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Wild Predictions for a Wired 2007 227

Posted by Zonk from the not-that-wild dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has put up its predictions for the coming year, in technology, internet, and entertainment news. Despite their claim that they are 'wild' predictions, a lot of them make some sense. Some of their calls: 'Google Stock Hits $1,000 per Share. Internet Traffic Doubles to 5,000 petabits per day by the end of 2007. And 80 percent of it is peer-to-peer file sharing, mostly Skype video and BitTorrent. BitTorrent on TiVo: Speaking of, digital video recorders get BitTorrent baked in, bringing internet video to the living room. Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work. Second Life Ends a Life: Skullduggery in Second Life -- probably digital adultery -- ends in a real-life murder. Year o' the Laptop: Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks." What do you folks think? How many will Wired have called correctly by the end of the year?
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Wild Predictions for a Wired 2007 More

Wild Predictions for a Wired 2007

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  • Beatles back catalogue... (Score:3, Funny)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:46AM (#17431868)
    The entire Beatles catalog is licensed exclusively to iTunes for a year.

    Jacko getting short of cash again???

  • One fix (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SnarfQuest ( 469614 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:47AM (#17431872)
    Internet Traffic Doubles to 5,000 petabits per day by the end of 2007. And 80 percent of it is peer-to-peer file sharing, mostly Skype video and BitTorrent.

    Change that "spam", and then I'd believe it.

    • Re:One fix (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Salvance ( 1014001 ) * on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @11:07AM (#17432084) Homepage Journal
      There's a lot that's either just so blatantly obvious or lame that it's hard to believe they consider these "wild". I'd hate to see Wired's parties ... To try to be a little more "wild" with predictions, here are mine ... I'll bet at least one pans out:
      1. Gootube is sued by a consortium of Music Publishers, and caves hard to copyright protections
      2. RIAA creates their own music sharing program cloaked as an offshore company, then gathers IPs and sues thousands of file sharers
      3. Steve Jobs will step down amidst some scandal, either stock options or due to random trysts with Apple interns
      4. The OLPC project will be featured on Sesame Street, and become the hot holiday product of 2007 for small children
      5. Yahoo will make at least 2 ridiculously overpriced purchases, at least one will either be Facebook, or a floating dirigible high over Texas (similar to the banana over Texas [neatorama.com] ... which surprisingly is a real project)
      • 1. Possible, but I think Google is perceived to be so influential that the RIAA/MPAA will actually want to work with them (while still threatening to sue).
        2. They already gather IPs and sue. No need for a cloaked company.
        3. My bet would be Jobs made sure to stay clean. The problems are mostly with past execs, not himself.
        4. Sesame Street doesn't feature products.
        5. This one is probable. Yahoo is definitely concerned with becoming stale and is constantly looking to buy things ups. They'll make some uber-

        • Re:One fix (Score:5, Funny)

          by slashbob22 ( 918040 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @12:54PM (#17433372)

          4. Sesame Street doesn't feature products.
          Really? I bet the Letter E would have something to say about that.

          • 4. Sesame Street doesn't feature products.
            Really? I bet the Letter E would have something to say about that.
            Are you saying Sesame Street was involved with Enron?

            • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

              by slashbob22 ( 918040 )

              Are you saying Sesame Street was involved with Enron?
              Sure was. They also support:
              C) The C Programming Language
              D) Democratic Party
              E) Enron
              1) The BBC

              I think we can all see that Sesame Street isn't as innocent as we all thought.
      • How often do you steal from Mark Cuban? Go Suns!

  • Wired predictions (Score:3, Funny)

    by Paradoks ( 711398 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:47AM (#17431882) Homepage
    Ah, Wired wildly predicting things; it's as if we've never left 1994, much less 2006. Bring on the memories.

    • Re:Wired predictions (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @11:14AM (#17432158) Homepage Journal
      Ah, Wired wildly predicting things; it's as if we've never left 1994, much less 2006. Bring on the memories.
      But they're doing it in only one or two fonts per page now, written in mostly non-fluorescent ink. Progress!
    • I will say, IMHO, that Wired is a big let down.

      I remember when it was first announced I thought it was going to be kick ass until I read it and found that it was somewhere between a lame Omni (which isn't saying much) and a geeky Maxim.

      Pop culture's attempt at try to make technology seem hip... great.

      Meanwhile all the screaming fanbois they have on stock really kills any chance for progressive writing.

      Yawn...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
      I find it amusing that at least one of their "predictions" came true in even better form years ago.

      "Implantable contact lenses" - why implant something when you can just fix the cornea itself? I had LASIK performed five years ago, and it wasn't even that new then. It has improved even more in the past five years too. Corneal implants for those with cataracts have existed for even longer.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Migizi ( 1004526 )
        LASIK isn't all it is cracked up to be. Most people do have improved vision but not 100% and it does require tune-ups. It also diminishes night sight and gives the patient tunnel vision. Implants have been used in most of the European countries for a few years and they don't have the loss of night sight or tunnel vision issues that LASIK has. I believe the last time I read about implants they were also cheaper, safer and a longer history of use.

        One third of the people I know who got LASIK have tunnel vision

  • Wired is a contra indicator (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So many social revolutions seen through the lens of that San Francisco circle jerk of media. So many people lead to the slaughter of the bubble by these losers. And someone at wired must work for Second Life because they've been over-hyping that non-event forever.

    • Re:Wired is a contra indicator (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rachel Lucid ( 964267 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:52AM (#17431926) Homepage Journal
      Second Life is catching on as more computers are able to handle 3D-Rendering. A good friend of mine who'll be working at Google shortly got completely hooked on it a couple months ago and won't shut up about it now.

      So, sure, I'll buy the whole second-life prediction.

      • Re:Wired is a contra indicator (Score:4, Informative)

        by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @11:05AM (#17432070) Homepage Journal
        More and more people are trying second life. But the retention rate is extremely low. A fair percentage of daily users are only trying to make money. The vast majority of people check it out, don't see anything very interesting, and leave.

        I gave it a fair shot. I logged on just about every day for three weeks. I explored and explored and explored. I found no reason to stick around.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ameoba ( 173803 )
      Have you ever played Second Life?

      Neither have I but the people I know that play it are -exactly- the type that would get wrapped up in a virtual world, commit adultery & then kill as a result of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by doormat ( 63648 )
      I believe Autodesk (San Rafael, CA) has their own island in Second Life. Companies (not just people) are jumping on the SL bandwagon.
  • not while we can be milked for support... the women aren't gonna drop us and fend for themselves...
    Artificial gametes made from female eggs are sold over the internet, making fathers biologically irrelevant.
    • Plus, I would think that for (the mostly male) scientist community, creating female replicants would higher in the priorities list.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by larkost ( 79011 )
        Have you ever been in a bio-lab? Over half of the biology researchers that I know are women. And I worked at a Veterinary school (mostly researchers with a little bit of teaching tacked on the side) until recently, so I know quite a number of researchers.

  • Just like it was (Score:2, Informative)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 )
    back in the Viking times... why else do you think they called it Greenland then???
    As the ice melts, Greenland becomes literally green.

  • A Bit Premature (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Silver Sloth ( 770927 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:52AM (#17431928)

    Greenland Becomes Green

    As the ice melts, Greenland becomes literally green.
    It will take a few more years (or even decades) yet. It might not even happen, we should stop calling it 'Global Warming' and start calling it 'Climate Change' otherwise it gives this idea that everywhere will become some sort of tropical paradise. We Brits could do with some warming but, if some of the predictions about the gulf stream are correct, we'll actually get colder.
    • We Brits could do with some warming but, if some of the predictions about the gulf stream are correct, we'll actually get colder.


      Have you got a source?
      • http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1602 5 79,00.html [timesonline.co.uk] says:

        Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows
        Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

        CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream -- the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing. They have found that one of the "engines" driving the Gulf Stream -- the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea -- has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 7Prime ( 871679 )
      Actually, you have a point there. BTW: that post was not meant as to be a global warming appologist, but the fact is that things aren't just going to get warmer (for some parts), they're really gonna change. I live up in Alaska, and yes, things are getting warmer (noticably), but they're also getting more extreme at both ends, as well. The only problem about calling it "Climate Change" is that it sounds like something that's simply a natural course... which it clearly isn't.

  • they forgot to mention... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by teh_chrizzle ( 963897 ) <kill-9&hobbiton,org> on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:52AM (#17431940) Homepage

    that this is the year of linux on the desktop and that this is the year that sun's "whatever the hell we are calling thin clients this year" breaks the MS stranglehold on the corporate desktop.

    i don't think either will happen, but some crackpot makes that prediction every year. this year, it would appear that cackpot is me :-)

  • Apple laptops? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:53AM (#17431948)
    Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks."

    I doubt this. But then, Wired has always been even bigger Apple shills than Slashdot is.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Orange Crush ( 934731 )
      I doubt this. But then, Wired has always been even bigger Apple shills than Slashdot is.

      Apple's laptop market share doubled [appleinsider.com] in the first half of last year from 6% in January 2006 to 12% in June 2006. I don't know what their market share is up to since 6/06 but predicting 20% for 2007 doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

    • Re:Apple laptops? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Keyslapper ( 852034 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @11:26AM (#17432252)
      Actually, I'd be surprised if it was only 20%.

      I'm not an OS hound at all, I've used Linux, FreeBSD, Windows (Every version since 3.1 - except '98) and finally, MacOSX. FreeBSD has always been a favorite, and I've always lamented the fact that there weren't more paying jobs that focused on the *BSDs.

      I've developed (for my bread and butter) on 5 flavors of Unix (not including Linux or any *BSD), and am currently doing so on Windows.

      Now, that doesn't make me an expert on any one of these platforms, and certainly doesn't make me privy to any special information, but it seems to me that the changes Apple has made in just the last couple years are huge gains. You can now do anything with MacOSX that you could once only do on Windows - and a great many of them are considerably easier with OSX.

      The change to an Intel architecture has opened the way to VM development, which essentially puts Apple ahead of MS in terms of feature availability - while MS has added video and photo management features to Vista that are suspiciously similar to iPhoto and iDVD, they still don't have anything like GarageBand or Sherlock (which, by the way, is an AWESOME app). This is the point where MS will start to lose, unless they stop playing the "Me Too" game, using Apple as their R&D lab and start playing to their strengths. MS is still ahead in the hardware game, though with Apple's shift to Intel, this is a somewhat slimmer lead. Vista has been labeled a MacOSX wannabe (without the stability) by a number of sources, some of which are typically pro-MS. MS needs to get their own R&D and design teams, and start making their UI more flexible - and stable. Until they start focusing on flexibility, stability, and (more effectively) on security, they'll continue to struggle to stay just one step ahead.

      I think this will be the year the balance starts to tip. I don't know if it will stay tipped, or if it will tip to anything near equivalence, much less anywhere near the level Apple actually deserves for all their hard work and creative innovation, but it will tip.

      And BTW, I've been waiting for the new year myself to upgrade to a Macbook Pro, simply for the "extras" that Apple does so much better, and the VMs, which will finally let me have the OS of my choice on a laptop. Of course, storage for all these VMs will now become something of a hassle (WinXP, Vista, Ubuntu, Knoppix, FreeBSD, etc.) ...

      Before anyone suggests you can still get those OSes on a VM in Windows, keep in mind, you can't get MacOSX on a VM in Windows yet. Even so, I happen to like the look and feel of the Apple notebooks better than pretty much anything I've seen from Dell, Gateway, or any of the other big PC makers.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
        Actually, I prefer the MacBook (Pro) w/ windows combination, especially if you do any dev at all that also runs on Unix. Can't count the number of times that capitalization has caused issues when transferring to a real OS. (That's right, Windows still sucks eggs in that dept.) With OSX and Parallels, you now get a real OS, and can run those few pesky windows apps seamlessly, at least until MS tries to break them again.

        And why wouldn't you get a Mac? Price? For similarly robust computers, Macs are now very c
        • I ordered a custom built MacBook Pro a few days ago (opted for the 2.3 GHz 15" model with better graphics card + a 200GB hard drive). My main reason was that the MBP has better video hardware than the MB. Plus, I don't like the keyboard on the MacBook, it reminds me of the IBM PCjr.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Less than 5% of computers on the internet are Macs (Check most website user-agent stats). For 20% of 50% of all computers sold to be Macs (ie: 10%) you'd need to double that statistic, fast. I highly doubt any company can do that sort of thing. Hell, even Pepsi couldn't do it when New Coke came out. Would be interesting to see it happen, it'd definitely make for something that would be discussed in Marketing and Economics classes for a long time (hell, probably forever).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
        How much credence can you give someone who ran Windows ME and didn't bother to downgrade to Windows 98 because ME was crappier and slower than 98 with no added benefit.

        As for doing "anything", there are still Games. Which, as far as I've seen, no VM gives you direct hardware access to get good performance out of your gaming hardware. That's the whole point of it being virtual. I'm much better off running my games native in Windows and VM'ing Linux to run Linux apps. And I'm sure someone is working on a

        • How much credence can you give someone who ran Windows ME and didn't bother to downgrade to Windows 98 because ME was crappier and slower than 98 with no added benefit.

          Whoops! Forgot all about ME. Who hasn't (or at least tried)? I never ran it. It was such a blatant repackaging of a stripped down, destabilized Win98 that I never even considered it.

          For that matter, now you mention it, I haven't run CE either. Not sure why, probably just never got 'round to it.

          Games are yet another reason I'm lookin

  • Rats. (Score:4, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:53AM (#17431954)

    Still no flying cars.

    Damnit...

    I was promised flying cars...

  • interesting, not necessarily agreed... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jimstapleton ( 999106 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @10:56AM (#17431964) Journal
    Year o' the Laptop Half of all new computers sold in 2007 will be laptops and 20 percent of those will be Apple's MacBooks.
    With the popularity of notebooks, I can see this, except for the 20% by Apple, I doubt they'll surpass 10-15% at best.
    Print to Web A major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.
    Not sure that this'll happen, unless you want to stretch the definition of "a major newpaper".
    HD-DVD Wins HD-DVD is the clear winner over Blu-ray in the DVD format wars. Oh yeah, and the PS3 is a bust.
    The latter was more-or-less already true before 2007 started. The former... It's too early to tell, never underestimate the power of marketing dweebs at selling crap.
    Implantable Contact Lenses Synthetic corneas will be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, allowing the shortsighted to have artificial contact lenses transplanted right into their eyes. No more popping out!
    Not really a surprise or news. I thought it had already been done, but I guess I could be wrong. Not like it'd be the first time.
    No More Dads Artificial gametes made from female eggs are sold over the internet, making fathers biologically irrelevant.
    Still 5+ years off. Also it's not really an online type thing until they get a USB medicomaitc or something like that. It's still going to require the wom(an|en) in question to go to a lab and/or doctors office.
    PaedoSpace Sex offenders start their own social networking service. It's popular on Capitol Hill.
    That's hardly insightful or news. Already done, it's called congress.
    DNA Database for Athletes To stamp out doping, the Olympic Committee orders all athletes to submit DNA samples to a global database, which matches blood found in doping forensics to cheats. Forensics include needles, tubes, bags of blood and skin cells on stacks of 100-euro notes seized at doping clinics.
    Got bridge? Want one? This won't happen.
    Online Sitcom Picked Up by Network Encouraged by the news, the internet becomes home to 5,000 clones of Friends, shot by friends using their friends but unwatched even by their friends.
    Wired, meet youtube, youtube meet wired.
    MySpace Spaces Out MySpace splinters as teens head for niche sites. New services that control profiles across multiple social networking sites begin to take off.
    Possible, but I doubt it. Most people are too lazy to move.

    • I do think apple has a chance to get that percentage of the notebook market this year. They are overwhelmingly the machine to get today, that is, if you don't want a numeric keyboard. I'm sitting at a HPQ nw9440 that has the same specs as a MBP (missing some doodads, has some other doodads the mac is missing) and it's got a numeric keypad and frankly I can't live without the thing since I play strategy games. Plus instead of bullshit ATI graphics I have nVidia Quadro FX in here. I want to run Linux more th

      • I got my toshiba, about the same specs as a mac, much lower price (both use intel GMA graphics, not ATi), and I'm quite happy with it. Aside from the fact that

        (A) It's not a tablet, didn't have the money for one at the time
        (B) Video out is VGA, not DVI

        I run FreeBSD on it and am quite happy with it. I can't see spending the extra to get a mac and not getting anything more useful with the extra money.

        I see Macs as the machine to get more because of marketing than anything else. I'd rather have a Toshiba, Leno

        • I got my toshiba, about the same specs as a mac, much lower price (both use intel GMA graphics, not ATi)

          Uh no. Macbook pro uses ATI. The machine I'm comparing has the same specs as a MBP, except that instead of a camera and a backlit keyboard with no numpad, it has a crypto/trusted computing module (actually quite handy as a crypto accelerator) and an ambient light sensor. And the one failing area, no firewire boot :( I mentioned the MBP specifically in my comment because it's the only mac I would consider

  • I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

    There's no way to archive the messages is there?

    Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?

    How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

    I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
      * No archive = harder to trace those solicitations from congressman to page
      * You don't forward the thread, you simply invite them into the chat

      But, I agree. IM has it's place, but it is the same reason that our cell phones (which we carry around with us all the time) have voicemail. IM is the phone call and E-mail is the voice mail. I don't see either of them going away (maybe morphing into something better, but not going away).

      Layne
    • I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great? There's no way to archive the messages is there? Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index? How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?
      By running a quick text search on my Gaim logs, which are stored in bog-standard HTML files, I see that someone asked me that very question in 2003.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Valthan ( 977851 )
      Meet Google Talk paired with Gmail! Everything you asked for an more (and they even come together... need an invite, let me know!)
    • There's no way to archive the messages is there?
      Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?
      How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?

      And a more important question...

      If all of this functionality was put into an IM client would it still be IM or would we just start calling it eMail?

      This isn't much unlike the "death" of the PDA. The PDA isn't dying, it's migrating. The current common form of the PDA m

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by thebdj ( 768618 )
      I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?
      Instant gratification? Even e-mail is not as instantaneous as IMs are. Far less spam. Granted IM is getting spammed, but not at the rate that e-mail is.

      There's no way to archive the messages is there?
      GAIM [sf.net]

      Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?
      See my previous answer. If you log, you can search those logs using GAIM. Not real hard. Tons of other programs offer this option as well.

      How can you "forward" an im to anot
    • Can I also add to this list my biggest hatred of IM, that when I have used it in the past I found it extremely invasive. It either steals focus causing you to paste god knows what into an IM to absolutely the wrong person, or still naggingly flashing in the corner of my eye to the point where I have to stop what I'm doing and deal with it. At least you can turn of the annoying sound effects if you want. (why does anything, ever, need to flash and nag in the corner of my screen - not even anti-virus software
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 )
      How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people?

      I use bash.org for that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ajs318 ( 655362 )
      You're missing
      grep phrase $HOME/.gaim/logs/protocol/login_name/*
      Your IM conversations are stored right there in plain text. (So are your passwords, in $HOME/.gaim/accounts.xml -- but that's alright because the directory is 700 so nobody except you or root can read them.)

    • I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

      IM provides the opportunity for realtime communication and you know who is available to talk right now. So it is faster and more responsive than e-mail. IM is text based so you can send exact numbers, quotes, etc. You can also easily multitask and chat with multiple people, unlike phone conversations which don't scale.

      There's no way to archive the messages is there? Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?

      Of course. I log all

    • I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?

      The same thing that makes the telephone, or even those old 'conversations' so great. Being able to have a conversation with people.

      If you need to ask the value of that, then I pity you.
    • I see you have never use GMail Chat. It does all of this.

  • Only IM at work -- NOT (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @11:00AM (#17432010)

    Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work.

    Sorry, wrong, *buzzz*. Email will continue to be the corporate IT bedrock it's been for the last decade. While IM is great for those young folks with a short attention spam pushing around uber-important stuff like "OMG?!?!? He dumped her? Shes gonna like be sooooo drunk tonite!" -- and I'll admit it even has a place augmenting email in certain areas of the enterprise -- corporate america already has billions in infrastructure built around this more persistant method of communication. I for one have noticed that if I leave "on" an IM client at work I get pestered to the point where I just end up keeping it off, and eventually unstall it.

    • While IM is great for those young folks with a short attention spam

      Was that intentional? How does one have a "long attention spam"?
    • > Email will continue to be the corporate
      > IT bedrock it's been for the last decade.

      Unless people start using a spam-free alternative, like indi [getindi.com].
    • Actually (although this contradicts an earlier post of mine) I find IM extremely useful for having online status "Chats" with developers spread across the US, India, and Brazil. It is interactive, we can cut and paste code and links, and it is easier to understand all parties who may not have excellent English and/or good international telephone connections.
  • Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work

    I just stopped using one of my accounts at work because of spim. So yes, people care.
  • I'd say over 50% of the forecasts will turn out -- but only in the USA. Some of them are already USA-specific anyway (eg TiVo) and WIRED notoriously has a set of blinkers that restrict its vision to the contiguous 48 states (and sometimes just to Californyaa). The real skinny:
    • Google Stock -- who gives a flying f*ck anyway except the tiny number who own some?
    • Internet Traffic -- bandwidth is always in demand, but it will be 80% taken up by spam
    • BitTorrent on TiVo -- more likely BitTorrent will be throttled
    • > Year o' the Laptop -- long overdue, but 20% for Macs is optimistic

      Not really, as most other laptops will only come with Vista by mid-year.

  • Congress (Score:3, Funny)

    by RockoTDF ( 1042780 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @11:24AM (#17432234) Homepage
    I highly doubt with a democratic congress in charge things are going to be getting any worse for us in the areas of privacy and the government any time soon.
  • The clueless journalists that want to write about something 'edgy' and 'VR' discover that Second Life is a lame excuse for a massively-multiplayer online experience (pretty much used only by the clueless), and stop referring to it as if it's the be-all and end-all archetypical "VR" experience?

    Nah, I doubt it too.
  • A major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.
    This actually already happened [reuters.com] late last year.

    Digg holds out for a big payday but ends up like Friendster (i.e., no friends).
    This point should perhaps come with the disclaimer that Digg-competitor Reddit.com is owned by Wired.
    • I don't think that really counts. From the article, it is described as "Post Och Inrikes Tidningar, the official Swedish publication for bankruptcies, company and government announcements" - this sounds way too specific to be considered a "major newspaper", which I think is the point of the prediction.
  • "Spam doubles but no-one cares because everyone's using IM" -- they have got to be kidding. Not a chance in hell.
  • We are all using IM at work? I highly doubt it. Most companies I have worked for, and most companies where my friends work, take great pains to prevent use of IM. Beyond just fear of employees wasting time chatting with friends, there is a perceived security risk (yes, there are precautions that can be taken if they bothered) of sending confidential data etc.
  • Ironically, this link [wired.com] was next to the article.
  • I find it far more useful to look at an oracle's track record than at their predictions. don't you? Pending predictions are just there to go in the bin until you can tell whether or not they're actually accurate.

    Some cursory searching yields no old wired predictions articles. Anybody else have better luck?

  • GOOG up to $1000? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pendersempai ( 625351 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @07:20PM (#17437698)
    Do they really believe their Google stock prediction? The market thinks it's pretty unlikely. If you agree with Wired, put your money where your mouth is. Here's the link to GOOG call options with a $750 strike price, a 1/18/08 expiration, and a price of only around $5.60:

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=GOOG&m=2008-01 [yahoo.com]

    Stock options are contracts you buy that let you purchase a share of the stock at the strike price on the expiration date. In practice, this means that you are making a bet that the stock will pass the strike price by the expiration date; if you are correct, you win the difference.

    So if Wired's prediction comes true, you'd earn $250 ($1000-750) for every $5.60 you spend on the option -- a 4364% return on investment. Not bad for a year's investment.

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