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The Economist's Technology Predictions For 2008
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Dec 25, 2007 07:57 AM
from the prediction-is-hard-especially-about-the-future dept.
from the prediction-is-hard-especially-about-the-future dept.
mrcgran notes an article in The Economist with three technology predictions for 2008. Normally they're pretty good on technology, and the predictions seem sound enough, but the article contains a couple of bloopers. "1. Surfing will slow: The internet is not about to grind to a halt, but as more and more users clamber aboard to download music, video clips and games... surfing the web is going to be more like traveling the highways at holiday time. You'll get there, eventually, but the going won't be great. 2. Surfing will detach: Internet will doubtless be as popular among mobile-internet surfers as among their sedentary cousins. 3. Surfing — and everything else computer-related — will open: Rejoice: the embrace of 'openness' by firms that have grown fat on closed, proprietary technology is something we'll see more of in 2008... Since the verdict against SCO, Linux has swiftly become popular in small businesses and the home, largely the doing of Ubuntu 7.10. And because it is free, Linux become the operating system of choice for low-end PCs. Neither Microsoft nor Apple can compete at the new price points being plumbed by companies looking to cut costs."
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So in other words... (Score:5, Funny)
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Every year is going to be the year of Linux because the previous years claim of year of Linux fell a bit short. Again.
Linux is a great operating system. It's flexibility, versatility, open standards and lets face it, cost of ownership make it very attractive to technical applications. It will always fall short in the typical desktop market because it is perceived as being something geeky.
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Linux on the desktop and the release of "Duke Nukem Forever". Wow, what a great year it will be!
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2007 was the year that people claimed that Linux was finally ready for the desktop, unlike 2006.
You remember 2000? That was the year that people claimed that Linux was finally ready for the desktop, unlike 1999.
Cite your sources (Score:4, Funny)
Can anyone verify that number? It seems grotesquely inflated...
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- Consider how many of those are left running unattended downloading music or movies
- Consider how many of them got infected by some spam malware during the lifetime of their installs
- Consider they can be used to send spam and to infect other poorly managed Windows boxes for the full time they are connected to the internet
I wou
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At the office on a different more well known domain, we sometimes hit 10000 messages per HOUR.. ( and it promptly hoses our outside unix mail server and anti-spam engine, then freaks out exchange when it cant
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The level of spam to any particular email address is strongly dependent on where that email address has been published.
Personally I have about 50 email addresses (merged to a single mailbox), yet most recieve no spam at all. That's because each address is distributed to only one or a few senders, so if one address is compromized I both know who compromized it and I can selectively disable it.
If your particular mailbox recieves little spam, then it simply hasn
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But as long as you just have a single active address, it will, sooner or later, get compromized and then it will just spread. And then you're faced with the painful choice of changing address or trying to filter. Having one address per person sending mail to you makes it trivial to change the add
What no flying cars? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, kidding aside. The statement about Linux gaining some ground is not totally out of line (although i don't think MS or Apple are quaking in their boots.) I have noticed a higher than normal percentage of people that hang out at our local library and browse the internet on a laptop all day using some variety of Linux. I have asked a few of them why
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It's fairly popular, popular enough that it was heavily pre-ordered and is selling out of stock(mine was backordered for a month or so). High on the top-viewed items lists on Amazon.
Reason I'm bringing it up is that it runs Linux for PC use(as opposed to small gadgets)and is already setup for ease of use by those who have not had an
2008 - The year of the Linux desktop! (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot one thing there... (Score:3, Insightful)
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2007 Predictions (Score:2, Interesting)
How true were the predictions for 2007?
Give the prognosticators the chance to spin to seem brilliant and correct!
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The notion of the web "slowing down" is because of the ad servers that many web sites are using. The advertisers frequently do not have the resources to handle traffic, particularily when a site gets Slashdotted or Dugg.
"slow to a crawl" ???! (Score:3, Interesting)
economist have put piece of crap articles before. but lately, the number and frequency of such crap have started to increase.
Seems to confuse some with 2020... (Score:2)
Re:Seems to confuse some with 2020... (Score:5, Insightful)
What rather makes a difference is what operating systems new PC's use to come with and how well marketed this OS is. I don't really see a paradigm shift here among OEM's
The paradigm shift has already occurred. 5 years ago, if you wanted to buy a desktop with Linux pre-installed, you either built it yourself, bought a custom-built from your local computer shop, or dug through the back areas of a limited number of computer suppliers. Today, I can go into a Wal-Mart and get one off the shelves, or pick up the phone and order one from any of several major OEMs. It's no longer a case of being forced to pay the "Windows tax" even if you weren't going to use Windows. What's even more impressive is the sales figures - and this is likely to grow.
This doesn't mean that I think that in 2008 Windows will collapse and Linux will supplant it. I do think that this is one of the best opportunities for Linux in quite some time. You have a series of blunders by the dominant desktop OS provider, combined with an OSS alternative that is finally easy enough, with enough applications, for the average user to use. What this means is that you're going to see Linux start to increase its user base, as well as its mindshare.
Parent
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I checked back about a week ago. The retailer now limits sales to four per person. They promised to have more available on the 22nd of December and I expect most of that batch will have gone by now.
The people who are buying this product like the low price and the fact it has MS word like functionality out of the box. Cheap Linux bas
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An article to think about (Score:5, Interesting)
The second prediction seems likely, though again, the U.S. is drawing up the rear. I know people here (Japan) that interact with the Internet solely or primarily through their mobile phone (not to mention things like GPS, and broadcast TV I got on a phone that cost less than $100 US). I hope Google does lead the way on this front next year, though I feel like we're going to have another year of baby steps unless Apple or Google or someone else with some clout decides to turn the American cell phone market on it's musty, stagnant head.
The third prediction seems very pie in the sky. I've used Windows, Linux, and OS X extensively, and I think (for my needs) OS X best matches my needs. I think there's a level of polish that is very difficult to for Linux to achieve in relation to the power home user. Ubuntu has probably got almost easy enough for the average user, if you disregard games and things. Linux certainly has a place as a great developer tool, server OS, and power-power user OS, but the article seems to imply that Linux is set to take over the entire PC world in 2008. I've heard that it's "the year of desktop Linux" since Redhat 5 and experience has taught me to wait for actual proof on that claim.
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But then again, these tech predictions don't seem well-researched OR well-written. I guess those people are on vacation.
hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
My preditions for 2008 (Score:2)
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"Surfing will slow" my butt. (Score:2)
Inaccuracies about scox - plz write editor (Score:2)
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To: letters@economist.com
There are many mistakes in the section about "SCO."
>>The trend toward openness has been given added impetus by the recent collapse of the legal battles brought by SCO, a software developer. Formerly known as Santa Cruz Operations, the firm bought the Unix operating system and core technology in 1995 from Novell (which, in turn, had bought it from its original developer, AT&T). >Short of cash, SCO initiated a
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To: letters@economist.com
There are many mistakes in the section about "SCO."
The trend toward openness has been given added impetus by the recent collapse of the legal battles brought by SCO, a software developer. Formerly known as Santa Cruz Operations, the firm bought the Unix operating system and core technology in 1995 from Novell (which, in turn, had bought it from its original developer, AT&T).
The company is not named "SCO" the name is "The SCO G
What about sexbots in 2008? (Score:2)
Economist is F***ing ignorant (Score:3, Insightful)
Spam does *NOT* constitute 90% of all internet traffic. It constitutes 90% of all emails. At 10-to-15 kbytes each, they're not exactly overwhelming the internet. I should also point out that an email with multiple recipients at the same ISP goes as one email, and is exploded into multiple copies at the receiving ISP. This reduces the internet traffic even more. The biggest single traffic use is bittorrent and friends. Streaming video and legit online/download sales of movies might challenge it in future.
2) Soon, portable media-players, personal navigators, digital cameras, DVD players, flat-panel TV sets, and even mobile phones won't be able to function properly without access to the internet.
OMFG, NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! The only way you'll see that is if linux is outlawed, and DRM-crippled computers/mediaplayers won't function without a live connection to the mothership.
3) Apple's initial response was to attempt a heavy-handed crackdown. But then a court decision in Germany forced its local carrier to unlock all iPhones sold there. Good news for iPhone owners everywhere: a flood of third-party applications is now underway.
The decision was overturned on appeal [sfgate.com] three weeks ago.
4)The trend toward openness has been given added impetus by the recent collapse of the legal battles brought by SCO, a software developer. Formerly known as Santa Cruz Operations, the firm bought the Unix operating system and core technology in 1995 from Novell (which, in turn, had bought it from its original developer, AT&T).
Dear Economist, please hire Dan Lyons. He's a helluva lot more knowledgable about the SCOX case than you are. Sad, isn't it? Santa Cruz Operations sold their Unix distribution business to Caldera, who later renamed themselves The SCO Group and started trying to shake down linux users.
5)Pressured by worried customers fearing prosecution, a handful of Linux distributors settled with SCO just to stay in business.
NO. A handful of firms that use linux in their business signed SCOSource licences. None of these firms were linux distributors. The reporter might be confusing the SCOSource licence, with Microsoft's FUD licence, which a few distributors actually have signed.
And fer-cryin-out-loud, please knock off this bit about "The Year Of The Linux Desktop". Linux is growing slowly, relative to the overall market. It will overtake Apple, and eventually Windows. But it will be a long slow grind. What might happen is that one year people will stop counting sales (obviously $0 even for millions of free copies) and start counting desktops. Much to the establishment's surprise, they'll discover that there's a helluva lot more linux desktops than they expected.
Yes... (Score:2)
The internet will slow down.... assuming traffic demand rises and ISP's don't bother upgrading their infrastructure.
Maybe, just maybe, ISPs might be putting in more and fatter links? But I guess they wouldn't have thought about that, those plucky tech savvy economists, they know there's only a series of tubes and you can't have more tubes.
Realistically this might be a very lame push by the anti-neutrality groups fur
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--your friendly neighborhood anti-troll
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The mini-city spam links are extremely annoying however if nothing gets said in a post of interest surely the link provided isn't going to be worth clicking on either. no ?
My gut instinct is a spam moderation could be a good thing, however what constitutes spam.
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Interoperability with other platforms. Costing an arm and a leg. Incredible amounts of CPU time and memory necessary to do its job (compared to something like Zimbra).
Zimbra kicks Exchange's arse up and down the road.
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You say the strength of Linux is also it's weakness. But I don't see the weakness in morphing new distros and versions. In fact, unlike Mac OS and Windows it is free to evolve! Even it's very weakness is a strength.
Lets just wait a few years, all those One Laptop per Child PCs is going to harvest a computer literate crop of talented kids in a few years. Oh, many will wind up broken in dumps, but many will educate and open up a whole new world. And it will not have Apple nor Microsoft as the monopoly.
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Your a bit late, many linux desktop users jumped on the Mac OSX bandwagon a few years back, myself included.
I had dumped Windows for better than 90% of the apps I was running back in the late 90's in favor of linux on the desktop. Not long after Mac OSX came out I purchased a Wind Tunnel G4 [wikipedia.org] and was able to completely dump Windows. I did not dump my linux desktop and instead ran both linux and OSX, but in the end I always went back to my linux desktop because IMO its b
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Agreed. In fact, through the 80's and particularly through the 90's (and most likely to a significant degree today) MSFT literally thrived on piracy of its OS. (Better to prevent the sale than to let it go to 'the other side' after all.)
BTW, concerning Apple... Supposedly they are up to >$15 Billion in cash. According to my calculations, even at full retail that would be a LOT of 'free' copies of OS X. ;