Following Up on TechStuff Predictions from 2011

in five years? My co host at the time, Chris Palette, and I sat down and we put on our prognosticator hats and we started making wild guesses and what the Internet will be like. And you'll never believe how close we got. Actually, you will believe it because we're gonna rerun that episode. But stay tuned because at the end I got a little bit more to say. So enjoy this classic episode and keep score. I think you'll be surprised. So, um, Internet five years, how are we going to interact with it?

Lets go? Uh that's a good question, now, um it would It would be easy for me to say that that tablets are going to be there simply because they're so hot right now. I definitely think mobile is is primarily the way people are going now. Um, don't get the impression that, um, I've given up on uh computers, specifically desktop computers, because I still enjoy not having to haul around a lot of technology with me and and having just a small device. Um, but I enjoy having

the the real estate of a nice giant screen now. Um. You know. But I think mobile is is the way I think people want to be able to get stuff anywhere and everywhere. So people are going to be designing content, um to fit multiple needs. Yeah, we're already seeing a lot of that today, where you see a lot of websites that have a mobile version and a full version.

And then we were seeing more and more smartphones that just bypass the mobile version go straight to the full version because they are capable of displaying an entire web page upon their you know, their screens, and of course

tablets the same sort of thing. Uh. I agree. I think that the Internet in five years will be much more pervasive than the sense that mostly from the stuff that we tend to carry with us, but that will be able to go from place to place and be able to tag it tap into the Internet pretty much anywhere we go. I mean, that's almost the case now as it is but it should be even more so

in the future. That will get to a point where it will be really unusual when you're in a space where you cannot access the Internet at least any place when you're on the land, and maybe when you're like out at sea or something that might still be kind of unusual unless you haven't have some sort of satellite modem. But um, otherwise, I think, yeah, you pretty much have the Internet at your fingertips um from a variety of devices.

And we're talking about five years from now. So if you think about it, the iPhone came out in two thousand seven, so as they're recording of this podcast, that was four years ago, and already I think you could argue that the iPhone has had a huge impact on at least the way we consume the Internet and and also how developers create applications for the Internet. Some of the a lot of the things that are on the iPhone and on Android and on other smartphone operating systems

as well. Um, they aren't necessarily a web browser, but they do tie into the Internet in some way, right Like Like for example, with Google, I have Google Navigator and that uses Google Maps and it uses GPS in order to help me navigate through to a destination. Um, you know, that's something that we wouldn't have really thought about, you know, ten years ago, then we started getting GPS units to really hit the market, and now smartphones are

kind of displacing those. So five years from now, I imagine that um smartphones will be pretty much the the the most common kind of mobile device that people will be carrying around with them. Capable of that, we may finally start seeing some things, like some smart watches that are actually worth purchasing. I mean, there's been smart watches in the past that have been kind of interesting but

just haven't quite worked. And I think part of that is, you know, there are a lot of issues you gotta work around, like how how do you miniaturize the components to that size where it's still a compelling product right right, And and I think that's one of those things too, where years ago people were talking about how everything was going miniaturized, and now that we have smartphones, we won't

need laptops. And I know I'm not the only person who likes a nice big screen when you're actually doing work, not to mention a nice big keyboard. Yes, and and the truth of the matter is I think that, um, there's a certain practical point. It's not that we can't make a smart watch that would do those kinds of things. I think the practical reality is that at a certain point it's kind of difficult to use, especially with fat fingers like mine. Uh, something that has a touch screen

that's that small. Yeah, and voice input still isn't quite there yet. It's close. Google has done a really good job with voice input. I mean, I'm very impressed with what they've done so far, and I'm sure that five years from now it'll probably be really phenomenal where uh,

navigating by voice will be quite easy. It's it's hard for us to make that leap right now because it's so it seems so foreign to to think about talking to a computer, especially if you're talking about any sort of you're in a public place, or you're say in an office at work or whatever, or you have an accent that may be unreadable too, or you want to look up something that is really um personal, yeah, like some sort of medical issue, you know, that sort of stuff.

You don't want to be talking out loud to your machine. So clearly, the physical input is never going to completely go away unless we finally get to a point where we can just telepathically interact with our devices, which is not going to happen in five years. There's one of my solid predictions there. We are not going to have a point where we have mind controlled devices in five years. UM.

So it's more pervasive, We've got more access. I actually see some more overlapping technologies coming in, possibly possibly some new technologies. But really there's the stuff that I'm imagining is we're totally capable of doing right now, and that is having UM context specific Internet uh well, uh, attractions

or or situations or circumstances. What I mean by that is that you could create an application, let's say, that reacts to UM signal spent sent on a specific wavelength, and then you create transmitters that transmit things on that wavelength, so that when you come into the proximity of that transmitter, then your device begins to interact with it in whatever way you had designed. And and here's an easy example of this, because these things exist already. Uh. An example

of this is pal Mickey. Have you heard about pal Mickey at Disney World. I've heard about it, but I don't know a lot about it. Okay, So pal Mickey is this idea that Disney came up with a couple of years ago where they have the Mickey Mouse doll and inside there is a receiver and the receiver picks up radio signals as you get close enough, you know, when you get within range, the receiver picks up the

signal and makes pal Mickey tell you something. And let's say that you're at one of the Disney parks and you're walking around. Well, they make the transmitters, um, they only give them enough power to transmit within a certain range. So that way you're not getting all these transmissions. You know, Mickey does and go into seizures as soon as you

walk through the Magic Kingdom gates. Um. But when you get close enough, Mickey will make a little noise you press press, I think one of his hands and then he says, uh. The information like he might tell you how long the weight is for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, or he might give you a little bit of trivia information about one of the buildings you're passing. And it's all based upon just radio waves. There's no

no real Internet involved here. But there's no reason why you couldn't have that connected with the Internet where you have these transmitters that are not necessarily meant to transmit signals across an entire city, but maybe just like a general area around the building that they are attached to, and that it could give you updated information about stuff.

Let's say a store sale goes on and you've got this app that alerts alerts you when a sale starts, and you could even have specific sales happening within oh like a two hour range, and it's just if you happen to be in the area that you find doubt about it. And this is a way of of kind of adding more of that sort of engagement thing we've talked about in previous episodes, Like I see that as being a possibility where we have not just a pervasive Internet,

but a contextual Internet as well. So it's it's timely. A lot of the stuff we see on the Internet is designed to be what we call evergreen. We call it that here at how stuff works all the time, and evergreen piece of content is something that should be relevant today, and it should be relevant five years from now, It should be relevant ten years from now. You should be always be able to go back to that piece

of content and it means exactly what needs to mean. Uh. And then there's other content that we create that is very timely that you know, after after a few months, it may not have the impact that it once had, or it might need to be updated on a near constant basis, like most of this stuff that is in the tech channels. Because here's the funny thing about technology, it keeps on changing. Now I think, I think location

based services to um. You know, there there are millions of people with smartphones, but it's really only scratching the surface of the population in general. I think now that they're starting to become more affordable, UM, there's real competition in the smartphone market for consumers. UM, and the cost of providing data goes down. UM. You know, I think it will be more compelling for people to sign onto location based services and uh, you know, get offers as

they're walking by and subscribe to that too. I don't know so much about augmented reality UM personally, because I mean, I think it will become more popular, but I still don't think it's going to become dominant, simply because it requires you to look around with your phone and you could trip and fall. Yeah, I mean, if if we if we ever do get to a point where you can have those glasses that do the do the transparent display where you can see the display of information on

your glasses like it heads up to play. Yeah, essentially a heads up display for you know, just the exactly just looking around and seeing what that their restaurants raty today is. Um. You know, it's uh, we've been promised that for a while. It's almost because it's almost starting to enter the realm of jet packs and flying cars. Uh. I know, I know that there are jet packs and flying cars, but they're not predominant, right, They're not everywhere,

So that's what I'm talking about. Um. Also, I just think that again, you know, unless it's something that could be built into your existing eyewear, I just don't see it being that compelling, just because it means more people are like, well, great, now there's another thing I gotta buy and wear. You know. I wish I could have a show of hands, but I can't, and and you

don't need to email. But I was just thinking how many people heard you say eyewear and thought, I, well, you know, if Apple does come out with with glasses. They will call it eyewear and they should pay me. Uh, it's trademarked, Jonathan Strickland, not really trademarked. Yeah, so I think I think we might actually see other Internet capable devices really starting to to to play a part. I mean, we've at Cees of eleven, there were a lot of

of appliances that were Internet capable. The Internet of Things. Yeah, so this this would be the case of having other things on the Internet besides computers, mobile devices and that kind of thing. It would be more like things like refrigerators and um washers and dryers and a lot of this is you know, goes into home automation. Some of it is is just information management. Like let's say you want to manage the list of things that are in

your refrigerator. Is that when you go shopping, you know, you know what you need to pick up that sort of stuff. Uh. I think within five years we'll probably see a lot more of that. Um. I don't know that it will again be the dominant kind of appliance on the market. I think that will still be sort of the I think it will still be somewhat of a niche market, maybe maybe a larger niche than it

is right now. But I don't think of it. I don't think that will be I don't think you would walk into an appliance store and and ninety percent of the stuff you see would be Internet capable. Well, here's here's a thought on that. They've been predicting this for years.

We were all going to have radio frequency identification tags r f i D tags inside all of our products, so you can have all your stuff in the fridge, and the fridge is able to identify what's in there and when you bought it and when you bought it, and there would be a screen up on the on the front of the fridge that says, hey, you know what, you could make this for dinner because you have all the ingredients you need to make this, or you could make that and it will give you recipes and things,

which is a really neat idea. But they've been again predicting this for years. It might also say it hasn't happened yet. I also say the peaches are restless. You need to throw them out. The peaches restless. One of them growled at me. Yeah, that's when potato salad goes bade. The technology to do. This isn't hasn't been out of the realm of possibility for for several years. I mean, this is doable, but we're not doing it. It's yeah,

it's adopt It's an adoption thing. I mean, you know, in some cases, you've got companies that are trying to create products for which there is no demand, and then they're trying to generate the demand for that product, and sometimes that works. Like you know, you could argue that

Steve Jobs does that all the time. Well he You know that the iPad is a clear example of this, and I still, um, when it first came out, I saw a lot of criticism that it was a product that that no one needed and which is still technically true. Nobody needs a tablet. Well, okay, a few people need a tablet. Let's say that. Um, there are there are some some roles that really could use a small computing device like that. So but for a lot of people,

it's a it's something they want. And uh, you know now that it's been a year later, as of the time we've recorded this, almost a year and a half after the iPads released, there are lots of different kinds of tablets in the market. The tablet market is taking off sort of like the netbook market did um a few years ago, and I saw criticism, Uh probably about two or three months before we recorded this, we were saying, well, you know, I still don't think there's any reason why

anyone needs a tablet. Most of the people I see who say they they have really integrated tablet into their lifestyle bought one and then found a use for it. But I would argue that's the way it was with personal computers back in the day. And I think I don't think tablets are going away simply because I think people who buy them, you know, now that there is a market for it, people are going to start creating

more useful software for it. And I think people will start using their tablets to do more creative work than they used to be able to do, simply because there wasn't software for it on the on the initial release of these devices, and there will be now that now that it's coming out, there already is quite a bit of creative software, and I think they're just going to be more. It's just gonna be another tier of products

in between smartphones and computers. I think that there's also the potential that we could see even more products introduced into that space that don't fit the tablet model or the smartphone model. I mean, it's hard to say, because it's five years from now. There's a lot of smart people working on these things, and who knows who could come up with the next big thing. I mean I

mentioned smart watches which could fit into that category. But for example, here's here's just something just out of the blue. Let's say that someone decides to create a device that is similar to a smartphone but is essentially a kind of the the the step between smartphone and a MP three players, So not that not an iPod touch, which you could argue is kind of in that realm too, but more about it's more focused just on the music.

So in other words, you create a device that is um specifically designed to help you tap into the streaming music services that are out there. So you know there's

smartphones that can do this as well. So you could argue, well, maybe there's not a market for this, but then you could say, well, you might want to have one of these devices that doesn't run quite as many applications, is not as process or intensive, doesn't run down the battery as quickly, doesn't doesn't tax your smartphones battery at all.

That would let you tap into these massive cloud storage services, things like Google Music or Amazon or iTunes, the icloudum or Spotify, any of these sort of services where you could stream or or otherwise consume the music on this device without it affecting your other devices, because I mean, I have a smartphone that's capable of doing these sort of things, but I rarely use those capabilities because it runs down the battery and I don't want, you know,

I want to have my phone available in case I want to for some reason make a phone call. So I could see that sort of thing becoming thing where the next MP three player isn't necessarily focused on how many songs it can store, but rather it's access to various streaming services or or cloud storage services. Uh, that's a possibility. Um. So we've talked about mobility, We've talked about a lot more of uh appliances that would be

connected to the Internet. I mean, you can you're starting to see that already with cars as well, where you have cars that don't necessarily connect directly to the Internet, but when you park them in your garage, they can sync up via Bluetooth or some other method to your home network, and you can transfer data back and forth across um, usually music, but you can do other things as well well. You can also have equipment put in

your car to make a hot spot too. Yeah, so we're probably going to see a lot more of that as well. You know, again, the ubiquitous access. Uh So that's that's kind of like the shiny happy version of what the Internet could be like in five years and how we would access the Internet. I don't see it as necessarily being a total revolution from the way we're doing it now, but probably um a much more pervasive

way of what we do now. Let's talk about some possible dark side elements to what the Internet could be like in five years. So dark side number one, and this is a big one, is that we could see Internet service providers I sps start to um limit the kinds of of services and content you have access to. In other words, let's say that this is essentially the scenario where net neutrality is no longer even a concept.

It's gone. In this case, you have I s p s that are able to strike up partnerships, let's say, with various content providers and service providers in theory, not that I would ever expect this to happen, but in theory, lets you could have a particular Internet service provider partner with say Facebook, and then anyone who is a customer

of that I s P has access to Facebook. Anyone who is not a customer with that I s P doesn't, Right, I mean, that's that's an extreme example that I don't think could ever happen because Facebook, of course is so huge, it's got, you know, way more subscribers than you would ever see be tied to a specific provider. But I could easily see that from for emerging services and content.

So or let's say that the Internet service providers that are also cable companies limited so that you can only access their content they create through their I s P. So if you are on I s P B and you want to see the content that I s P A creates through its cable company part of its corporation, you're on the lock. At least you can't see it online. Um, we're starting to see some of that emerge right now. Now.

Whether or not that continues is another question, but it could very well be that within five years your experience on the Internet is completely dictated by the Internet service provider you belong to, or cell phone carrier in that case, because it may be that you have one kind of Internet when you get home because you are you're a customer of one I s P, and you have a different kind of Internet when you access it on your phone because you belong you know, you've got a contract

with a specific cell phone carrier. And that would be crazy really because you could think like, oh, this video is great, but I'll watch it when I get home, and then you realize, oh, I can't access it at home because my I s P doesn't have a deal with that particular content provider. Yeah, I think it's more

likely that you'll see throttling. Um, Like, if you have if you want to use a particular streaming radio radio service and you are on a cable company that doesn't have a deal with that provider, and perhaps they have a deal with the DSL provider in your area, well that means that they're going to give the you know, per the agreement, they're going to give priority to their own customers, and then you may experience hiccupping or delays

or or problems with the service. You might see that that sign saying Netflix is adjusting your buffering rate because your Internet connection is slower. Yes, UM, and that's another that's another issue too. I think that is possible to see UM talking about depending on your I s P or your your provider UM for cell phone services, Uh so many of them now for both are instituting data caps. So I think it is very possible that in the future. UM. You know, it's it's funny because the services are all

working toward unlimited models. Like if you subscribe to Netflix streaming umunt bit, you have unlimited you can watch as many movies as you can pack in during each month. And that goes for a lot of the other services to UM. You know, you can you can stream unlimited music from a lot of places UM. And there's of

course plenty of other ways to use lots of bandwidth. UM. So you know they're they're opening those services up to and unlimited all you can eat model for you know, a set price, and people who really use them, say families you know, who have multiple people watching multiple shows in multiple rooms. You know, that's a great way to use a ton of bandwidth. You know, of course they're they're arguments that say, it's really just the people who

are downloading lots of stuff illegally. Um, but there's there's so many legitimate ways to use a lot of bandwidth. Now, yeah, I mean before before there were these these venues where you could get to this content in a legal way. Maybe you could make the argument that the people who are eating up all the bandwidth, we're pirate. But I

don't think that's the case today. Well a lot of them say right now, the people who are using the bandwidth that gets them into trouble are they're they're a small minority of people, like only I'm making up a number because I haven't seen it in a while, But the last time I looked it was they were saying something like three to five of their customers. They're saying, oh no, no, no no, no, these bandwidth caps don't affect

the majority of our customers. But the thing is, the services themselves are encouraging us to use as much data as we can take, and the broad the providers are all starting to cap their services. Not all of them, but a lot of them are. And uh, in some cases they're not making it clear to subscribers exactly how much data they're using and how much it's going to

put them in trouble. So I think within the next five years you're going to start to see that clash, especially because broadband penetration is still somewhat limited in the United States. Speeds are somewhat slower here and then in other places, and um, you know, I think is these things ratchet up and people are encouraging us to use

more data. This is going to come into conflict, and the providers are going to hear from their customers how unhappy they are with the service because you know, hey, you say I can use you know, all this data and it's and it's supposed to be such a fast network, and when I actually try to use it, I can't. You.

It'll also be interesting to see if I s p s, if they do create this this sort of compartmentalized uh Internet, and in which case, really we can't even call it the Internet anymore, because the Internet is supposed to be the global network of networks. And if we're talking about I sp s each creating their own, then they all just become networks. Yeah, it might become Internet with a lower case I, as opposed to Internet, Internet with the upper case I. So instead of being a joke, we

will we will really be talking about the internets. Yeah, it really will be the internets. Which one do you have? UM? There's also the possibility that some of these I sp s and they a lot of these companies have tried this already, will try to make their own services that that mimic or replace the services from other UH providers out there, not just I s p s, but other

companies as well. So let's say that you know, I s p A decides to come up with its own version of Twitter and UH and then and then doesn't allow you to access Twitter on its on its services UM and instead encourages you to use this other one. And that's another way that this stuff can get further fragmented. I don't think it would ever happen, but it's possible. UM. Another thing we might see are we've seen already. I'm curious to find out if within five years, if it's

proven to be a successful campaign or not. Are paywalls. And of course the paywall is where you UH you can't have access to a particular sites content until after you pay a subscription fee. Right, so if you want to read as an example, a current example the New York Times. There are a certain amount of there's a certain number of articles that you can read for free per month, per month, and then after that you are

asked to go ahead and subscribe. The Wall Street Journal on the other hand, Yeah, I mean there there's certain content that you can get depending on how you're you're doing it. But um, for the most part, you have to pay if you're if you're going to do that now some I think it will be more common, um paywall or no, I mean I think or whether they succeed in in in general, I would say, I think you're going to see a lot of um, maybe hybrid subscriptions,

like for example, Wired magazine. Right now, if you are a print subscriber, I've been a print subscriber for many years. Um, you can also uh, and this is a fairly recent development as of the time of recording this, you can also if you have an iPad, as I do, you can download the issues you have been subscribing to. So now I get all the the digital issues free because I am a print subscriber, and I think you're like

getting them free. They're just included in your subscription, right well, I'm getting them a no extra cost because at one point Wired, the online app required you to pay regardless of whether or not you were a print subscriber. So I'm getting it as a benefit of my subscription. I get both versions of of that, and I think that's probably going to become more common because I think the tablet was at one point considered the uh, you know, the saving grace for magazines and newspapers, and I think

people do enjoy reading some of that content in that format. However, people who are I've seen it pretty much with regard to just about every magazine that has a subscription available. Hey, why are you charging me for this digital version? I'm already a subscriber to the print version. Can't I have both? You know, I think there are a lot of people be willing to say, yeah, okay, I'll give you an extra two bucks or five bucks, give giving me both

because I like both. Um and you know, so I think, you know, I think what will be interesting to see two is within the next five years if there's a related model that I think it'll be interesting to see if it survives or not, which is the model that companies like HBO is where you know, you can get HBO content online, but only if you are a customer of a cable company and you have HBO as part of your service. CNN does that too, now, yeah, does it? Yeah?

I think interesting, have to look that up. Just surprised me because I mean, it's been a while since I've been to that site. But really, the last time I went to a CNN dot com they had updated there. And this is again very recent, I think within the last two or three weeks before we recorded this. If you want to access the video, UM you sign in as a you know, to your your provider and they will say, okay, now now you have access to the

video online because you're already a subscriber, right. So it'll be interesting interesting to see if that works or if HBO decides to open it up a little bit where I mean, I would imagine it will always be a subscription service. It's never gonna be free necessarily, but that you will not you won't have to be a cable company customer in order to UM to get access to that that that content. I know there are a lot of people who have cut the cord who would love

to have access to things like HBO original programming. I mean, they're all screaming for Game of Thrones, but they can't watch it because they don't have a subscription. You know, they don't belo they don't have a cable company. Um, they're not. They don't have a cable TV subscription, they don't have HBO. So therefore they cannot access that material even if they wanted, you know, had some online method. Uh, it's unavailable to them because they have to be a

pre existing customer before they can also get it online. Uh. It'll be interesting interesting to see if that lives for five years or if that, if that model goes away. UM, I can imagine a lot of cable companies trying very very hard to keep that model going because it's an incentive for customers to remain with cable companies. UM. If that, if that were gone, if you could subscribe to say Game of Thrones, and you know, you pay a certain

subscription fee and that was it. UM, I think that you'd see even more people cutting the cord, which would upset cable companies quite a bit. Yeah, I verified that as of mid July. Like, if you want to use cn CNN video on your iOS device, UM, that you have to basically prove that you're a subscriber to certain pay TV providers and that's you know, there are a certain list of them that they're some of the big

ease um. But yeah, I think that model would be more um palatable to people to say, you know, hey, yeah, I'm already paying you something, you know, so that that's a little bit more tolerable that it's behind a wall. But it's still still an issue for a lot of people. And there's still a lot of people who don't have uh, you know, access to the service at home or can't get it and you know, still have to come in somehow. So yeah, so, I mean it'll be interesting to see,

I think. Um, I'm hoping that the shiny, happy version of the Internet will be the one that we have. It'll probably be somewhere in between, like this this crazy pervasive internet where we everything's at our fingertips and this walled off internet where everything is behind a gate and we have to pay to get in. I'm sure it'll be some combination of the two. It's not gonna be one or the other. Yeah, yeah, Well, it's the Internet is an evolving thing, you know, It's it's earliest incarnations

were something the public were completely unaware of. I think I think a lot of people still, my relatives are still completely unaware of it. But yeah, I mean I think a lot of people, yeah who think I keep hearing about are still unaware that there was life before Yahoo. You know the Internet? Okay, yeah, that's trademark. Yeah whatever. Um so anyhow, it's free advertising until they see us for free advertising. Come on, alright, fine Google, Google, All Right,

there we go. Now we're now, We're clear. I totally feel better now. Al right, guys, how about that? Right? Like I would say, we were on the mark. We talked about broadband caps, we talked about mobile browsing, all sorts of stuff. Now, there were some things that we did not anticipate. We didn't talk about Google fiber, right, we didn't necessarily get really deeply into net neutrality. We touched on it. So what I think we have to do now is another episode. Right, we have to look

another five years in the future. You guys need to know what the Internet is gonna be like in twenty twenty one. Liberal arts, major guys, give me a break. So I am going to have a spell shual guest join me for our next episode of tech Stuff. That special guest is I, as actor of c net. Uh. Chris is off doing his own thing, so I didn't club him over the head like I did for episode I think six hundred. I instead getting I asked, come in. We're gonna talk about what we think the internet will

be like in five more years. And you already have heard our track record. You know that we're pretty darn accurate, so I'm just saying, look forward to keeping score again in five more years. Until then, if you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, let me know about them. Send me an email. The address is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter to

handle it. Both of those places is text stuff hs W. You guys, take it easy and I'll talk to you again really soon for more on this and pathans of others topics. Because it has staff works at m W