all wrong. My predictions for the PSP was wrong but I’m willing to bet that I was not so much wrong, but more so early as I think a new PSP based on digital distribution could come to fruition. All wrong when it comes to the 360 but what can you do? I can’t always be correct. The great thing with Nintendo is that they have seemingly learned from their Gamecube mistakes. They not only entice this kids but also target the adults as well now. Since the Wii is a pick up and play type of casual gaming device, it can apply to any age, pretty good for Wii and pretty good predictions from me.

“TVs
LCD tvs are going to come down in price, kinda like the plasma tvs have been doing. SEDtvs will be the new best thing in flat screen televisions. Standard def will continue to phase out slowly.”
Pretty good prediction here, LCD’s are indeed continually coming down in price. They aren’t coming down as fast as I thought they would though but that’s because companies up the specs which means they can keep the prices relatively the same and say that the consumer is still getting their money’s worth because they are getting better specifications.

“Apple
Oh they will unleash 2 great products this coming year.
1) The Iphone, most likely in January at Macworld and will introduce some new innovative features to the world of cell phones and will also help the world to embrace media on the go features.
2) ITV, basically a sling box. A device that will connect to your tv and will take the media content you have downloaded to your computer from itunes and make it easily playable upon your tv. All this via wifi or ipod docking. I think it will also have some other features to help it sell to the mainstream buyer but who knows what that can be…. My guess is recording from your tv directly to your computer or docked ipod, maybe some features like weather and internet like the Wii can do.”
The Iphone was indeed released but oddly enough, it did not push media on the go aside from music sale. No push for podcasting, probably because there’s no money there. As for ITV, I was right, it’s called Apple TV, it has not been a success and won’t be unfortunately.

“Computers
Quadro-Cores will be the next biggest thing on the market and LCD monitors will continue to come down and price just like LCD tvs. Vista will be a slow adoption for the mainstream but eventually it will be adopted by all ala XP.
I don’t know what Apple will do but i’m sure they’ll make a big boom when it comes to their computers.”
Quadro-Cores are now being sold, I work on them at Dell here and there. What a prediction, lol. The adoption rate for Vista has been slower than expected, all due to compatibility and performance issues. With XP sales still happening until next year, Vista won’t be a lone wolf until then. Apple really hasn’t done too much aside from the Macbook Air which isn’t doing too well due to being way overpriced, poor apple. Bring down the price and maybe Apple computers can take over.

“Youtube
Youtube will unveil a bevy of new features through out the year including editing of videos via the website. A whole new uploading phase will be introduced which will scan videos for pirated material based on a succession of pictures in a time frame from existing copyrighted materials that will be submitted by copyright owners. For instance, if I watch a movie and I scan 25 images at certain intervals of time during that movie, I can keep those images indexed and compare them to videos downloaded to see if they match and if they do, the uploaded item would likely be pirated and rejected. I’m sorry if I’m not explaining it well but it does make sense.”
Editing of videos, not quite there yet but still being worked on. The scanning of videos for pirated materials has indeed been implemented, companies wishing their content not to be uploaded to the site by users must have their content scanned by whatever youtube uses so that uploaded content matching scanned “fingerprint” will be rejected.

“Facebook
Facebook will become the new myspace, it already has started and it will continue to grow in popularity. By the end of the year, Myspace will be inferior to Facebook.”
Somebody give me a high-five… come on… anybody? I called this one!

“Memory sticks
4 gig memory cards will come down to the $100 price range.”
Now here’s something odd, something that happened faster than I predicted. Yes, cards came down to 4 gig but even lower too. You can now get 8 gig flash drives for $60. Craziness. It didn’t seem that amazing until reading this, I love it.

February 2008

I now get to make my predictions for this coming year and beyond, time for fun…

Gaming
Xbox360 will continue to dominate the general to hardcore gaming audience. Microsoft will introduce an external Blu-Ray drive to compete with the PS3 being an all in one unit. PS3 will get a second chance; with Sony’s Bluray winning the format war, people will see the PS3 as not just gaming machine but an excellent solution for gaming and hd movie watching. Will Sony take advantage of this? We shall see. Wii will become the no 1 gaming console of all time, in sales. It will surpass 360 in sales by late summer and continue to be a hit especially with the releases of Smash Bros and Mario Kart this year. Keep a lookout for Nintendo’s new application for Wii which will be a clone of Xbox Live Arcade, giving developers the ability to make small games to sell to consumers as downloadable content. Sony will either release a new Sony PSP Phone or a new Sony PSP with built in hard drive. Which one is more likely? Probably the phone as I see the hard drive psp being something a few years down the line as a new name and package so sony can give themselves a second chance. The only thing I can think of for Nintendo DS is a new hardware sku. I think Nintendo may make a Macbook Air inspired DS with possible implementation of wide screen displays.It’s not likely but I have been thinking about this lately.

Blu-Ray vs DVD vs Digital Distribution
I’ve covered this above already but one more time. DVD is still going to be the main format used until around late 2009. 2009 is when all the broadcasters are supposed to be switched over to HD signals by. This means consumers are going to want to take advantage of everything HD all at once. Shortly after Blu-Ray becomes the accepted format, people will start seeing that digital distribution is much better, not only for price but convenience. Digital distribution should take over the industry by 2011.

64bit Operating Systems
32 bit operating systems are not able to address more than 3.something gb’s of memory and people are going to want their precious memory. The switch to 64 bit is coming. With this, we’ll see the slow adoption rate we saw when customers went from xp to visa, and it will be just as frustrating as software and drivers are made to benefit from the 64bit systems.

TVs
Thin is in! Everything is about how thin a tv is. The sub 1 inch thin TVs will be big this year. Not that big but notable. Also by end of next year, emphasis will be taken off of contrast ratios and placed on what added features a tv can give you, for instance, built in DVR or media centre functionality.

Mobile and PC OS’s
Google’s Android mobile operating system will dominate the mobile market by early 2009 and may lead to the development of Android for PC’s, a welcome alternative to Windows.

IPhone 2.0
Apple will unveil a new version of the Iphone which will come in different colors, and will feature a full featured digital camera built in. Also, focus will be place on 3rd party content/applications.

Wireless
By end of 2009, Wireless usb and wireless power will be ushered into regular use. There will be a big focus on a wireless era. Place your Ipod on your desk and it will charge as long as there is contact. Press a button on your ipod and choose to sync with your computer without using USB wires at all. The beauty of wireless.

I really don’t have any other predictions… thank goodness eh? This post was long enough as is. I hope you all enjoyed spending a few hours reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it up.

Sharing Options