This still kills the only benefit of WebRTC that it has over existing solutions - it's no-install nature.
If a user gets to the point of installing something, there's really not much difference between Skype and the plugin. Except, of course, everyone is already on Skype.
I expect Google will continue to strongly push Google+ on as many users as it can. Whether it will actually persuade users to join or actively use the service is another matter.
Social networking will be very important to Google in 2014, so says Eric Schmidt in his 2014 predictions (2 min video)
I'd like to believe that we'll be more privacy-conscious in 2014, but I don't actually think that will be the case. I'd like to see more scrutiny of the data companies collect about users, particularly because they are now collecting more data than ever before. Some companies like Google have staggering amounts of user data. They're probably salivating at the prospect of capturing even more precise user behaviour through an OS (Chrome) that potentailly captures everything you do online.
Far from the tech community (who you might hope would be most informed about this) actually raising concerns about the privacy implications of this, I think Google (and other companies) will continue to get away with barely any scrutiny at all.
1) Actual international-conflict geopolitical risk will not bubble over in 2014. Stupid saber-rattling in Asia, insurgencies and wars in Africa, but nothing critical.
2) Security/privacy will become something normal people and businesses ask about, and ask fairly superficial questions about, during many transactions (e.g. people are going to stop being fucking morons and just relying on "the cloud" for sensitive data without questioning it; they may still end up using the cloud, but will want to make a more informed choice.)
3) Snowden, Manning, and Assange will remain in the same positions on 31 DEC as they started on 1 JAN. weev will remain in prison. aaronsw
4) Zerocoin will launch, and will be a lot more interesting than Bitcoin to many Bitcoin early adopters. Alternative digital currencies which are NOT purely proof-of-work will also start to be interesting; not necessarily USD backed, but maybe equities, or debt instruments, or whatever. Some may be based on bitcoin. Either Open Transactions or a strippled-of-XRP form of Ripple, or something like it (blinded tokens). BTC/USD will remain between 250 and 2000 on 31 DEC, even if it has excursions. If I had to bet, I'd bet today's price/no net change as the most likely center (the "most likely" single price is of course 0, but plenty of other prices are also likely)
5) Apple will continue to slide into irrelevance; the vanguard of most-technical users will move away from iOS and OSX, if not Apple hardware, due to Apple anti-freedom policies
6) Someone will actually put together a credible packaged solution for secure CPE (wifi-wifi, wifi-ether), secure basebandless pda thing, secure laptop (a modified chromebook or something), server solution, and network services, in a way which can be verified down to the metal, for pro and enterprise/intl sales, at semi-sane price points (i.e. not Crypto AG prices)
7) A non-US location will emerge as a serious startup location specifically due to NSA/USG policies. I'm betting on Germany with German/Swiss arbitrage -- people living/working in Berlin on dev and ops in Switzerland. Maybe other non-EU/EU splits.
8) US mid-term 2014 elections will consist of "fuck the incumbents", independent of political party.
9) Yahoo will continue to slide into doom, and will be revealed to be the biggest collaborator among major non-financial, non-travel, non-carrier companies in the US. Alibaba will remain their only real value.
10) China will start to try to take the "moral high ground" on issues as a counterpoint to the US. It won't be universal, but it will hopefully cause US politicians (and electorate) to rethink things. They may offer to help in Afghanistan post US-withdrawal, in the same way they help in Africa today -- economic support, little political involvement.
No. 10: " little political involvement." - I don't know but they do kind of run Africa...Someone I heard of bought some land in Namibia or Mozambique or someplace. He planned to build a house so he got a geologist to check the bedrock, which turned out to be rich in copper. He thought he hit the Jackpot so he asked for mining rights, the government's reply was "We're sorry, you may build a house on the land but we have sold the mining rights to the chinese gov't".
- Coup d'état in North Korea, with civil war between pro-democratic forces and loyalist forces. American, South Korean forces entering North Korea from the DMZ and Chinese troops entering from the Yalu river. North Korea is divided in half. China declares a large buffer zone, forcing South Korea to concede 25% of the peninsula. Japanese Self Defense Force clashes with Chinese Navy in a limited naval/air battle which results in Chinese loss. Both sides declare victory.
- Another dot-com bust. Facebook is delisted from stock exchange after share prices crash and investors lose confidence in rapidly declining user-base. Amazon crashes, Walmart takes over the space left behind by Amazon after being acquired. The idea of valuation from future profits in technology stocks is wiped out with the major market correction. Warren Buffet addresses it in his annual shareholder's meeting.
- United States announces return to the gold standard angering China as the treasury notes become worthless.Global recession many times bigger than the 2008 market crash soon follows.
- Bitcoin is made illegal as it is discovered the Founder of Bitcoin turns out to be Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. Cryptocurrency is banned in United States and other nations follow.
2. This guy is going to be very wrong...
http://www.businessinsider.com/williams-bitcoin-meltdown-10-...>> I predict that Bitcoin will trade for under $10 a share by the first half of 2014, single digit pricing reflecting its option value as a pure commodity play. Miners/speculators will be best served to acknowledge the meltdown has begun, act quickly and take fleeting profit off the table.
....or, if he turns out to be right I will buy $5,000 worth of BTC and be a millionaire by EOY 2014 when the price spikes back up.
3. Snowden leaks will reveal something super-duper-crazy-out-there; e.g. AIDS invented in a lab or 9/11 really was an inside-job. Something almost beyond believable like that.
4. Blackberry will shutdown, be acquired or start making enterprise security phones. i.e., Blackberry will be to the mobile phone market what box.com is to the file-sharing services market.
- Stock market correction. Maybe a crash if Murphy's Law holds true and there is a sudden major unwind. Will have genuinely new characteristics. For example, you might see a selloff in "safe" dividend paying stocks and not tech, due to rotation of retirement funds out of stocks into fixed income. Another theory is you might see a panic out of financial stocks again once we see two quarters of downtrending inflation.
- Bitcoin will hit $5k at some point. No bitcoin crash in 2014. Dogecoin gives us a glimpse of the long-term role of cryptocurrencies: not really to buy physical goods, but to send micro-payments to people for micro-services from simple tasks to just making you laugh or giving you insight. As mobile devices permeate our lives (see the iBand below) this form of exchange becomes more natural. This dynamic gains more traction as additional means of "tipping" are made on various sites (though this term may not be the way it is presented.) Twitter might lead the way here, building in a feature that allows you to tip any tweet with bitcoins or maybe even dogecoins, as absurd as that sounds now.
- UST 10yr will close about where it is now, ~3%, maybe lower yield if we see deflation/disinflation. Muni bond crisis is overdone and spreads tighten, regained interest in fixed income for the retirement investment crowd as it becomes clear no inflation is imminent drive rates down. Talking heads start to posit that we're seeing rapidly increased productivity in the economy due to technology, and this means deflation and low GDP for a longer time than we ever thought. Unemployment stays high and talk of a living wage gains traction though is a pipe dream in the US. Rotation out of equities here contributes to the market correction. GLD ends the year down another 10-15%.
- Apple introduces iBand, thin glass wristband that serves as a paired device to your iPhone or iPad. It's a beautiful curved display that wraps around your wrist, and calling it a "watch" seems pretty ridiculous since it is essentially a display surface for apps around your wrist, not some boxed-off tiny square screen encased by a frame and held on by a "dumb" leather or plastic band like the pebble or gear. (The analogy here is blackberry is to iphone as pebble/gear is to iband.) No on-board processors, RAM, or storage, iPhone/iPad does the heavy lifting. Use cases include obvious things like mapping, reading messages, fitness, and maybe payments with integrated touchID. Tim Cook demos FaceTime on the wrist on stage and points how just how insane it is that we have a Dick Tracy watch. Nerds write it off because it lacks features the Pebble has, is too expensive, looks stupid, has poor specs, or can't imagine why they would use it when you can't type on it. Will have a novel charging mechanism, design, or technology that makes it natural and easy to charge when not in use. The motivation for iOS7's focus on depth, layering, and typography and classic print design comes into clearer focus on a small screen which the user views at many different angles in quick glances. Might use gyros to enable fine scrolling control or flick gestures with tilt of the wrist. It's a major blowout hit with huge margins for Apple at a relatively low price point (prob $400 max.) Becomes a major cultural status symbol due to customization options (color, finish, maybe even different options catered to men and women) and is immediately the most visible Apple product a person owns. As such is the most fashion-conscious product Apple has ever created. For people who own the iBand, looking back on a time where they had to dig into their pockets to read a text message seems backwards and ridiculous. Samsung apes it, poorly, in Q1 2015 for Galaxy Gear line. AAPL closes 2014 in mid $800's, low $900's, maybe a 10-15% haircut from there if wider market takes a beating.
- By end of 2014 Obamacare will be generally accepted as a Good Thing as people actually start sav...
I'm not sure that the technology exists to make the iBand in the way you describe in 2014. Bear in mind that they would have to already be pretty heavily into development if they're releasing it this year. Curved displays are only just being worked out, and getting all of those features (and a large enough battery) into a device small enough to not be another Galaxy Gear watch looks tricky.
Just to heap on a little more negativity, I really don't think the Democrats are a lock for the midterms. Gerrymandered districts alone will that difficult, let alone the general objections to Obama that will stick around. Many will continue to hate Obamacare irrespective of any actual results.
"By end of 2014 Obamacare will be generally accepted as a Good Thing as people actually start saving money. More people quit their jobs and start companies in 2014 than expected because they no longer fear having to lose employer insurance."
Who is saving money? The small minority who have existing conditions are, but not the majority of healthy people.
Sounds like you don't run your own business or buy your own insurance. Small and healthy business owners like me just had a massive increase in the cost of doing business. Health insurance costs are much more and the benefits are much less.
A doubling of health care costs in my case, and a much higher deductible.
These plans are incentivized to keep people tied to their current employers. The costs of self-insurance is now just shy of a mortgage payment. Self-employeds are looking for a job, so they can be covered by obamacare.
>>Who is saving money? The small minority who have existing conditions are, but not the majority of healthy people.
I am saving money. I quit my job 2 years ago to be a freelancer and was declined health insurance due to a "high" cholesterol condition and was kindly offered a $1200/month plan. I declined to pay such a high premium. Now me and thousands of entrepreneurs are free to choose and get whatever insurance they want at group rates.
>>These plans are incentivized to keep people tied to their current employers. The costs of self-insurance is now just shy of a mortgage payment. Self-employeds are looking for a job, so they can be covered by obamacare.
Odd that the iBand seems like the most "important" of your predictions even though it's objectively something we could do without with no loss of capability from today. I guess that's the definition of being a nerd :) (as well as v long AAPL)
I'm curious if funds will have enough freedom of action to stay out of fixed income more than they otherwise would. I honestly have no idea why even a 50-65 year old now would put anywhere near the "traditional" levels of money into bonds; longer lifespans, prolonged low interest rate environment, and a diversified global equity market seem to make going underweight bonds, even with the risk of a 20% (or even 50%) market correction in equities, rational.
I think on Obamacare you're letting your desire for a good future override rational analysis of what's most likely. I believe healthcare reform is a good thing, and some of what's in Obamacare is good, but it is a big change, and has people actively opposing it, and hasn't been implemented with much competence, so we're going to end up with a clusterduck for the next year at least.
Google Glasses gets released and we see them grow quickly, similar to how stuff like the pebble has been growing traction. 2013 was the year of the smartwatch. 2014 will be the year of the smartglasses.
2014 is the year of the Linux desktop with SteamOS!
I predict I'll finish my HP 200LX clone running RetroBSD on the new PIC32 board that just arrived. I get an excellent web developing job working on interesting project(s). I finish my book. :)
And on the whole: 2014, year of the Linux desktop... Hey, I can dream, can't i?
Hah, well keep an eye on the RetroBSD forums, I've been hacking away at the simulator and working on the PCBs for the keyboard and display. I've based it off the Fubarino, which I'm pretty sure is what my mail slip that arrived today is for, yay! I do predict it'll take me most of the year, as I'm going to have to hack in proper power management and other things, but it's so much fun that I don't care! I can't think of anything cooler than a HP 200 styled palmtop running a *nix. The question is, do I use the original 200LX case, or injection mould my own?
Got a link to your project at all? My website is in my profile, I'll be posting build logs once I pick up the board :D
Unfortunately on the hardware side I haven't done more than ordering a LCD and trying out several switches, and on the software side I'm not beyond POC software. I'm still not sure what kind of interface i want. Currently I think it should be RPL alike, but i see some UX issues i'd like to solve sometime. Sorry, no link.
Moore's Law remains halted. Nobody figures out how graphene will help. Programmers continue (see below) to move away from Java in favour of C to claw back some performance.
I doubt so. Programmers are more likely to adopt relatively new programming languages which are easier to learn and provide and produce software that is relatively fast, while not being as optimized as a C/C++ program.
Java probably still has a long life ahead.
1. Apple won't release a new product category (like an iWatch). But they'll do just fine by having the best industrial design and hardware.
2. Bitcoin and other digital currencies will take the world by storm.
3. Google will make a major improvement in AI with Google Now.
4. There will be another SnapChat or Instagram like product that'll make communicating with phones fun in a new way.
5. The internet and social networks will continue to cause social upheaval in authoritarian nations.
6. Facebook will add auto-playing video commercials and people will hate them.
7. Low-end cameras will start dying off rapidly. There will only be phones and high-end professional cameras in the future.
8. As technology automates more and more things, it'll contribute to unemployment of people who are unprepared to be knowledge workers.
9. People will start taking MOOCs a lot more seriously as an alternative to higher education, especially in meritocratic fields. Not a big change in 2014, but it'll be more obvious.
10. TV will start feeling like print media in the face of the internet, it's inevitable.
* There will be a major regulatory crackdown on Bitcoin in most countries due to money laundering concerns.
* It will become apparent that Apple's history is repeating itself. As mobile becomes commoditized, they will refuse to lower their prices and become a luxury niche player sliding slowly into irrelevance.
* Google will announce Go (golang) for Android.
* The U.S enonomy will grow fast at the start of the year and treasury yields will spike making the stock market and ultimately the economy crash. Next recession starting Q4 2014.
By the end of 2014, very few people have a smart watch.
Bitcoin continues to become more popular. Many physical places begin supporting the currency.
The UK government will start pushing for the porn block to be enforced for existing subscribers (not just new ones, as is the case now).
Low-end cameras are replaced by smartphones.
Linux's marketshare increases but remains relatively low. Steam OS has varying degrees of success. It's lack of mainstream professional games hinders adoption.
A lot of predictions here with a US or tech perspective:
Like the Economist I see the EU succeed in putting more pieces of its banking union in place. This means large EU banks fall under ECB regulation rather than national regulation. This severs one link that exacerbated the € crisis but stops short of full fiscal transfers between regions which means more pain for the less resilient economies.
In Europe and the US inequality will continue to grow as nothing has been put into place that reverses the socialism-for-the-rich policies and the part-capture of politics by finance. There will not be another Occupy movement but with unemployment holding stubbornly steady and people unsure whether this is down to the 1% or tech automation expect to see undirected anger at the wealthy and the tech industry.
The centre of economic activity continues to shift to the far east. China stays on course to become the world's largest economy within five years. Chinese companies become more visible globally following the lead of Japan and Korea.
It becomes obvious that higher learning is being radically re-shaped by online courses and content. The current education players (publishers/universities) that do not embrace this new landscape will face hard times. Institutions will only be limited by linguistic boundaries, not (geographical) national ones. Primary and secondary learning unchanged because kids must go to school while parents work and must go to school locally. Pretty good chance that computer programming is adopted as a core skill by more and more regions.
Areas of activity in 2014 will be Space, Solar, Gas, Biotech, Cybercurrencies (rivals to BTC will emerge this year), and the FOSS gets serious about federated (anonymous/pseudonymous/real name) social networks and secure private chat platforms.
In terms of conflict I think we'll get more of the same. War of attrition continues in Israel, settlement activity continues, no progress on peace. No significant development in Syria unless China/Russia do a volte face. Possible internal turmoil in North Korea due to purge and defections - N. Korean regime will eventually collapse as no malevolent dictatorship or tyranny has ever survived as such but calling when is impossible. As the Arab Spring has everything to do with the spread of enlightenment ideals and very little to do with internet technologies expect to see more demonstrations around the region and concessions like allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia and things like this but no government being overthrown. Iran pushes forward with its nuclear program (as do other petroleum states) and finds US/Israel to be implacable, as US withdraws from Afghanistan the likelihood of boots on the ground in Iran increases.
- No major changes in governments monitoring their citizens. Lots of intermittent hoopla. The story slowly fades.
- In the U.S., the Republicans, which have been mostly given up for dead, somehow make a comeback. Mainly because voters have no other choices
- Portable hardware continues to amaze. Tablets, music players, and cell phones are just the beginning
- More startup incubators kick off. At some point, folks realize that while there's not going to be a new SV any time soon, there are going to be a hundred 5% versions in the next few years
- Everybody agrees that Facebook loses it's mojo but has enough momentum that it remains a viable concern -- and will for some time into the future
- The EU continues to skate just ahead of monetary crisis. As the end of the cash infusion appears, investors get nervous. Very nervous.
- Economists continue to argue using calculus, making the rest of us sad that we ever taught calculus to those guys
- Saudi Arabia seriously begins a nuclear program (probably covertly)
- Israel does not strike Iran
- Japan makes it's first steps towards becoming a true regional military power again
- China makes another hamfisted attempt at regional hegemony, continuing to alarm the neighbors
- The politicization of science continues unabated
- Open Science gains a little ground, but not much
- Christmas Tree machines still remain a distant possibility. 3D printing doesn't make huge gains
- Every week we're told of a new amazing discovery in energy -- batteries, solar cells, air storage, thorium reactors, fusion by means of tea kettles. It's always tantalizing, we always say the same things about it on HN -- and it always never amounts to much
- Some major discoveries about cancer are made, probably along the lines of immune system modification as a treatment
Okay, that's all I got. Wonder how many I'll hit on?
64 comments
[ 1.1 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] thread1) We see a 'start-up' bubble form as sites like we funder open the mass market to VC.
2) Bitcoin has some big peaks and dips but ends the year overall on a reasonable up.
3) The US starts to feel inflationary effects from ongoing quantitive easing.
Because if it does no one can call me on this prediction.
If a user gets to the point of installing something, there's really not much difference between Skype and the plugin. Except, of course, everyone is already on Skype.
https://code.google.com/p/webrtc4all/
2. Economy (U.S. and world): up.
3. Political polarization: up.
4. Stupid-patent lawsuits: up.
5. World violence: down.
I expect Google will continue to strongly push Google+ on as many users as it can. Whether it will actually persuade users to join or actively use the service is another matter.
Social networking will be very important to Google in 2014, so says Eric Schmidt in his 2014 predictions (2 min video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzKM8oyCsUg
I'd like to believe that we'll be more privacy-conscious in 2014, but I don't actually think that will be the case. I'd like to see more scrutiny of the data companies collect about users, particularly because they are now collecting more data than ever before. Some companies like Google have staggering amounts of user data. They're probably salivating at the prospect of capturing even more precise user behaviour through an OS (Chrome) that potentailly captures everything you do online.
Far from the tech community (who you might hope would be most informed about this) actually raising concerns about the privacy implications of this, I think Google (and other companies) will continue to get away with barely any scrutiny at all.
2) Security/privacy will become something normal people and businesses ask about, and ask fairly superficial questions about, during many transactions (e.g. people are going to stop being fucking morons and just relying on "the cloud" for sensitive data without questioning it; they may still end up using the cloud, but will want to make a more informed choice.)
3) Snowden, Manning, and Assange will remain in the same positions on 31 DEC as they started on 1 JAN. weev will remain in prison. aaronsw
4) Zerocoin will launch, and will be a lot more interesting than Bitcoin to many Bitcoin early adopters. Alternative digital currencies which are NOT purely proof-of-work will also start to be interesting; not necessarily USD backed, but maybe equities, or debt instruments, or whatever. Some may be based on bitcoin. Either Open Transactions or a strippled-of-XRP form of Ripple, or something like it (blinded tokens). BTC/USD will remain between 250 and 2000 on 31 DEC, even if it has excursions. If I had to bet, I'd bet today's price/no net change as the most likely center (the "most likely" single price is of course 0, but plenty of other prices are also likely)
5) Apple will continue to slide into irrelevance; the vanguard of most-technical users will move away from iOS and OSX, if not Apple hardware, due to Apple anti-freedom policies
6) Someone will actually put together a credible packaged solution for secure CPE (wifi-wifi, wifi-ether), secure basebandless pda thing, secure laptop (a modified chromebook or something), server solution, and network services, in a way which can be verified down to the metal, for pro and enterprise/intl sales, at semi-sane price points (i.e. not Crypto AG prices)
7) A non-US location will emerge as a serious startup location specifically due to NSA/USG policies. I'm betting on Germany with German/Swiss arbitrage -- people living/working in Berlin on dev and ops in Switzerland. Maybe other non-EU/EU splits.
8) US mid-term 2014 elections will consist of "fuck the incumbents", independent of political party.
9) Yahoo will continue to slide into doom, and will be revealed to be the biggest collaborator among major non-financial, non-travel, non-carrier companies in the US. Alibaba will remain their only real value.
10) China will start to try to take the "moral high ground" on issues as a counterpoint to the US. It won't be universal, but it will hopefully cause US politicians (and electorate) to rethink things. They may offer to help in Afghanistan post US-withdrawal, in the same way they help in Africa today -- economic support, little political involvement.
Ah, I think we know that kind of "help" from the past. Let local dictators have their way in exchange for exploiting a country's resources.
- Another dot-com bust. Facebook is delisted from stock exchange after share prices crash and investors lose confidence in rapidly declining user-base. Amazon crashes, Walmart takes over the space left behind by Amazon after being acquired. The idea of valuation from future profits in technology stocks is wiped out with the major market correction. Warren Buffet addresses it in his annual shareholder's meeting.
- United States announces return to the gold standard angering China as the treasury notes become worthless.Global recession many times bigger than the 2008 market crash soon follows.
- Bitcoin is made illegal as it is discovered the Founder of Bitcoin turns out to be Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. Cryptocurrency is banned in United States and other nations follow.
2. This guy is going to be very wrong... http://www.businessinsider.com/williams-bitcoin-meltdown-10-... >> I predict that Bitcoin will trade for under $10 a share by the first half of 2014, single digit pricing reflecting its option value as a pure commodity play. Miners/speculators will be best served to acknowledge the meltdown has begun, act quickly and take fleeting profit off the table.
....or, if he turns out to be right I will buy $5,000 worth of BTC and be a millionaire by EOY 2014 when the price spikes back up.
3. Snowden leaks will reveal something super-duper-crazy-out-there; e.g. AIDS invented in a lab or 9/11 really was an inside-job. Something almost beyond believable like that.
4. Blackberry will shutdown, be acquired or start making enterprise security phones. i.e., Blackberry will be to the mobile phone market what box.com is to the file-sharing services market.
- Bitcoin will hit $5k at some point. No bitcoin crash in 2014. Dogecoin gives us a glimpse of the long-term role of cryptocurrencies: not really to buy physical goods, but to send micro-payments to people for micro-services from simple tasks to just making you laugh or giving you insight. As mobile devices permeate our lives (see the iBand below) this form of exchange becomes more natural. This dynamic gains more traction as additional means of "tipping" are made on various sites (though this term may not be the way it is presented.) Twitter might lead the way here, building in a feature that allows you to tip any tweet with bitcoins or maybe even dogecoins, as absurd as that sounds now.
- UST 10yr will close about where it is now, ~3%, maybe lower yield if we see deflation/disinflation. Muni bond crisis is overdone and spreads tighten, regained interest in fixed income for the retirement investment crowd as it becomes clear no inflation is imminent drive rates down. Talking heads start to posit that we're seeing rapidly increased productivity in the economy due to technology, and this means deflation and low GDP for a longer time than we ever thought. Unemployment stays high and talk of a living wage gains traction though is a pipe dream in the US. Rotation out of equities here contributes to the market correction. GLD ends the year down another 10-15%.
- Apple introduces iBand, thin glass wristband that serves as a paired device to your iPhone or iPad. It's a beautiful curved display that wraps around your wrist, and calling it a "watch" seems pretty ridiculous since it is essentially a display surface for apps around your wrist, not some boxed-off tiny square screen encased by a frame and held on by a "dumb" leather or plastic band like the pebble or gear. (The analogy here is blackberry is to iphone as pebble/gear is to iband.) No on-board processors, RAM, or storage, iPhone/iPad does the heavy lifting. Use cases include obvious things like mapping, reading messages, fitness, and maybe payments with integrated touchID. Tim Cook demos FaceTime on the wrist on stage and points how just how insane it is that we have a Dick Tracy watch. Nerds write it off because it lacks features the Pebble has, is too expensive, looks stupid, has poor specs, or can't imagine why they would use it when you can't type on it. Will have a novel charging mechanism, design, or technology that makes it natural and easy to charge when not in use. The motivation for iOS7's focus on depth, layering, and typography and classic print design comes into clearer focus on a small screen which the user views at many different angles in quick glances. Might use gyros to enable fine scrolling control or flick gestures with tilt of the wrist. It's a major blowout hit with huge margins for Apple at a relatively low price point (prob $400 max.) Becomes a major cultural status symbol due to customization options (color, finish, maybe even different options catered to men and women) and is immediately the most visible Apple product a person owns. As such is the most fashion-conscious product Apple has ever created. For people who own the iBand, looking back on a time where they had to dig into their pockets to read a text message seems backwards and ridiculous. Samsung apes it, poorly, in Q1 2015 for Galaxy Gear line. AAPL closes 2014 in mid $800's, low $900's, maybe a 10-15% haircut from there if wider market takes a beating.
- By end of 2014 Obamacare will be generally accepted as a Good Thing as people actually start sav...
It should be pointing towards inflation. That's not a prediction on my part, I really don't know.
Just to heap on a little more negativity, I really don't think the Democrats are a lock for the midterms. Gerrymandered districts alone will that difficult, let alone the general objections to Obama that will stick around. Many will continue to hate Obamacare irrespective of any actual results.
Who is saving money? The small minority who have existing conditions are, but not the majority of healthy people.
Sounds like you don't run your own business or buy your own insurance. Small and healthy business owners like me just had a massive increase in the cost of doing business. Health insurance costs are much more and the benefits are much less.
A doubling of health care costs in my case, and a much higher deductible.
These plans are incentivized to keep people tied to their current employers. The costs of self-insurance is now just shy of a mortgage payment. Self-employeds are looking for a job, so they can be covered by obamacare.
I am saving money. I quit my job 2 years ago to be a freelancer and was declined health insurance due to a "high" cholesterol condition and was kindly offered a $1200/month plan. I declined to pay such a high premium. Now me and thousands of entrepreneurs are free to choose and get whatever insurance they want at group rates.
>>These plans are incentivized to keep people tied to their current employers. The costs of self-insurance is now just shy of a mortgage payment. Self-employeds are looking for a job, so they can be covered by obamacare.
You must be out of your freaking mind to say that
I'm curious if funds will have enough freedom of action to stay out of fixed income more than they otherwise would. I honestly have no idea why even a 50-65 year old now would put anywhere near the "traditional" levels of money into bonds; longer lifespans, prolonged low interest rate environment, and a diversified global equity market seem to make going underweight bonds, even with the risk of a 20% (or even 50%) market correction in equities, rational.
I think on Obamacare you're letting your desire for a good future override rational analysis of what's most likely. I believe healthcare reform is a good thing, and some of what's in Obamacare is good, but it is a big change, and has people actively opposing it, and hasn't been implemented with much competence, so we're going to end up with a clusterduck for the next year at least.
JavaScript continues to get faster.
Google Glasses gets released and we see them grow quickly, similar to how stuff like the pebble has been growing traction. 2013 was the year of the smartwatch. 2014 will be the year of the smartglasses.
2014 is the year of the Linux desktop with SteamOS!
And on the whole: 2014, year of the Linux desktop... Hey, I can dream, can't i?
Got a link to your project at all? My website is in my profile, I'll be posting build logs once I pick up the board :D
* See http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....
2. Bitcoin and other digital currencies will take the world by storm.
3. Google will make a major improvement in AI with Google Now.
4. There will be another SnapChat or Instagram like product that'll make communicating with phones fun in a new way.
5. The internet and social networks will continue to cause social upheaval in authoritarian nations.
6. Facebook will add auto-playing video commercials and people will hate them.
7. Low-end cameras will start dying off rapidly. There will only be phones and high-end professional cameras in the future.
8. As technology automates more and more things, it'll contribute to unemployment of people who are unprepared to be knowledge workers.
9. People will start taking MOOCs a lot more seriously as an alternative to higher education, especially in meritocratic fields. Not a big change in 2014, but it'll be more obvious.
10. TV will start feeling like print media in the face of the internet, it's inevitable.
* It will become apparent that Apple's history is repeating itself. As mobile becomes commoditized, they will refuse to lower their prices and become a luxury niche player sliding slowly into irrelevance.
* Google will announce Go (golang) for Android.
* The U.S enonomy will grow fast at the start of the year and treasury yields will spike making the stock market and ultimately the economy crash. Next recession starting Q4 2014.
Bitcoin continues to become more popular. Many physical places begin supporting the currency.
The UK government will start pushing for the porn block to be enforced for existing subscribers (not just new ones, as is the case now).
Low-end cameras are replaced by smartphones.
Linux's marketshare increases but remains relatively low. Steam OS has varying degrees of success. It's lack of mainstream professional games hinders adoption.
Virtual reality will make a strong come back. Steambox + Oculus combo will be quite popular among hardcore gamers.
There will be a growing disappointment in HTML5 not being able to provide proper mobile experience.
HTML5 spec will not be stabilized.
Like the Economist I see the EU succeed in putting more pieces of its banking union in place. This means large EU banks fall under ECB regulation rather than national regulation. This severs one link that exacerbated the € crisis but stops short of full fiscal transfers between regions which means more pain for the less resilient economies.
In Europe and the US inequality will continue to grow as nothing has been put into place that reverses the socialism-for-the-rich policies and the part-capture of politics by finance. There will not be another Occupy movement but with unemployment holding stubbornly steady and people unsure whether this is down to the 1% or tech automation expect to see undirected anger at the wealthy and the tech industry.
The centre of economic activity continues to shift to the far east. China stays on course to become the world's largest economy within five years. Chinese companies become more visible globally following the lead of Japan and Korea.
It becomes obvious that higher learning is being radically re-shaped by online courses and content. The current education players (publishers/universities) that do not embrace this new landscape will face hard times. Institutions will only be limited by linguistic boundaries, not (geographical) national ones. Primary and secondary learning unchanged because kids must go to school while parents work and must go to school locally. Pretty good chance that computer programming is adopted as a core skill by more and more regions.
Areas of activity in 2014 will be Space, Solar, Gas, Biotech, Cybercurrencies (rivals to BTC will emerge this year), and the FOSS gets serious about federated (anonymous/pseudonymous/real name) social networks and secure private chat platforms.
In terms of conflict I think we'll get more of the same. War of attrition continues in Israel, settlement activity continues, no progress on peace. No significant development in Syria unless China/Russia do a volte face. Possible internal turmoil in North Korea due to purge and defections - N. Korean regime will eventually collapse as no malevolent dictatorship or tyranny has ever survived as such but calling when is impossible. As the Arab Spring has everything to do with the spread of enlightenment ideals and very little to do with internet technologies expect to see more demonstrations around the region and concessions like allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia and things like this but no government being overthrown. Iran pushes forward with its nuclear program (as do other petroleum states) and finds US/Israel to be implacable, as US withdraws from Afghanistan the likelihood of boots on the ground in Iran increases.
- In the U.S., the Republicans, which have been mostly given up for dead, somehow make a comeback. Mainly because voters have no other choices
- Portable hardware continues to amaze. Tablets, music players, and cell phones are just the beginning
- More startup incubators kick off. At some point, folks realize that while there's not going to be a new SV any time soon, there are going to be a hundred 5% versions in the next few years
- Everybody agrees that Facebook loses it's mojo but has enough momentum that it remains a viable concern -- and will for some time into the future
- The EU continues to skate just ahead of monetary crisis. As the end of the cash infusion appears, investors get nervous. Very nervous.
- Economists continue to argue using calculus, making the rest of us sad that we ever taught calculus to those guys
- Saudi Arabia seriously begins a nuclear program (probably covertly)
- Israel does not strike Iran
- Japan makes it's first steps towards becoming a true regional military power again
- China makes another hamfisted attempt at regional hegemony, continuing to alarm the neighbors
- The politicization of science continues unabated
- Open Science gains a little ground, but not much
- Christmas Tree machines still remain a distant possibility. 3D printing doesn't make huge gains
- Every week we're told of a new amazing discovery in energy -- batteries, solar cells, air storage, thorium reactors, fusion by means of tea kettles. It's always tantalizing, we always say the same things about it on HN -- and it always never amounts to much
- Some major discoveries about cancer are made, probably along the lines of immune system modification as a treatment
Okay, that's all I got. Wonder how many I'll hit on?