2011 Prediction Results

think I've actually used that quote before. You might have, but anyway, Hey, we're talking about stuff we already said before. Anyway, that's true. Today we are recording our follow up on our predictions for twenty eleven. And before we get into what we predicted for the year eleven and how we did how our predictions did, we should mention that we're recording this in early early early December in order for us to have enough episodes to get through the end

of the year. So, uh, some of these predictions that have not come true may still come true. Your mileage may vary. I'm covering our bases. Okay, that's good. Did you fix the broken scoreboard? Problem that we had. Yes, yes, we no longer the whole checks and uh and exes have been fixed. I've moved on to a totally different score keeping systems. Yeah, so we're comfortable with that. Yeah,

we don't have to worry. I know that there was some there was some controversy or controversy, uh from a previous scorecard where apparently all of my predictions got checks and all of Chris's predictions got xs no matter what the content. I am happy to say that will not be the case this year. Alright then, alright, so, uh so let's you want to start with them one of yours here, I've got, I've got I've got them all laid out into mine and yours. Is that how you

have it as well? Yes, that is so how I have it set up. And I have to have to own up to picking some I felt were pretty easy because that whole checks and excess thing through me, and I figured I wanted at least one or two that I figured I could actually, like you just nail it. Yeah. So, speaking of which, I said that the iPad two would get a would get a camera, forward facing camera and

a faster processor. And I got the faster processor thing, right, and I got well, I sort of got the camera thing. It's got a couple of cameras right right. You you originally said it was just gonna be the one camera

and it'd be forward facing. So that was based on the fact that you know, I have an iPad one and it's got this little if you have if you see an iPad one, you could see on the opposite end of the front of it from one of the home button is there's sort of a little Yeah, if you hold it the right light, you could see the sort of a little cut out where the camera might

have been had they chosen to throw it in there. Right. Well, maybe they didn't have the miniaturization just right where they could fit all the components in, or maybe it's just you know, problems or whatever. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, so, but but you've got that more right than wrong. So you get uh, let me check my score sheet here, Okay, page seventy three. You get one one and a half

tablets for that that prediction tablets. That's that's what says here. Okay, yeah, okay, So I said that the iPhone would move to Verizon, but not until twelve and you said it was going to come out in twenty eleven, and you got that right, And what it did in fact moved to right. In fact,

it moved to Sprint as well. In UM, I said that they were going to announce that the iPhone was moving to Verizon, but I did not think it was going to move to twelve And at the time, I believe that that was because of the rumored agreement between Apple and a T and tight that it was going to be a five year agreement, which means that it wouldn't have expired until But whatever the cases, it actually did move to Verizon. So whereas I got the announced

part right, I got the date totally wrong. You got it. Let me check here, Um I have to cross reference. Oh, according to this, I get a smart foe, but not be any because um I didn't get it, all right, So I it's so we got one half tablets to a smart foe, all right, Okay, then let's move back to one of yours. All right. I predicted that the Google Chrome OS would get an underwhelming response, and yeah,

that's I mean it was. People were excited when Google Chrome officially debuted back in the summer, and a lot of people did try and sign up to get a Chrome book, but ultimately I think, I mean, I haven't heard anything about chromebooks since the Io event. Really. Yeah, it's just not one of those things that's been in the news. I mean, we know they're out there and people are developing for them, but it's just not it's not taking any like, it's not hitting the news cycle

at all. Wish I had predicted Wave would would would go, would recede, would go out to low time, but but I didn't. Well, you get sort of similar because they got a lot of hype right out of the gate and then they just sort of you know, yeah, yeah, well according to this, because of that prediction, in the fact that you got it right, you get three shiny hubcaps caps. Yeah, so three shiny hubcaps for that prediction.

Moving back to one of mine, I said that a cloud competing would move to the next level with more web based services. We saw a lot of web based services premier this year. So let's let's just a lot of them are our media related, like I Cloud, Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player. We also had some players that already existed in the out there on the web kind of make their way finally over to the United States, Spotify

being a big example. Um, and of course there's they're the other ones that were here already, mog and r d O yep. So I think I think it's a to say that that's that's true. And now we probably didn't see as many moves in the enterprise space as could have been. Right, We didn't see that many companies moved to all cloud based services, although I know there are a few out there that have adopted the Google ecosystem as their corporate ecosystem, so that they use Google

Docs and Gmail and everything as their corporate email. So there have been some. It's just not been huge, but we've seen it a lot in the consumer space. So for that prediction, I get rain drops keep falling on my head, which is gonna make the rest of this episode a little damp. You know, I'm I'm not sure I understand exactly how you came up with a scoring system. The problem is really going to be totaling it at the end. But let's just keep going, shall we. All Right,

all right, well, I uh I believe that. Uh well, let's actually go uh in in you know, uh continuum. Here, I'm going to skip ahead on your list that you put together, and and point out that I did say that Spotify would show up here, yes, and uh, and I didn't think so. I didn't think so I said it would not. Well I at the time when you made the prediction, and I think it was an off the cuff prediction, if I recall correctly. Yeah, that was. That was That felt like going out on a lamb.

I remember, Yeah, And I I just said, you know, I said, well, let's make this interesting. I'll say it won't and that way, no matter what, one of us will be right. And in that respect, I was right. But you you got that, you got that correct. Spotify did,

in fact debut in the United States. I was a little I was a little skeptical because there had been at the time when we made the podcast of the Predictions, there had been a lot of news about how Spotify had been having some problems making agreements with or reaching agreements with major labels. Yeah, and that was the thing that was holding it back. They had wanted to debut a lot earlier than they had the opportunity to say, and I just saw that that resistance holding out even

more than uh, than it actually did. So yeah, you got that right. And let's say, according to this you get the black spot from Treasure Island. So it seems kind of bad, you know. I'm sorry, it's just it's some of these awards are a little less prestigious and and glamorous than others. But that's the Spotify Award, right there,

Spotify Award. Okay, alright, So I said that there was gonna be a dramatic increase in cyber warfare in twenty eleven, and I think it's safe to say that there was a greater focus on cyber warfare um, and we saw several stories pop up about cyber warfare. Uh. And there was the recent news that came out where, uh, we had accusations that state sponsored hacking had been taking place over in Europe. Yeah. Uh, Plus there was the news about trying to hack into various systems in uh Iran.

There was a allegations that Chinese systems were trying to hack into various security systems around the world. And then there was stuckx net, which was um a piece of malware that people said was specifically aimed at taking out Iran's nuclear infrastructure because of what it would do is it would change the the RPMs at which a various equipment would rotate, and it would cause like a centrifuge, and it would cause potentially it would cause a massive meltdown.

Well maybe not a meltdown, but it would cause a massive accident failure. But in in the case of stux Net, it looks like all of those were detected early enough to to um head off a major malfunction. One of the things we've talked about when we talk about cyber attacks, though of any kind, really is that it's difficult sometimes to pinpoint, especially from people who know what they're doing,

difficult to pinpoint exactly who's behind an attack. So it could be uh, state sponsored, it could not be, and we might never know without you know, having something to back it up, having a proof behind it. And so it's kind of difficult to say whether some of these were state sponsored or not because of the way they appear to have happened. There are plenty of stories about it's anonymous and lull SEC attacking various targets. So I think I got this, uh fairly, I think this. I

think it's fair to give me this one. So apparently, according to this, I get in return for that correct prediction about an increase in cyber war, I get high anxiety on DVD. Okay, all right, So, uh let's see the year the tablet. Um that was one of yours and uh I said that, um, the Android OS would launch a new era of tablets. Um. I feel like in one respect, the I mean, the tablet market really

did take off. Um, but still the Android. I thought the release of Android would do for tablets what it did for smart smartphones, where it outnumbers the sales of iOS based devices that's Apple's operating system for its own devices, and not so much out selling iOS. The iPad is still a dominant player in the market. Although there there are some quite good Android based tablets, there are also

some quite terrible. Yeah, and and we also saw the debut of things like the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is is burning up the charts right now as we record this Fire, I see what you did. Also, Barnes and Noble came out with its own Nook tablet that did quite well. A lot of enthusiasts really enjoy that. Again, it's early December, so it's kind of hard to tell. Those are fairly new. The BlackBerry playbook didn't do as well,

but um but it's also out there. And then there's the second place compcause second place to the iPad, which had its own We even devoted our own episode to this uh HPS lovely uh webOS based device, which you know, the webo s of course said bye bye to everybody, although you never know. I mean that whole situation is so I'm going to talk about that in our we haven't recorded our predictions, I'm going to talk about that one.

But yeah, as a matter of fact, as a Palm decided to discontinue it, they put it on massive discount and now holds the second place behind the eye because if you don't remember, the touch pad went on sale for like wasn't it, Yeah, and people just gobbled them up because everyone's like, a hundred dollar tablet, that's exactly what I want. I don't care what uperating system it has or what it can or can't do. Uh yeah, that's probably gonna be some buyer's remorse in the future

from some of those folks. But it sort of depends on what HP does with the whether or not whether or not it truly is continued to be supported in some fashion or not, it could all be a huge ploy. Yeah. Anyhow, so yeah, I think I don't know. I get some credit there. I didn't. I didn't get the android part quite right. Right, According to to my notes here, this means that you get a red herring. So um, it's I think. I guess I'll have to see how this

all totally. It's in a tank in the back, so I'll bring it out after the show, unless, of course, it disappeared, in which case will have herring loss. That's true, Yeah, it would be a dramatic loss and herring. Speaking of tablets, your next prediction was sort of tablet related. Yeah, I said that laptop sales would depth but they wouldn't totally crash due to uh, tablets, And that's pretty much true. I mean there was laptop sales took a pretty big hit,

but desktop sales have taken a hit due to laptops. Yeah, laptops still haven't been completely replaced yet, and I don't think they ever will be totally replaced, just like I don't think desktops will ever be totally replaced. I think I think maybe our our focus will be will show to mobile devices effect it already has but it will continue to move in that direction, and that laptops and desktops will be used more for very specific but limited functions. Um,

I think that will continue, but I don't. I don't see them disappearing entirely. So yeah, I get, Um, you know what I got for this one? What's that? I got the tildy key from my old computer. That's what I got for that one. Then yeah, um, how long has that been missing? Anyway? About two and a half years, I think, Yeah, got a hole in it. Yeah, but

you know how that happened? We uh, you know, we talked about on our podcast Google Plus this year, which of course none of us predicted, and uh in Facebook, but you know what get we what we didn't talk about so much? What's my Space? I wonder why that happened? Well, you know, I made a prediction that Fox was gonna unload. Yeah, technically I should say, and this is my fault because I wrote down the notes this way, but technically we should say news Corps, the parent company. Yeah, so I'm

just reading it. So but yeah, news Corp. No, No, I was the one who wrote it. So it's you know, and I don't blame you at all that news Corps sold. You said that news Core would sell my Space for a dollar fifty and some coupon books. You were so close thirty five million dollars. Yeah, and they spent what five eight million when they bought it something like that.

It's that's crazy, you know. Every time I right after that happened, every time I passed by those billboards advertising how many millions you could win if you if you won the lottery, I thought, that's funny. I could have bought my my Space if I won the lottery after taxes even Yeah, I mean that that I would have

done that. You nailed it, though, I mean, and that was one of those those predictions that it sounds like it's really kind of like, if you weren't if you're not really thinking about too hard, if you're not putting yourself back in the mind frame we were in twenty you might think, well, that's an easy prediction to make, except for the fact that news Corp had held onto my Space. I mean, my Space was hadn't been relevant for a couple of years. I was actually thinking there

was more of a possibility in terms of that. I was thinking that was possible that Newscore might just bury my space right and right next to man. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I eat it. But no, they and you said they'd sell it. They did, so you get, oh, oh, it looks like it's our most valuable prize. Yet you get Rupert Murdock's big toenail. You know, if you believe in like sympathetic magic, you can work some mean mojo. Now,

so hey, you just hold on to that. So alright, So, speaking of sales, Yeah, I said that eBay would sell off Skype. Now the eagle eared listeners out there, we're all eager to point out that, um hey, you know what, he may technically sold Skype in two thousand nine, So making that a two thousand prediction for two thousand eleven, my it seem a little ridiculous, except that eBay had

retained thirty five of Skype. They were they weren't the majority owner in Skype anymore, but they still owned thirty And that's kind of what I was going for when I made the prediction, although I didn't make that clear in the prediction, so it just sounded ridiculous. But in fact,

in two thousand eleven, Microsoft bought Skype. Now I think I wish I had predicted that Microsoft was going to be the company to do this, because then it would be a really phenomenal prediction, right, but it but I didn't. I didn't foresee it being Microsoft. I just figured someone would buy it. And Microsoft bought it for eight point five billion dollars. That's a pretty big number. And because I got this one pretty much, right, I get a

chordless phone. Wow, that's that's pretty nice. Yeah, but there's no base station. It's just the chordless phone. All right, So you know you have more than than I do because I was chicken last year, So why don't we do another one of Okay? So I also said that inleven we would have a true test of the four G technologies that would roll out and things like y max and lt E. And I know before you guys right in, I know that y max is not truly four G. Uh. In fact, the definition of four G

now is almost meaningless. We need to do an episode specifically about what is two G, three G, four G and and why are they designated that way? And why is it so complicated? Yeah, I mean the big thing is a speed issue, because I mean even T mobile marketing, it's upgraded three G h s P A plus technology. They can depending on the market and the technology, like in the specific hardware you're using, H s P A plus can outpace LTE, so probably won't by the time

lt matures. Right, So that the T mobile's argument was that it was a four G speed, so you might as well call it four a G because if it's if if, if we're using the g's as shorthand, then we're just saying that this this device is works faster than that device, in which case, you know, there's an G three G network and the l T E is sort of a one G four G networks. It really, it just got more confusing. I don't think that we really saw a battle there. So but LTE one, you're

right about that. I did say the l T E would win, and that is true. Lt is is by far the dominant UH four G technology that's out there right now. In fact, I think that within another year this is going into a prediction almost but within another year it'll probably even more evident, although we may be seeing, you know, rumors of the next emerging technology come out. By the time we finally settle on this emerging technology,

of course, that's the way the way tech works. So um, I get the letter G. Okay, yeah, at least until it comes along because he eats everything except for Z and uh you know, I actually I had predicted that a T and T would roll out it's for G network by the end of the year, and it it actually has, which is an LTE network. I think we piggyback those in the predictions episode. So do I get a G two for for that one? Actually you said it was a T and T and uh, strangely enough,

I think this might have been a typo. But you get an ad at you know. They they're terrible as far as gas mileage goes. Yeah, and let me tell you when I was bringing that sucker into the office this morning, Uh, traffic on four hundred was a nightmare. Yeah. But the nice thing is you can you know you're already there, and that that you don't really have to go very far to get up to the floor that

we're on. No, that's true. I just kind of popped open the cockpit and and then just made a quick jump over to our our patio and that was fine. There you go, all right, So let's see, let me do another one. Of mine. I said that, Um oh, here's one that was very excited about. Yes, I predicted that a new version of the Nintendo WE would debut at E three and you was right right. I can't believe it. Uh yeah, that WE You was you? Was? You was exactly right? Yes We you Ui Ui? Um

it sounds like a European ambulance. Yeah. I had said that it would probably be the HD version of the WE, but it's a little bit more than that. Because this is the WE. You also has a new kind of controller that has its own touch screen interface embedded in

the controller itself. So it's kind of like combining the ELT, the the Nintendo DS sort of technology with the WE console system and putting it all together so that you have, uh, you know, a game going on on the screen and then occasionally might have many games pop up on your controller, which we've seen in previous console systems, and we've talked about that before in the past, but this will be the most kind of mature version of that technology that

we've seen so far. So yeah, I got that right. I was really amazed, And unfortunately it looks like I won some WE. So let's just move on, all right, Hey, actually that that was a c S. That was actually that was at E three, right, Yeah, but you didn't go to C E S. And I think you're going again next year. Oh yes, I've already got it all planned out. So why don't you tell us about your C E S predictions? Okay, So because that we found

that out pretty quickly. It's in January. So I predicted yeah, because when we recorded this last year, it was right around the same time as early December, and I was predicting what would happen in early January, and so surprise, surprise was right for most of it. I said that there would be a lot of three D tech around, and there were was quite a bit, and there has

been for a few years. Actually, three D tech probably didn't get quite the same amount of attention that it did the year before, but it was still pretty much everywhere, and you even had companies, especially like Sony, and I

think even Panasonic might have also had one. I know a couple of different companies had the glasses free three D televisions on this playing, which we've talked about before and about how you know, there are problems with glasses free three D tech, mostly stemming from the fact that if you are not in a the right position in front of the television, you're going to get a very blurry, disorienting experience. It's not very pleasant, but you know, there's

still advances being made with that technology. So I also said there'll probably be more wireless data streaming between devices, and they're kind of was, but it wasn't in the way that I had predicted. I thought it was going to be more like high data transfers, so things like a Blu Ray player and a television set having a wireless like a wide gig connection between the two where you could watch content directly on your TV from your Blu Ray without having to have a cable to connect them.

But really, what the wireless data streaming stuff, the way it played out at CS this is more about ecosystems. It was more about having a device or a collection of devices and being able to port and experience from one device to the next in a very seamless way.

So in the ultimate example, you might be watching a video on your on your smartphone as you're walking in the door, and then you transfer that video seamlessly to your television so you can watch the rest of it on TV and it picks up right where you left off on the smartphone. That kind of idea, and we haven't really reached that point yet, but there were a lot of the like kind of the foundation for that

technology was on display quite a bit at CES. Yeah, the cloud, the cloud seems to have acquired that more than your your home. So you know, if you're using a service, a streaming movie service that you subscribe to over the internet, you can pose it in one thing and you have your account in the other room and seen it advertise more in that capacity than I have in the You buy this thing and stick in your

house and it makes this happen. Yeah, essentially in order for the second the version that I saw at CS, for order for that version to really play out, you would pretty much have to buy all of your electronics from a single source, like a single manufacturer for that to work, because they all have their own proprietary ways of developing this this uh system. Yeah, I wonder why

that is. Whereas the version you're talking about is much more consumer friendly, and that it is if it's cloud based, as long as whatever it is you're buying has the capacity to tap into that that cloud system then you're fine. So you could have devices from multiple manufacturers and have them seamlessly interact, because what they're doing is they're pulling stuff from the cloud, and that's where the coordination is

coming from, not through the devices themselves. But that's not the way it was presented at c E s UM. I also said that there'd be a lot more green tech, and there was UM and uh so yeah for this one, I get UM too. Hurt feet apparently. Yeah, I think you cashed in on that one a long time ago. Yeah, I'll be doing it again soon. Yea. Yeah, speaking of green tech, Yeah, you kind of seem to think that

green green would sort of go away. I I what I thought was that the big flashy green tech UM developments, things like like these these crazy power plants or whatever. Uh, big flashy technologies would sort of fade away in comparison to more modest but but achievable green technologies. So in other words, you know, you wouldn't see something that was

going to supposedly eliminate our dependence upon fossil fuels. UM like these these big long reach projects that cost a lot of money and take will take a lot of time to develop. What we would see a lot more investment in things like this power chord will automatically shut off and not allow your devices to draw vampire power. That kind of stuff. It's not not terribly exciting or sexy, but it does make a difference, and that, in fact,

is pretty much how played out. Um. In fact, I would argue that in some ways, green technology is kind of the buzz has kind of died a little bit. You don't. You don't hear about it as much as you did, unless, of course, it relates to Celindra. There are some exceptions. That's more about the controversy of funding a company that that was not doing so hot with

government money. Or you might hear about it about a car that gets in a collision in three days later bursts into flames because the battery, the electric battery inside of it was damaged, but it takes a while for the damage to actually result in a catastrophic failure. There's that news too. Yep. So uh for this, I get a piece of green felt that was from the same bolt of cloth where they made kermit. Hey, it's not easy,

that's it. That's a pretty cool prize. Yeah, yeah, I bungled this next one of mine, but Jonathan got it right. Um I said that to what we had been talking about, that giant speaking of power, energy sucking stuff. Apple had been building this giant data center in North Carolina, and we had been speculating, or many of the media had been about what they were actually going to do with that thing. Um well, it's actually still kind of unclear. But um I thought that Apple was going to launch

its own streaming media music service. And no, no, I didn't. No, I Cloud as many things, but it's not really a streaming music service. Yeah, and I think that's what what's in that center is iCloud. It's supporting i Cloud, but it's not yeah eye Cloud. Now, well, it sort of depends on how you look at it, but I don't think of it as a streaming music service like uh, you know last Fm or Pandora and the radio side. I think of it like a Lotify. It's more like

a more like a locker sty style. However, they do have for the paying subscribers the music match service, which identify eyes the stuff that you got on your your computer and you don't have to upload your music. You you can say okay, well you got it there don't worry about it. As long as iTunes has that song in its database, you have a copy of it, you

can listen to it reasonably nice bit rate too. Yeah yeah, Actually, in some cases it will be a better bit rate than the song you might have on your system, depending on Let's say, if you had a c D and you ripped music from that CD and you were, you know, trying to conserve space, so you ripped it at a

low bit rate. The bit rate if if iTunes can match the song, and you are an iTunes match customer, then you will the one that will appear in your iTunes account, your iCloud account will actually be at a higher bit rate, possibly than the one the one that was on your machine. Yeah, so that's kind of nice. Yeah, but you got this one right. It's not technically a streaming music service, so according to this you even get

prizes when things aren't right. So, uh, this one is a uh it's a little fried apple pie from McDonald's in a bag that was left in this studio at our twenty ten Predictions episode, which is not good because they've been baked for twenty years now, so you're kind of gonna need to um, probably dispose of that in the most secure vessel that we have in this office,

which I believe is Josh Clark. Well, speaking of apples anything, Yeah, you know, it's kind of late, since we've been talking for about thirty minutes now, but it's kind of late. But I'm starting to get a little skeptical of this scoring system. Um, but yeah, speaking of apples, the next prediction came true sort of. Oh, the accepted it didn't where I said light peak would debut, we did, but it it wasn't light peak, well it was. It was light Peak. It was just called Thunderbolt, and it didn't

use light it used copper. How else and every other way, that prediction was completely right. Um, yeah, I said that light peak would debut inven and and all right. To be fair, the very first generation of light Peak, even back when it was just called light Peak, was still going to be copper based. It was not going to be until it moved a little bit beyond that where it was going to go to the actual fiber optic

lines where it was going to use light. And this, in case you don't know, it's the technology that allows very fast data transfer speed between devices and it can be any sort of device that that you know can

have the sort of port on. It's very similar to USB technology, or at least that's the purpose of it is very much the same as USB technology, except that, uh, light peak, when it's just going to be fiber optics, if there's no copper wire and there will not be able to power a device as well as transferred data.

USB s can. USB s can provide power. Right. So in fact, my my phone right now is plugged in via USB cord to my computer, which means that the batteries not being drained because it's it's pulling power from the computer itself. Light Peak would not work that way because if it were just the fiber optics, now, if they paired it with copper wire, then yes, you could carry electricity across the copper wire while the the fiber optics carried the data. Well, the very first generation of

light peak was just copper wire. They weren't including the fiber optics, and that did appear in products. In twenty eleven, it appeared exclusively in Apple products and it was renamed Thunderbolt. But it was the same technology. It's the same thing. So because I got this right, more right than not right, even though there were a lot of kind of cheating around the fact of what light Peak was and how it debuted. I think what you meant and what they

meant were two different things. I think you should get credit for. Yeah, so I get my award. Is I get a light but it's over at the Frankenstein Place, so you have to pick it up after the show. Yeah, you did say that we would be using discs less I did. I said that we that digital distribution would become a much bigger thing in an eleven that it had in previous years. And we've seen that. We've seen mac os ten Lion goes ten Lion, We've seen uh

beta builds of Windows eight. We've seen and I think when Microsoft is going to go to primarily digital distribution, when when Windows eight comes out? Yeah, and you can you can buy games on the various game consoles through their online stores and download directly to the console, as opposed to going out and buying a disc, Steam, Steam and other huge games for the PC. So yeah, I um I for this. I get a whole bunch of zeros and ones. That's what I got for those YEA

and a little bit in the back. Um. Yeah, this next one is a little hard to quantify that I that I'm predicted. Uh. I said that we're going to be more investments into, uh the alternatives to rare earth metals, which are hard. They're they're plentiful, but they're hard to find in large amounts in one place. Um and you know, therefore they are somewhat expensive. China sort of has the market cornered right at the moment, and they're starting to

use more for their own devices. So I figured that more people would would be looking for alternatives to those. I haven't really read a whole lot about that. Um, so I'm thinking that I I think I'm pretty sure that I'm thinking that I think that I think that maybe I was wrong. See, Yeah, this one's uh uh yeah, this was hard to hear. A lot of this was a hard one to research, right because I mean it's yeah, it's unless you're hard to find info on you unless

you're reading very detailed reports. Um. Yeah, we didn't hear much about this, and as far as the rare earth metal crisis is still going on, so uh So, unfortunately because of this, I have to you were talking about alternatives too. Rare metals. Uh so I've got and um the best of Limp Biscuit album for you Alternative metal. There you shouldn't have, I know, really well you shouldn't have. You can put that next year, apple Pie. Uh so you know we've got a new PlayStation portable coming out.

Yeah I said that. I said I that in eleven we'd see the PlayStation phone launch and the experien Play launched. That was the PlayStation phone. It was it was, It wasn't. It wasn't branded that. It wasn't branded as a PlayStation Well it kind of was. Well, I mean it had a slide out section, which is what I said it would have, with a little game pad on it, which is what That's exactly what I said. Uh, and it's it was called the Experience Play. It even went on

sale for a hundred bucks. So, um, I got that one. I got that one totally right, I got a hedgehog. I'm squinting what that's right. There wasn't PlayStation phone. It's the Experience Play. Look it up. Okay, it's uh, let's see, but it wasn't called it anyway. Do you want me to do one more? Since that way it'll kind of even this out. Uh, well, I think I think your last one should be the last one we talk about here. No, no, I think your last one should be the last one

we talk about. That's true, so I'll do another one. Uh. So I had also said that color ink e readers would launch in uh and that didn't happen. Instead of color e Inc. We saw the e reader companies go towards a more tablet design. Wha, They're using lc D displays, not e ink displays for that, So that was wrong.

I did not get that right. I mean, uh, the I don't know if there was like a hold up on the technology or if it was just they figured that the tablet, the tablet experience would be a superior experience to ink, or if the people who wanted color really didn't care so much about things like battery life that kind of thing. Yeah, I think that's that's a

big part of it. Color et Inc. Does exist. Actually, it's been out well, I mean it it's existed for some time now, not in a long long time, but you know, it was in existence when we had that conversation Asian. The problem is it doesn't show nearly as many colors, and they're not nearly as bright as um you know, an l an L E D display or an l C D display. So the thing is you're you're getting more vibrant colors, but at the cost of

battery life on these tablet type displays. And I think people sort of expect, especially for the things that they're saying for the new generation of tablets where they're going to have even more high definition displays. I think that may uh you know, relegate color eat inc. To a very small set of devices in the future. So but I thought they were coming out to Yeah, yeah, So

that one was a miss. Let me do one more on mine in that way, when we alternate, it should turn out so that your last ones are the last one. Well yeah, yeah, and then this one you were right on. Yeah. I said that there we would start seeing near fields communication systems show up in smartphones and ding. Yeah, it started popping up, not not at the level that I was hoping for, but it's it has started to emerge.

And that's the technology that allows you to make payment transfers just by swiping your phone near uh a station like a payment station. And Google Wallet debut. Google Wallet debut and added a lot of that functionality into uh,

managing that kind of system. So on your end, so you would you what you would do is you would have to have a particular kind of credit card for Google Wallet to tie into this system, and then Google Wallet would manage your account and would also let you subscribe to things like coupon deals and and rewards deals and would apply those every time you went to purchase stuff. So that way, if you had a coupon for something, it would automatically get applied when you bought that thing.

You wouldn't have to remember it. It would be in there in your phone already, which was great. Uh. And for that I get an electromagnetic field around me at all times, so, um, my computer is no longer are really displaying things properly? But other than that, it's pretty awesome. Where your fair to day cage? Um? So uh, I predicted that hd TV prices would stagnate. You said there wouldn't be any more dramatic drops in price that they

had pretty much. You know, they might creep lower, but they wouldn't be You wouldn't see a huge like it's crazy. You can get this hd TV screen for two hundred bucks. Um, I don't know I think, based on my own personal research since I bought an HDTV that uh that that's pretty accurate. Um, you know, I I think that, Uh, I think there is probably a greater diversity. You see a lot more manufacturers with you know, sort of a

cheap model and a nicer model. Um, but the nicer ones have stayed about the same price that I saw them in. Yeah. And because you got that right, I decided that would necessitate a reward that was high definition but low in price. So I got you this HD DVD player. Oh, thanks, You're welcome. That was one of

our very first podcasts. Uh. Next, um, we had I had the prediction that Duke Knewcombe Forever would launch INN and Chris, you agreed, and I agreed with you, and we were right, and so many people are so sorry

that we were right. Yeah. Yeah. It was one of those games where again, like for those who don't know, it was what thirteen years in the making, um, and it had been delayed numerous times, mostly due to things like the the lead project manager in charge of the game would look at the game and decide that the the physics engine or the graphics engine was too out of date and that they needed to redesign the game for a new engine, and then every yeah, and they

would scrap everything and start over, and then by the time that would be ready to debut, they'd see another new system that was even better, which would necessitate ripping it all apart and starting over again. And part of this is because when Duke Newcome three D first came out, it was it came out right at the right time.

You know, it was taking advantage of technology and and using it at its best for that time, right like, it was the perfect timing for that game to come out on the on the systems that it did, because um, it looked very sophisticated compared to other games. It was state of the art, and they wanted to try and recapture that. But the problem with that is that a

lot of that ends up just being luck. It's not just you know, and you can't really plan for it because designing a game and building a game and releasing it takes time, and sometimes within that time frame, technology has moved along while you've been developing, and especially since technology is developing faster and faster, it's just future proofing

a project like that is really tough to do. It's sort of like writing a vampire book for the market now now that everyone is tired of the vampire genre sort of. You know, you'd have to know what's going to be big next, and happened to hit it right at the right time, Zombies. So uh it did launch. The reviews were almost universally negative or at the very at the very best most the some of the best reviews I read, like the most positive reviews just called

it mediocre. So I didn't see anyone say that it was a good game. Hasn't really burned up the charts either. Yeah, and I didn't purchase it because I mean, I had heard enough things where I thought that maybe I just I would prefer to remember Duke from back in the days when I, uh I played the game the first game, the Duke NUKEMB three D, not the first Duke Nukem game because those were side scrollers, but the first first person shooter Duke Nukem game. But yeah, so I got

that one right. So because of that, I get an enormous set of weights which I can't move unless I have them in the ad at and unfortunately that's yours, not mine. I was going to suggest that actually, and finally, one of my predictions that I'm so happy about because I got it wrong last time, Jonathan would get a new computer, new work computer by the end of the year. So this is actually I sort of got it right. Yeah, he sort of got it right because it's new to me,

but it wasn't new out of the box. Not new out of the box. It is a gently used gentle it was you didn't gently gently use the last one, which is why it had Problemly, Hey, that was just just because the keys wouldn't work. That wasn't because I was pounding on it or anything. That again would be Josh Clark. Yeah, it's our resident loud type of right. Yeah, no, he'sack. So the yeah, you got it kind of right, because I did get a new computer. It wasn't you. It

wasn't brand new, but it was new to me. So because you got that one right, you get my old computer. Oh goody, I have a door that needs propping open it. You know, if you want, I'll even lend you the till leaky since you're lending me the ad at Hey, okay, that's a wait. So so what is the score? You've got this complex scoring system, right, so I have I have totaled our our predictions. It's a little weird because I made I made more predictions than you did, so

that kind of throws things off. But according to my calculations, at the end of the day, your predictions scored a Sega dreamcast, My predictions scored. It looks like it's, um well, it looks like it's a World Pool Bath. I'm not sure how these compare directly. Uh, but um, I'm sure I'll figure it out by the time we do this next year. All right, Okay, so yeah, I think that went really well. Um, I hope that. Uh, I feel

like I won. Yeah, I guess maybe. I mean, we don't actually get the Sega Dreamcast of the World Pool Pool Bath. That's just our score, right, I see, you know, it's like, you know, I honestly don't know where to go from there. In fact, now it seems like this whole set of rules that I came up with it was just a colossal waste of time. And I just found out I got a ticket for an improperly parked at at Yeah. Sorry, not much it costs to pay off a ticket. I couldn't fit it into the parking deck. No,

and now the parking deck is collapsed. Well, that's also not good. So let's just wrap this up that I think, actually, all being said, a lot of our predictions did come true. We didn't have as many huge misses this year as we have then years passed, which just means we're gonna harder. Yeah,

we're gonna try harder for twelve predictions. But also there were a lot of big news stories that we did not predict at all and uh, and we're going to do an entire episode about the year in review, like what happened in eleven and uh and that will cover some of the stories we've talked about here, but also a lot of stories that that we just did not foresee at all. And I hope you guys will enjoy that. This is going to be the last few episodes for eleven.

So thank you guys for listening to us for yet another year, and we're looking forward to talking to you more in the future. And if you guys have any suggestions for podcast topics that you think we should cover, you can email us our email addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you can let us know on Facebook or Twitter or handled there is tech stuff H. S W and Chris and I will talk

to you again, I predict really soon. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuffwork staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived down at it Today on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you