Grading TechStuff’s 2012 Predictions

the world of technology for two thousand twelve. Well, which is which is good? Why you reminded me of these things? Luckily I took notes? Um. Yeah, So we made predictions, and of course every year when we make predictions, we hold ourselves accountable by taking our predictions and looking and seeing how we did. So let's, um, let's take a look at some of these. Uh, should I go first? Do you want to go first? Oh? Why don't you

give it a shot? All right? So my first prediction was that economic uncertainty would cause companies to fail or get acquired or to scale back, which was such a gimme at the end of two thousand eleven that it's almost embarrassing to call that a hit, but I am telling it as a hit. That was um. I mean we saw that happen. We saw lots of companies start

to cut back. I mean we had everything from the uh Yahoo CEO at the time, Scott Thompson talking about how he was going to have to cut back on a few thousand jobs at Yahoo or all the way up to Zinga laying off employees. And I mean we've seen a lot of that throughout the tech sector. And again it's not a huge surprise. Now, of course, there have been some successes in technology, there's been some companies

have done very well in two thousand twelve. But I think I think it's safe for me to call that one a hit, all right, So I suppose I should give my my first one and go here. Um. Yes, I predicted that Yahoo would be purchased by another company, possibly the Chinese search giant Ali Baba. Yeah, that would be a myth. Well, I also predicted the same thing. That was one of my predictions as well. I said that they would either be acquired or break up into

separate companies, and the separate companies would be acquired. So that is also a miss. We both at the time thought Yahoo was kind of kind of really struggling. I mean it really was struggling. And that's that was before Scott Thompson came on. And of course Scott Thompson didn't last that long. So for a while it looked like that prediction might come true. And then they brought on Marissa Meyer and uh, and that kind of gave Yahoo

a bit of a boost in the eye of public opinion. Yeah, that's at the end of UM that had that those moves, especially the the um. They've also struck some content deals and things, um, and some high profile people have come on to the board of directors. Um. But these things are starting to make people think that Yahoo may have some life in it yet. UM. And in fact, Meyer, Um, well she inspired our our Women of Tech podcast, so

we did a little while ago. Um. She Uh, she has made some some pretty substantial changes even in the short time she's been there so far. So people are starting to think there there might be a future for y'all. Who after all, yeah, and uh, do you want me to go again? Are you? Because that was yell who was both of us. Yeah, I predicted that the the famed A T and T and T Mobile deal would

fail miserably. And boy were you right? Well yes, despite despite, well I was, I was really looking at the uh indicators there and I felt like that was a pretty sure deal that it was gonna the deal was off. That was strange. Um but uh but yeah, I mean government regulators felt like it was going to be in the United States here, um, where the merger was supposed to take place. Um, felt like it just wasn't going

to help competition after all. No matter what a T and T was saying, now, T Mobile didn't and managed to uh the thing. As you know, t Bone will as the fourth largest carrier in the United States. I mean, Deutsche Telecom has a pretty substantial share over in in Europe, but in the United States they are their fourth largest. People were saying, hey, they can't keep this up, especially since they don't have the iPhone. They didn't manage to

to do some pretty big things this year. They divested themselves of their towers, the actual infrastructure for their network. Um and uh. They did a couple other small things like um, oh, yeah, they decided they would merge with Metro PCs, which is I don't know that the fifth largest carrier they're they're one of the players that is behind the top four and not terribly far one of

the largest small carriers UM. And by merging that infrastructure, which looks like it might happen UM, it looks like they might be able to to build out the network take it to lte UM. And they've even struck a deal with Apple to bring on Apple products, including apparently the next version the iPhone later on, which they would not have been able to do as efficiently on their own. So big deals happening, but not with a T and T, so total hit for you. I said that REM would

experience a change in executives at the topmost layer. Uh, and this was you know again, it was I think it was either late November or early December when we made these predictions, because we we do record ahead of time. Well, Uh, we learned early on in these prediction episodes that if we didn't make these predictions by what we saw at the very end of the year, there may be a very good chance that we would be completely off. Yeah, but it turned out January two, thou twelve, that's is

exactly what happened. REM. The the co C e O S resigned there's a new CEO at REM, and uh, you know, this again was sort of a gimme because REM was really struggling as well, having having a real rough time with the uh the the the added pressures of iPhone and Android and even you know a new players like Windows Phone eight coming onto the smartphone scene.

RIM was really struggling, and uh, there were there was a lot of pressure from from shareholders for some big changes to happen, and failures like the playbook didn't help, and that all kind of contributed to it. And so now we've seen a changeover at RIM. So I count as a hit, yep, yep. And uh I predicted that Facebook would have an I p O. UM that was a hit, although uh, you know again that was a semi gime gimme because they were sort of required to.

But the science had been pointing. I didn't actually know that at the time that we predicted this UM, and it looked like everything was pointing that way that they were they were getting to the point where they were going to try to raise money with their I p O. Of course, uh that hasn't been a huge success for them, but may still pan out in the end. Of course, yeah. I predicted that Facebook would hit one billion users before the end of two thousand twelve, which was a hit.

And you know, based upon the number of users that Facebook had at the end of two thousand eleven and the traditional growth trend for Facebook, that was a pretty safe bet to make and it turned out to pay off. So there we go. Facebook has over one billion users. Uh, that's a lot of people. That's that's amazing to think about. Technically, I guess I should say one billion active accounts because some of those accounts may in fact be held by

you know, a single individual. Yeah, yeah, like of them. Um, it's hard to keep track of all those Oh, speaking of speaking of social networking, Um, I predicted that Google Plus would not fold. People were saying last year. I remember people saying, look Google Plus. At first it was a Facebook killer, and then it wasn't. Oh look at this, this is terrible people, it's just Google blew it again on social networking. But I said, no, it's to stick around,

and I think it will slowly grow, and it slowly has. Yeah, it's not been dramatic, but that's exactly what you predicted. And I remember the early days of Google Plus it felt like it was a playground for all the tech journalists and tech industry folks, because that's all the people I saw on Google Plus. We were the ones who got the UH the invites in pretty early, and I had mine within the first week that it had launched. UH that came out of beta, and and for me

that was a blast. It was like, oh, I get to play with all my friends. And then I realized, hey, you know what, this is not so great for anybody else. But but it has, you know, very slowly grown, and it'll be interesting to see if it will continue to grow. I know that there's a lot of I don't know if animosity is the right word, but um, dissatisfaction with certain Facebook users at the direction that Facebook has been taking.

And it could give opportunity to to UH to a social network like Google Plus to really take advantage of that. Or we might even see and this will be a shock or if it happens, but we might even see something like my Space take advantage of that and become a player in that in that arena. Again. I would be interested to see that simply because I have written my Space off and they are clinging to life and actually, from what I've read, making some pretty reasonably decent improvements. Yeah,

I haven't. I haven't checked it recently. I remember the last time I looked at definitely was a dramatic departure from the previous version of my Space, which was nothing but good because the old MySpace got way too cluttered and wait, everyone seemed to have an animated background image that was designed to make my eyes bleed, and they also had the music scientifically generated to make me want to punch people. So I'm glad that that has started

to change some of the punching people part. I just kind of ingrained at this point. Uh, good times, good times. Oh we I predicted that Facebook would make a huge acquisition that would make people wonder what might be happening behind the scenes. Yeah, this is this is kind of common. This was kind of a a uh, well, if anybody's going to do this kind of thing, it would probably

be Facebook cause they got a lot of money. So I predicted this was going to happen, and uh, it kind of didn't like if you could argue the Instagram was one of those except that made a lot of sense because Facebook was really struggling in the mobile platform, especially things with like mobile photos sharing and Instagram, was

you know, really taking off there? But you know, I don't know, because the way you worded it in the Predictions episode was it sounded like it was going to be a company that would be so out of left field that make us all scratch our heads and say, why would Facebook even want that? So I put a question and mark by this instead of hit or missed, because I think I think you hit it more than you missed it. But it wasn't completely within the spirit

of the prediction. Yeah, I think I think Twitter did that more, yeah, than than Facebook did this year because they they yeah, they had that sort of acquisition. But well, speaking of acquisitions, here's a big miss on my part. I predicted this was this is one. Even as I made the prediction, I said, I didn't really think it was going to happen, but I wanted to have some pretty crazy predictions in my list. I said that Google

would purchase Twitter, and that did not happen. I have seen some people suggested that could still happen, like they could still see Google make a run of Twitter. I honestly think that that's that that ship is sailed. Twitter has kind of established itself at this point. I don't see it becoming a part of a larger corporation anytime really soon. Of course, that probably means that that's going

to happen next week. But anyway, Uh yeah, I totally missed on that one, although again I was purposefully sticking my neck out. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean it's fun to do those and see what what actually happens. Um, let's see, let's see. Uh oh, yeah, I said that we you would be a minor hit, which it kind of is. Yeah, it's you know, again minor hit that since you said minor that was that was a good call. It's been selling, but it hasn't been selling like the

original we did. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, the reviews are kind of all over the place. You know. Some people absolutely love it and love the game pad. Other people find it very large and clunky, and and they don't necessarily think that it's a huge improvement over the previous generation, although it does support HD which the old one did not. But yeah, I mean it's no, it's I don't think it's the runaway success that Nintendo kind

of needs, but at least it's not a total flop. Yeah, Um, you know, I had another I had another Nintendo one, uh, that Nintendo would cut the price of the three D S again. And I was basing that on the sales numbers because the three D S has had done something similar. They were selling, but they weren't selling like hotcakes. So I thought, well, they'll they'll cut the price before the end of the year. And I thought, especially around uh this time of year, we're recording this, right before the

holidays here in the United States. I thought, oh, yeah, that's that's they're gonna have to. Actually, something else happened. They actually started selling more of them. Yeah, Nintendo had when they launched the three dsh It wasn't but a couple of months later that they cut the price pretty drastically. And uh, and that was a pretty big news story because it was it was a dramatic move on Nintendo's part.

You know, they launched a new product and then to cut the price of that product within the same year of its launch was a big deal. But but yeah, you had said that it was probably gonna undergo yet another price cut. But as it turns out, I think Nintendo, Uh, the price cut they made was at a point that it no longer gave gamers pause um or or or or hoofs for that matter, to pick up a Nintendo three DS. And so they ended up the sales figures

ended up spiking. They ended up getting a good lift from that, and in fact, the the the portable console became a bit of a success or, at least much more so than it had been at its original price. Um Plus more games came out for it too, so that kind of helped. So I'm gonna I have these numbered in my notes, but I'm gonna actually jump down a little bit because I have a Nintendo prediction too.

I just got to make sure that I go back up when we're when we move off on this right, I said that Nintendo would begin to work on a smartphone, and as far as we know, that has not happened. So that that was one of those things where I just looked at the market that Nintendo is in, that casual gamer market, and that many casual gamers have turned to things like smartphones and tablets uh to be the

source of their casual games. That's that's their go to device to play games on, which means that those devices are competing with Nintendo's products. So to me, it made a lot of sense for Nintendo to look into creating some sort of smartphone, either uh, partnering with another company and then just sort of having a co branded product or striking out on their own and trying to make a Nintendo smartphone from the ground up. That did not happen. So, yeah,

let's a miss on my part. Uh, sad, it would have been interesting to see. Um, let's see oh uh Apple TV. We were we were talking last year about Apple TV UM, which is not the the little device um that you you plug into your TV. I was we were talking about an Apple television. Yeah, an actual TV running Apple software. Because some people were saying, any minute now, we're going to see the Apple TV. The same people are still saying that, Yes, you were one

of them. Yeah, uh and uh and um. Yeah. This this happened with the iPad and a couple of the other products that we've seen with them, the iPhone. It's coming any day now. Yeah, it's still coming any day now. Although it looks as the end of twenty twelve that it really isn't just a rumor that they really are trying to perfect a television. Yeah, I don't know if it will be hit or not, but it looks like it will come out. I predicted that it would not be out by the end of twelve, and therefore it's

a hit and I and I disagreed. I went ahead and said, you know what we're going to We're gonna have this be a hit or a miss one way or the other. I will go ahead and predict that Apple will come out with Apple TV before the end of two thousand twelve. So that was a miss for me. Um. But then that was again another one of those where it was like, I feel confident that one of these two outcomes will happen, so I will take the other side.

Uh As for one of my official predictions, I said that Netflix would get its act together and that possibly Read Hastings might even leave the company, because you know, two thousand eleven was a rough year for Netflix. There were some some very public missteps made by the company. I mean the I don't think I've ever seen a CEO apologize to consumers as frequently as Read Hastings was appeared appeared to be doing in two thousand eleven. However, Read the hasting and read like like a Mr. Hastings

did not leave the company. Yes, Uh, Hastings is still there. And but I would say, you know, at least Netflix hasn't made any other big mistakes like two thousand eleven, you know, seemed to have a rash of them. Two thousand twelve, there wasn't really as much of that, so I guess getting its act together, it's more or less true. And also Netflix did strike some high profile deals, although those deals are not going to come to fruition for a few years. Of the deal with Disney to run

UH movies that the Disney features. Um, you know, Netflix struck that deal with Disney, and it was a that's a big deal, but it's something we're not going to actually get to enjoy for a few more years. Actually, Uh. They to be clear, they struck a couple of deals with Disney, and there is another deal with Disney that did go through UH to show older Disney content, but that's a separate as opposed to the stuff that's most

recently been in theaters. That's that's the big deal that's not going to UH to take effect for another couple of years. So that is that is a different animal. Just just for clarifications, to um, let's see, let's see, Um, I have a new Google TV. Products will come out and no one will care. Wow, what a hit that was. Well, Google has the wherewithal to throw its weight behind products and Google TV uh while critically pretty well, critically acclaimed. Hey,

this is a good product, let's see more of it. Actually, that's sort of what happened with Apple's product to Hey, this is really neat, but nobody's buying. I think it's I think it's not quite ready like they're there, and there's several features that are uh, they're not fully integrated with Google TV yet. And a lot of that is due to content creators resisting and so everything that the Google TV should be able to do, it cannot do.

And that's more to do with business deals and and non existent deals like things that need to happen to have not happened. Uh. And so Google TV is a product that's not as good as it could be, as it as it was engineered to be. But but that's you know, it's not the fall of the technology. That's more of a business side thing. But it's still true.

I call that a hit. Um. I mean, we saw Google at the Google Io event there was a lot about Google TV, and and still it is not really uh launched to any any kind of of real success in the marketplace. Yeah. Well, part of the reason is that the initial launch partner, I mean, there was a big um content or not content. There's a big hardware deal with Logitech that they were going to partner and apparently most people liked it that had tried it, but

you know those fifteen people I'm teasing. Uh, The thing is that it was an expensive product. It was i I think when it first launched, and they ended up dropping it um inn to um and they had, you know, some pretty stiff competition from people like roku um. So you know, they they you know, ended up shelving that. Logitech said nope, we're done, We're out. Uh, And I figured somebody else will will launt in on this because you know, you've got Android, you've got the h the

possibility of apps moving over. And it uh still didn't the beat the devils that they have made this year have not sold like you know one might expect. Google Fiber might help that that whole process. I mean the fact that the fiber hoods well Yeah, and then you you know, as part of your deal of getting depending on what tear you subscribe to for a Google Fiber, if you happen to be in in one of the two Kansas cities in the United States, uh, you get things like a next to seven tablet that can act

as a controller. So you're starting to get some of that Google TV functionality there in the Google Fiber service. And that might even be enough to start getting kind of a word of mouth campaign going and and maybe we'll see an improvement in the next year. But but two thousand twelve is not Google TVs year. So that was a hit for you. I said that at E three we would see at least get a sneak peak of the next generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, and

that was a miss. We did not see that. However, we'd have seen, uh some leaked reports about what those next consoles might be with the PS four or orbists and the Xbox seven twenty or code named Durango. Uh, what those specs might be for those those consoles and what features they might support. But we did not see

anything at E three. It will absolutely stocked me if we don't see anything into the yeah yeah, sigence signs suggests that you will start to see something come out despite rumors that that all of them want to just get out of the console business entirely. That would shock me about Microsoft, mostly because the Xbox division for Microsoft has historically performed really really well. And uh, and I think Microsoft kind of should hold onto that. But then

I also want, you know, predictions to come true. So anyway, your next one, yes, Apple, uh new iPhone will have uh a near field communication Yes, And I said, no, it's not going to and that that was a hit. That was a hit. Yeah. No, No, n f C in the in the latest iPhone, which that's what you predicted. And you know what, you gave some very intelligent reasons why you thought it wasn't gonna happen, And those are exactly the reasons why Apple sites you know, they're not

pursuing NFC technology at the moment. So well done. Um, which is it's going to be interesting going forward because Google has included NFC technology and tablet devices not just phones. Google, Yes, Google, Google is betting on its wallet technology going forward. UM. I have never used it. The square, the square folks, um,

the mobile payment folks. They're not actually square like they came out from Minecraft, and they won't the drapes and the squares baby, but yeah, I mean the mobile payment technology is coming up, so it will be you know, it's becoming more and more popular. So let's I don't know if if Apple will do it this next year, if when if, assuming it will release a new iPhone,

it might. It was the same sort of thing with you know, supporting lt and stuff like that, right, Apple prefers for technologies to be somewhat mature before they start to incorporate them into their products. So uh, I think it's at least another year for that, just because I don't think NFC is near the maturity level that Apple would feel comfortable including it. You know, I could be surprised.

I mean, I'm not not soul either way. Us continuing the theme of things that Apple products will not have, I said that the this was a thing at the time.

At the end of two thousand eleven, one of the rumors about the next iPad was that it would it could have a three D screen built in screen that would allow you to view things in three D, kind of like the Nintendo three D S And I said, ain't no way, that's gonna happen, because it doesn't really make sense for a touch screen device to have this three D capability built into it because you you interact with it in a two D interface, So why would you have a three D view? And that was a hit.

It's kind of no brainer as far as I was concerned. Although there were a lot of people who were saying that was going to happen. Now, I wish I had predicted that Apple was going to launch two updates to the iPad in a single year, because no, what was saying that and that's what happened. Yeah, Norton, Nor did we mention the iPad mini. Um, let's see, let's see. Oh,

but but we did talk about web os on that podcast. Uh. I was thinking that, you know, once HP acquired Palm, that it was going to get into the uh the web os business. Um, not yet. You gave me a question mark in this Jonathan put Together went back because I don't have the patience to listen, and I went back and listened to last year's predictions, and he gave me a question mark here I would give me a miss. Well,

the reason because they're not gonna do it. Uh. It looks like I've said, I've read reports that they are thinking about some things that they'd like to do with it, but I don't think they're going to do it by the end of the year. The reason I put a question mark was just because the fact that they did make it open source and open it up to people, but that was kind of happening at the end of

two thousand eleven anyway. So I put a question mark there because you could argue that by making it open source, that is something useful. That was essentially that you your prediction was that HP HP would do something that was useful with webbos. Uh. So that's why the question mark is there. I think it's more of a miss than a hit, too, But you know I was I think

I was thinking, it's hard to see. Uh yeah, it's been a year, But I think I was thinking that that HP itself would come out with a product and that did not happen. That did not happen. So my here's another miss for me. Although I think it was a good guess, it just didn't happen, which was that at least one of the big daily deal sites would go under, and so things like living Social or group on these coupon sites, because there's been a lot of news about how these sites have uh shown to not

be profitable. They're they're struggling with revenue that um that it's it's kind of a losing proposition as far as these companies are set up right now. Maybe there is a way of doing this that isn't a revenue loss. But at the moment, there's some big news stories about layoffs at these various companies or executive shuffles at some of these companies, but none of them, to my knowledge as of the recording of this podcast, have officially gone under.

So that is a miss yep, yep. Although you could probably make that prediction again for next year, I probably can just write that down. Um, I've predicted that Canonical would ditch Unity as its interface for Ubuntu because people were complaining about it. Yes, and they are still complaining about it because I'm still there. But of course one

of the things that I'm neglected to think about. By the way, if you're clueless as to what I'm talking about, Aubuntu is a a version of Linux, often called a flavor of Linux, which is an operating system which is an operating system that is not Windows or Macintosh or many other systems. But you know, UM, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably would consider Windows and mac os to be the too big and you'd be right. Um, but uh, one two is a very

popular version of Lennox. Uh, and it irritated a couple of people, A couple of people, many people. I'm sorry, it's getting close to lunch time in my blood suggars two people, two people and some people like uh the Unity interface, UM, but many people do not. It's been They've been pretty vocal, and uh, you know, I thought, well, maybe Canonical, which is the organization that that releases one

two and other versions that are similar. Um, you know, I thought maybe that that pressure would would get them to discontinue it. I didn't count on the simplicity with which you can switch interfaces, which I had experienced. But I was thinking, oh no, no, no, people are just gonna get them to beg off and leave well enough alone. They didn't, and you can. It's easy if you installed one to to put another interface on top of it that isn't Unity like Gnome or you know, Katie, So

people just do that. My next prediction, Uh, it's a it was kind of a hit. I mean, this is a debatable hit. I should have put a question mark next to this one, really, which was Microsoft Windows Tablets will debut to modest results. And I guess, I guess Moss results is a fair way of saying it. I you know, from the sales figures I've seen, it certainly isn't a runaway success. Um. But you know, there they have sold some. It's not a total flop either, So

I guess Moss results is fair enough. But I think it's too early to call. Yeah, but it's definitely it's definitely not a runaway hit, which is kind of what I was going for, was that the Windows tablets would come out. It's not that no one would care, it's just that they wouldn't become like a uh, you know, they wouldn't just fly off the shelves. Now that being said, you know, I personally think the Windows A Tablet interface is pretty interesting and um, and I still am curious

about getting my hands on on a full the professional surface. Um. The Windows are T version I'm not as interested in because again I'm not I'm not a great tablet person. I own a tablet, and I barely use it. And it's an Android tablet, um, but I barely use it. So even though it's an operating system, I love with Android, and it's and it's you know, the next of seven, so it's got the latest version of Android on it. I still use it that frequently, which to me just

tells me that I'm not a tablet person. But still I kind of want to get my hands on one of the professional Windows eight tablets service tablets. Yeah, anyway, so that was my my next one. Well, speaking of Android based tablets, I predicted that the Kindle Fire would be a hit. It is, in fact, well it was sort of a gimme uh. In fact, um, it's such a hit that Amazon has released more than one Kindle Fire and updated it so you know, now they have

the HD, they have a competitive larger sized tablet. Um. So I I don't know, oh that now that the the Nexus seven and Nexus Tender out, Um, I don't think that the Kindle Fire is running away as fast as it was, but it is still it's got legs, it knows how to use them, and it's so so tightly integrated with Amazon's you know, uh catalog and and and systems that anyone who really uses Amazon a lot,

it has a huge appeal to it. It's just like for me again, the Android tablet has a big appeal because so much of my stuff is in the Google infrastructure already, like Google Cloud stuff and you know, Google Docs and Gmail and all that kind of thing. Uh, that it just made sense for me to go with Android because it was already so tightly integrated. Same sort of thing with Amazon. I mean, if you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, or you get a lot of your music from Amazon, it makes sense because it's

just it's designed to work with that system. So it's the best. I would say it's the best interface for those systems, hands down. It's not that no, the Android or iOS versions of that are are bad. They're just not designed from the ground up to work with them, so it's a little different. My next one, this was another big one that I was kind of sticking my neck out on, but I actually felt pretty good about it. It turned out to be a miss, so it shows

what I know. But I said it was gonna be the swan song for the CD that CDs were essentially going to be phased out, and we wouldn't really see them in things like retail establishments or being sold online as much anymore. Uh. That really the move would be to really focus on digital delivery, and that just hasn't quite happened yet. I still think it's I mean, the day is coming, it's just not here. It didn't happen this year, it didn't happen in two thousand twelve. So

that's a miss. Yep, yep, um, let's see, Apple will not lower I've had prices. Uh. That was also a semi guinea. It was a hit they have in in if you're speaking literally, because they released a new i pet oh wait, two new iPad lines, keeping the new iPad and the new new iPad, keeping the series more or less intactics. Honestly, you can't buy the new iPad anymore,

buy an iPad two, but not the new iPad. Yeah, that that was the interesting part, now that that actually was true when they released the iPad three, if we're talking, let's just stop. Um. They they kept the iPad two on because it was still fairly recent and it was it offered them another price point at lower price point at which they could offer the iPad. So so technically the price dropped, but if you want to talk about what is the latest version of that product on the

market at the time, the price stayed steady. Yeah. So so previous versions of the iPad the price would drop if they remained available in the Apple Store, but the current version of whatever that product was was still the same price. So that's why this is a hit. What you know, we might have people right and say, well, you know, the Apple two is cheaper now, like, yeah, us, but we're talking about if you were to go in

and buy the latest version of that. They never despite the pressures of things like Android tablets and even the Windows tablets coming out, that they did not uh you know, bow to those pressures and change the price point for the entry level iPad. Did you say the Apple too? Did I the iPad? The iPad? Whatever? Last night, I was just I was just picking. No, No, that's good, all right. Well, um, this is my last prediction until the very very last prediction of the show. So Chris

is actually gonna have a couple back to back. But here's here's mine. Um. I said that tech will play the largest role ever in election history, which was such a GIMMEI that it was pathetic and it was a hit. We saw technology play a huge role, particularly social media,

which again not a big surprise. We had started to see that in the previous election that I'm talking about the United States elections, although technically elections around the world really saw a lot of involvement in technolo pology, and sometimes regime changes that didn't have anything to do with elections saw a lot to do with technology. So so technology and politics continue to be a big deal, and

we see tighter and tighter integration. We're seeing we're starting to see generations of politicians who grew up using at least some form of technology. You know, if you go back just a couple of years, a few years, not

even that many. A lot of the politicians were an age where they they didn't have things like computers and smartphones and and things at their back and call when they were uh, when they were young enough for that to be a formative part of their their experience, right, it wasn't something that they were you know, they might become familiar with it, but it was after those years and so uh, they weren't necessarily as comfortable with it.

In many cases now something they are definitely exceptions to this rule, but in general they were not as a as as a savvy. But that's starting to change now, and I think it will be really interesting to see in the next few years when we start seeing people who have grown up in the digital age taking positions of power and politics. How that's going to unfold for technology in general. That would be really interesting to see. Yeah. Um, so let's see Windows eight will debut to lackluster adoption.

That was a hit, particularly in the enterprise. In fact, I've seen a lot of of people say that they think enterprises are are going to pull the same thing they did with Vista and skip Windows eight at least for the short term, uh, and stick with either XP or Windows seven. Yeah. And if I'm if I'm not mistaken, what I was thinking then was not that Windows eight was going to stink, which I don't get the impression that it stinks other than the fact that the interface,

uh is different enough that it throws some people. I don't think that's a stink. I think that's more of a wait, yeah, it's so radically but wait, there's a there's a there's a steep learning curve at first, but then it levels off pretty quickly once once you get the tricks down, it's it's pretty easy to navigate. But it is so radically different from previous versions of Windows

that that can be a turn off for someone. You know, like you turn on your computer and you immediately don't know where anything is because it looks so different from everything else you've ever used. That that can that can definitely give people pause to adoption. Yeah, and what I what I was really thinking was that the the the cost and the effort for for companies was gonna be

so great that they it wasn't just gonna fly off shelves. Um. And then I figured that uh Diabolo three was coming because we had heard that it was going to and I figured it would be a massive hit. And again this is a gimme because it's a Blizzard title that everybody had been anticipating for a very long time. Yeah, so it was a really big hit, although it was the kind of hit that you know, didn't it wasn't really sticky, you know, No, it stick right right after

like initially after the release. There was a huge amount of excitement. There were also problems, I mean, there were some server issues that people had. There was some uh digital rights management issues that people had. Uh. So there were, you know, there were some legitimate problems with the game, or at least with the way the public accepted the game. But but the really interesting thing to me was that within a couple of months, no one was no one

I knew anyway. And these were gamers who were really excited about Diabow three when it first came out. No one was talking about that game anymore, whereas some of the games that I play right now came out early in two thousand twelve, and I still have friends who chat about those games quite a bit. So, uh, it just didn't have that that stickiness. All right. So here is my final prediction. We have gotten down to the end of the show, and this is a big one, folks.

So my prediction was that Chris and I would be making a prediction show for two thousand thirteen around the same time of the year as we were doing the Prediction Show for two thousand twelve. Way that should have been a gimme. Should have been a gimme, should have been a gimme hit. Uh, it's a miss. And the reason for that is that we must announce that Chris

is leaving Tech Stuff. Yes, uh, he has one more episode to go, so it's not he's not gone yet, but we have one more episode we're going to do and it's an episode that that Chris has picked the topic for specifically because it was something that he really wanted to talk about. And uh, I expect that episode will be amazing. But yes, uh that is a miss because uh the tex Stuff is going to be a different show. Yeah. Mostly I just wanted to throw Jonathan's

predictions off. Yeah, you wanted to get more hits than misses and have me have more or less an even number. And uh, boy, that that was a heck of a way of doing it. I guess it was either that. It was It was either that or to somehow get all politicians to stop using technology so that one. Yeah, and I figured this one would be the easier one. Now it's just one of those things where uh, um, tech Stuff is going to go through some changes, and

I figured this was sort of a good time. I have other stuff that I've been working on that's not podcast or blog related, and I thought, you know, maybe the time is uh has come for me to to leave the show. So um uh the I I predict. I don't have predictions for next year, but I predict the next episode will be a very special episode of text Stuff. So guys, if if you want to let us know what you think about our how we did

on our predictions. If you have any predictions for two thousand thirteen, do you have any messages you would like to send Chris, you should definitely contact us. No profanity, please, no, no, no, Let's let's keep these professional people. You can, you can, you can shed some tears if you want. You wouldn't be the only one, um, But yeah, send us a message.

Our email is tex Stuff at Discovery dot com or find us on Twitter or Facebook are handle there is text stuff HS the you and Chris and I will talk to you again one last time with both of us really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot com