Tech Predictions for 2004

Quirk writes "The Independent has the predictions of Charles Arthur for 2004. 'The ubiquity of the iPod, the return of the Mac, and the simplicity of the portable memory stick are just some of the developments that could change our lives in 2004.'"

ugh

[grubi]

Picture phones will become pervasive; it'll be unusual not to have one.

Dear God, no: I think it's dumb to have one device that does two things badly rather than own two devices that do each thing moderately well.

But, then again, I'm a dreamer, eh?

Sane Advice

[smoking2000]

After reading the no so well thought about Forbes [slashdot.org] advice, this guy has some great advice for Joe User. I've been saying this for a coule of years now, but maybe now they'll finally "get it":
* If you're buying a computer in the coming year, don't get one that uses Windows. It's simply too insecure. (Did you know there's a secret "administrator" account and password on every machine? You didn't? Every hacker does.) Get one with the Linux operating system installed (Evesham does them, for example) or an Apple machine running OSX. Both systems are fast, stable and secure. With Windows XP... well, sometimes two out of three really IS bad.
[...]
* If you're still using Windows, stop using Internet Explorer; instead try Netscape, Mozilla or Opera. IE has too many security holes for comfort.

* Ditto Outlook Express; try programs such as Eudora or Opera or Mozilla.
Or will these comments never reach the uninformed users?

Almost three in a row

[buckhead_buddy]

• There will be more viruses and worms that silently exploit holes in Microsoft Windows ... These are the offspring of virus writers hired by organised crime.
• There will also be more "phishing" scams ... These too are from computer experts working for organised crime.
• Legal music downloading stores will arrive properly ...

Draw your own conclusions about the RIAA :-)

IPod

[SatanicPuppy]

I just can't buy it. I have a perfectly nice MP3 player that's really small, and only cost me about 180 dollars, as opposed to 300 for the smallest ipod. Sure that big 40 gig ipod is cool, but I'm not paying 500 dollars for something I'll carry/drop while jogging.

For a lot of Mac products, the extra quality is worth the extra price, but I really don't see it for the ipod.

Re:Anyone find it strange?

[Anonymous Coward]

Practically the entirety of business now relies on Post-Its for just about everything, yet few, if any, can find careers working with Post-Its?

Crappy Predictions

[gralem]

What is wrong with this picture (paraphrasing) "in 2004, the cost of 256 MB USB memory will cut in half from it's current $223 (125 pound) price". What planet is he buying flash memory from?

"Spam will get worse"

"Apple won't release a tablet, phone, or camera"

These are some of the most amazingly crappy predictions I've ever seen. Easily half of them have already come true. The rest are obvious enough that my 5-year-old already knows they will happen.

---gralem

Good prediction...

[Pollux]

USB "flash memory" sticks will become very popular, and applications will be released that can be stored on them to run on any computer without altering its settings.

These things are hard to part with once you get them. They're so nice to have, being able to carry around documents or what have you, but the only thing that stinks about them is that you can't just "hand them off" to others like you can do with floppy disks or CD-Rs. When something like that costs $40 or $50, it's hard to let it go.

The other disappointing thing is that, unlike Floppys / CDs, if your system goes to hell, the BIOS isn't equipped to automatically boot or mount a USB memory stick, leaving you shit outa luck if Windows is behaving badly (reminds me of the time I thought I could help someone install a service pack on an XP machine by keeping it on my memstick...turns out that he needed the service pack to help fix a problem he had with USB devices (downloaded and installed a USB 2.0 driver fix for his motherboard that needed XP SP1, which he didn't have) and it left us both high and dry until I got back and burned it onto CD...he didn't really want to wait four or five hours to download the 50MB file from his modem).

But you know, I'd LOVE to see a bootable pendrive option...it would be so sweet and easy to help someone fix their computer by just plugging your handy-dandy USB memstick right into a USB port and have everything right there at your fingertips, rather than carry around bulky CD-R media.

Uh....these are predictions?

[deanj]

This guy isn't going out on a limb at all.

A few picks from his list:

"Spam will get worse before it gets better",

Well..... yeah!

"legal music download sites will arrive properly"

already happened

"The majority of the download stores will keep using Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format, but Apple won't support that on the iPod."

Of course.

" Picture phones will become pervasive; it'll be unusual not to have one."

This is not going out on a limb. It'll be hard NOT to buy a phone with a camera in it, since that's the trend already.

"Neither the Windows Media Center nor tablet PC formats will take off. Both will grumble along in background sales, but won't ever become mainstream products, nor even significant in sales terms."

Already happened. In fact, MS already sent out letters dumping the tablet PC within the last week.

Re:Here's One

[RealBeanDip]

>>reinstalling and reconfiguring crashware

What if that's your job?

If Windows actually worked as advertised, A LOT [more] of us would be out of work.

This is sad, but true.

Re:Don't buy Windows?

[newsdee]

don't get one that uses Windows (...) did you know there's a secret "administrator" account and password on every machine?
This is kind of misleading actually. AFAIK anybody skilled enough to manually configure Linux is able to find out this on Windows and change the default password. There were some "hidden" accounts in Linux too, but I suppose that new distros now come with a huge "warning: change such and such password now", so maybe even a complete newbie is safer with Linux indeed.

who else when reading thought: yeah. sure.

[xlurker]

• (And if you want to check my predictions for 2003 - which I'd say stand up well - they're online at http://news. independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story =366810).
  
  yeah. sure.
  did anybody actually click on this? You have to pay to read the 2003 article...
  
  
• Some of the music download stores ... will "consolidate" - that is, close or merge, because ...
  
  very kind of him to explain "consolidate"
  oh, btw what does "galvanise" mean?
  
  
• The majority of the download stores will keep using Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format, but Apple won't support that on the iPod.
  
  is this really noteworthy? all download stores use mp3.
  
  
• At least one other download store will join Apple in using the Dolby "AAC" encoding format, because that's the only way to reach iPod owners.
  
  yeah. sure.
  
  
• USB "flash memory" sticks ... and applications will be released that can be stored on them to run on any computer without altering its settings.
  
  aka "files"
  on the computer there will be a general software framework that can "read" these "files" and enable you to "work" with the "contents" independent of the OS and hardware: document files, excel files, image files, html files, audio files.
  
  
• You could soon carry a stripped-down operating system in your pocket to boot any machine to look like yours.
  
  can anyone imagine normal users doing that?
  
  
• There won't be a single virus or worm that attacks the Mac OSX operating system.
  
  I don't use the Mac, but I can't imagine that to be true: document and email macro viruses?

Re:ugh

[Hodge]

Of course picture phones are not meant to replace cameras! They're designed to fill up all the available bandwidth so that (a) the telecoms get lot's of dosh, (b) the networks need replacement with 4G and the networks get locks of dosh and, (c) we get our pockets sucked dry paying for it all! Hodgodamus' prediction for 2004 is that applications will be developed to allow access to online music stores via mobile phones. This will be lead by the telecoms as a great benefit to consumer choice when really (a), (b) and (c) are the real winners.

Re:Damn...some good predictions for once

[cybernezumi]

What we really need here is for OS's to allow home directories to be seamlessly stored on removable media like memory cards and iPods. Just plug in the device and the fast user switching asks if you'd like to log in as that user. Also need for aps to accept being installed in such home directories and the OS to handle privileges in a sensible way (e.g. is this a guest user or someone that is acknowledged as a regular user). Sorta sneakernet NFS...