TechStuff and Friends Predict 2017

I invited a few friends to send me a prediction or two an audio format, and so in this show, I'll occasionally play a clip from some good friends of mine with their insights into what two thousand and seventeen may bring us. So let's get started, and I want to start things off with a look ahead to c E S two thousand seventeen. It is on the mind right now for both me and my producer Dylan, who is in the room with me. We literally just got out of a meeting about c E and the stuff

what we will bring with us when we go. So I'll be sitting through press conferences in Las Vegas by the time this particular episode goes live. Actually Dylan might be too, and we'll be listening to what companies plan to bring to market in the near future, but I am recording this episode in December two thousand sixteen, so right now it's still a mystery to me. So here are some of my predictions of stuff that I will see at c E S. First of all, VR and

A are are gonna be everywhere. There's gonna be a whole section for VR and A R at c E S, but I would not be surprised to see it pop up in booths throughout the show, so there'll be a dedicated section. But then big big booths like Intel are likely going to have these on display sony, probably with

the PlayStation VR. We're gonna see that everywhere. Plus we're gonna see tons of smart home devices and home automation that's also going to be omnipresent at c e S. Driverless car technologies and related products are going to have a big, strong showing at at c e Drones will be everywhere and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I've been playing with a Star Wars drone for the last couple of days, irritating people and ramming it into

people's faces. It is amazing, and I think we'll also see a lot of three sixty degree cameras at the show. That seems to be like the new hot tech stuff at C E S. I think three sixty degree cameras are gonna be at a lot of different booths. We're gonna see a lot of different approaches. You're gonna see people claiming to have four K or eight K or maybe even sixteen kgree cameras, So we'll explore that when

we're there. Now, I plan on recording an episode of tech Stuff while I'm at C E S with a certain Mr Ben Bolan as my co host, and I think he's gonna have me on an episode of car stuff, uh, and I will be his co host for that, So we're gonna kind of trade shows while we're there, and at that time, we'll see if I'm on track with these predictions. So you'll actually hear that in next week's episode.

It's really weird to say next week's episode because I'm recording this on December twenty one, and I won't be recording the c S episode until early January. But for you guys, it's like only a week past. So hello from the past. I guess that's what I'm saying there. Anyway, that's the e So let's move on. How about a prediction about Apple. So two thousand seventeen, we'll mark the

tenth anniversary of the debut of the iPhone. Steve Jobs debut the iPhone in two thousand seven, So because of that, I think the next iPhone, the next generation, whatever it might be called, will be a bigger and bolder departure from the current design than the last couple of generations were. Um, I think Apple really needs to capitalize on this tenth year anniversary. So I think we're gonna see some really bold choices, hopefully that won't involve getting rid of more

features like the headphone jack. But I also think that two is the year in which Apple gives us at least a sneak peek at their autonomous car technology. Now they're they're not building autonomous cars from what we understand, they're building systems, autonomous car systems that would be or at least things that would pair with autonomous car systems. Uh So I think we might actually get a sneak

peek of that next year. That's kind of a long shot because Apple is not known for showing their technology early. They're much more likely to wait until it's ready to go, maybe show it off a month in advance of launching it. But I think next year is going to be a big year for Apple, or this year for you guys

listening to this now. Next year from when I'm recording it, it's gonna be a huge year for Apple, and I think they need to have something that is really going to blow people away, and I think autonomous car technology would be the way to do it. Unless they finally came out with an Apple branded television, that might help too. And if they do show their autonomous car technology, then

that might take some of the sting out. If their next generation iPhone is not a huge departure or a home run, if it's not totally breathtaking, then they can say, but we also have this cool thing that's gonna make automas cars more interesting. Speaking of driverless cars, I think we're gonna see a lot more states start to draft

rules and regulations for driverless vehicles. As it stands, Michigan is the only state that really has a comprehensive legal framework for autonomous vehicles operating on state roads, but expect to see more states in the US frame regulations and not all states might be particularly welcoming of autonomous car technology. We might see a few that specifically prohibit driverless cars.

We're already seeing some for action in California. That's where Uber, the car sharing service, although I don't really think of as a car sharing service. Uh. They've been butting heads with San Francisco officials over the legality of testing autonomous cars within the city limits. So we're probably gonna see more of those kind of growing pains in different areas, particularly if companies like Uber don't bother to I don't know, ask permission before testing an autonomous car on city streets.

We'll have to see. Uber, by the way, has been super aggressive with its move toward autonomous cars. It's weird to see a company moving so quickly toward a largely unproven technology, and I say unproven as an unproven in real world cases as opposed to just test cases, even test drives within the city itself. We haven't really seen anyone adopt this technology on a level that Uber has

been attempting to do. Also, it would mean that Uber would be replacing a lot of its workforce, or at least the the drivers who work on behalf of Uber so that also comes across as a little weird. You know, they're essentially saying, Hey, we don't want all these people driving for us, we want robots driving for us. I say that before two thousands seventeen is over, expect Uber to at least test a truly driverless vehicle. I said, no one is sitting in the driver's seat in a

major market somewhere. Now, that means there's no human operator inside the vehicle as it stands right now. Uber has been testing driverless cars in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, but they always have a driver in the driver's seat, able to take over at any second. So I imagine that before the year is out, Uber world test a car

with no one in the driver's seat. Uh, it may be a test in which no member of the public is in the vehicle at all, So the vehicle may just be empty, or there might be an Uber employee inside who's writing as a passenger but not an actual member of the public. But I do think Uber is so eager to take this step, even if the rest of the US isn't prepared for it. I'm guessing there will be a lot more news about driverless cars in two thousand seventeen from other players in the game as well,

like Tesla and Google. In fact, Google recently spun off its driverless car division within Google Access, the research and development branch of Google, into its own subsidiary company called way Mo w A Y m O. I think we're still a few more years out before we see that this blossom into something more than just a test bed technology, but expect to hear more about this throughout two thousand seventeen, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear about more pilot

programs or pilotless programs if you prefer in other parts of the world, including driverless trucks and driverless shuttle buses. We've seen a couple of experiments in that area already. I think we're going to see more In other big predictions about new technology, I think hyperloop tests will show that the concept is basically sound, but requires such an enormous investment from both an infrastructure and an operational standpoint

that it makes it unrealistic. I suspect that, barring any phenomenal incentives from state or federal government agencies, it will turn out to be financially untenable. So I don't anticipate any major engineering fails as companies test out hyperloop designs. I don't think we're going to have a catastrophe or a massive system failure, but I do think it will

become increasingly challenging to keep things moving from an investment standpoint. Now, I hope that we do see companies push past this and create a real hyperloop track that actually functions as a transportation method. But I think the odds of that are pretty slim. But please prove me wrong, hyper loop companies. I don't want to be right about that addiction. It's just kind of a gut feeling I have. Now let's hear what my friend I as Actar has to say

about the tech of two thousand seventeen. Hey, they're tech stuff listeners, And Jonathan, it's I as actor seen dot dot com, gfqu network dot com and other places, And yes, I just promoted myself on your show. My tech prediction for seventeen is a prediction I keep saying pretty much every year. It seems Alphabet will get into the wireless internet game. Huge in the division of Alphabet that runs

Google Fiber Access put a halt to rolling out. It's super fast internet service and a lot of cities back in August. Now, I think that these divisions of Alphabet are reevaluating everything possible to become the biggest deal within Alphabet. While the fiber rollout may be paused. Reports have said Access is already looking into wireless tech to get into cities. Why bother having to drag out physical fiber to holmes

if you can build transmitters with five G speeds. S Net got to try out Verizons five G wireless service and it topped out at three point seven seven gigabits per second. That's a whole lot of bandwidth, and I think that might be enough for Access to invest heavily in wireless. That's my prediction. I hope everybody listening has a great and crazy fast wireless Internet Access. I think i as is right on the money with this one.

We've seen Google put the brakes on laying out fiber infrastructure in the cities that hasn't already committed itself to fully. So you know, Google announced that they were going to lay down fiber in a lot of different cities, and some of them they either have completed their work or they're in the middle of it, Like here in Atlanta,

They're still laying down fiber. Those cities they're still committed to do it, but other cities where they experienced they expressed an interest, they are no longer going to forward with laying down fiber, and I suspect a big reason for this is that Google is looking at the economic and engineering factors of going with a wireless strategy versus going with a wired one, and they're leaning towards wireless

at this point. And not only that, but as I as is predicted in the past, I do think Google is seriously thinking about being a bigger player and wireless phone infrastructures. Google figh is kind of a first step into that world, but that involves partnering with existing cell phone carriers and piggybacking off their networks. It would not shock me to see Google jump into the game wholeheartedly. In and speaking of games, I think two thousands seventeen

is the make or break year for virtual reality. Consumer VR finally really got off the ground in with the launch of the Oculus Rift, the h d C five, and the ps VR, among others. Google's in the game

with Daydream. There are dozens of companies that sell headsets and apps promising to turn your smartphone into a VR HMD, but the fact remains that the gear is still in general heavy, clunky, it's not really comfortable to wear for really long play sessions, and it doesn't look like anyone has come out with a killer app or game to sell systems yet, So no one can point to a specific game and say you have to have VR because you have to play this thing, and it doesn't look

like anyone um is finding a way to bring that price tag down. If you're using a smartphone, then I guess the price tag isn't that bad because you're already probably already have the phone. But when you're looking at the headsets themselves, they're still pretty expensive, particularly for systems that rely upon a console or a bf PC to work, so that's a high barrier to entry. For example, if you don't already own a p S four, then you have to buy one of those to have the PSVR.

If you don't already own a powerful gaming computer, then you're gonna have to buy one of those in order to play with an Oculus Rift or an HDC five. This brings that price way up, and it means that fewer people can actually afford to get into this this world.

So if VR companies can make more comfortable gear, if they can offer it at a reasonable price, or at least not make it more expensive than it is right now, and if developers can create some really compelling experiences and aims, I think VR will make it through two thousand seventeen just fine. But if not, I fear we'll see VR

kind of take the same role as in Nintendo. We so we'll just become something that gathers dust until you have a group of friends or family over and then you, you know, dust it off and you show everybody how it works, and everyone's like, oh, that's amazing, that's that's phenomenal. And then you're done, and then you put it in the corner and then you don't touch it again until the next big gathering. That's what I'm worried VR will

turn into. And I think two thousand seventeen is the year where it either faces that future or it becomes the ubiquitous type of computing everyone wants to have in their home. It's one or the other. I don't think

you can just treadwater for another year. Now. One exception to that rule with VR is that I think you're going to see more uses of VR in attractions or experiences that you pay to have, like an amusement park or even the equip plent of a virtual reality arcade, if the cost of the hardware and the software is on a proprietor, and then you pay the proprietor to have access to it, so that way you can have the experience, but you don't have to pay to have

the whole UH technology in your own home taking up space. I think people would be willing to do it if the experiences are good enough, So I suspect we'll CVR incorporated into more amusement park rides and related entertainment purposes. It's possible that even where that's where VR will live, they will just live in the entertainment world where you pay to have access to it, but you don't go out and buy one of these systems for home use,

kind of like roller coasters. You go and you pay to get into a park to ride a roller coaster, but you don't pay to have a roller coaster bill at your house unless you get a whole lot of land and an engineering buddy. And if you do, I want to ride on your roller coaster. Meanwhile, another a friend of mine has a prediction about where the world of cable television is headed. Hello, I'm Tom Merritt, host of daily tech news show and Chord Killers. So I'm

gonna make my prediction actually about cord cutting. In the next year, we're going to see launches of what they call over the top services TV services that are delivered over the Internet, from Hulu, from Google through YouTube. We will probably see direct tv now underway, in addition to PlayStation View and Sling TV. And there's some rumors out there that other folks may be getting into the market

as well. So my prediction for the United States television market is that by the end of the combined number of subscribers for these new over the top services so View, Hulu, YouTube, direct TV Now, Sling will be the number three if you if you, if you combine them will be the number three. Large are just cable company in the United States, so that would put them after Comcast and what is being called Spectrum now, the new combination of Charter and Time Warner. I think it will put it in front

of cable vision. That you know, if I wanted to be safe, I'd put it behind cable Vision. But I'm gonna go out on a limb and I'm going to say that the combination of people getting their live television service, their channel television service over the Internet will make it. The combined will be the number three cable company, if you were to call it a cable company in the

United States of America. And uh, we will start to see more of the traditional cable companies offering services or at least talking about offering services outside of their normal markets. That that's kind of a corollary to this. We'll start to see Comcast saying, hey, we haven't over the top service of our own, which they already do right now. They only offer it to their existing Comcast subscribers. They'll start offering in places that aren't Time Warner territory the

Comcast doesn't operate in anyway. That's my prediction, Jonathan, Thanks for inviting me on if you'd like to find out more about cord cutting, of course, courd killers dot com or Daily Tech News Show. Thanks again, Happy New Year.

I can't argue with Tom's logic. Over the top or o t T services are growing more popular every year plus, we're seeing more televisions and entertainment system components that incorporate O T T services into the hardware themselves, making it easier than ever to get content without actually subscribing to cable.

In two thousand sixteen, we saw some cable companies kind of make a bit of a rally against declining subscriber numbers, which suggests that we may have leveled off of the number of people who are just jumping ship and cutting the court entirely. So maybe we won't see even smaller numbers of subscribers in the future, but rather a growing number of people with O T T services, many of whom may also be cable subscribers in addition to having

the O T T services. I've got a lot more predictions ahead, but first, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, now that we're back, let's talk about those personal digital assistance that we have out there. I'm not talking about p d as in the old fashioned sense, but rather the stuff like Sirie Cortana, Alexa, Google's assistant who I guess doesn't merit an actual name.

For a while, those have served primarily as a user interface and by that I mean that the early implementations have mostly been used as a replacement for like a touch screen or keyboard and mouse. They weren't really living up to their full potential. It was just a different way to access your devices and to make them do stuff. But beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot of power to them. As time has gone on, that has changed.

Developers have created more skills for a for example, or apps for other services, and we started to see a little bit more functionality in two thousand and sixteen. For one thing, the companies behind those services are starting to collect a lot of data to work with and to

see how people are using their services. And by looking at that data, they can make changes to those services, make them work better, make them do more things, and we'll likely see those services take a more proactive approach where it starts to anticipate our needs as we move

through our routines. So, in other words, if you do the same thing every work day or school day, if you have the same kind of routine set up, and the systems in your house start to learn what your routines are, they can start to prepare things in advance of your routine to make it more smooth. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking about. By the end of two thousand seventeen, I expect to see an enormous increase in the number of Internet of Things devices that can

interoperate with these digital assistants. So we've already seen Amazon be very aggressive in this space. Amazon works very hard to try and get partnerships with various Internet of things companies so that Alexa can also interact with things like lighting systems, thermostats, that kind of stuff, electronic locks, cameras, everything you can think of, the same thing for Google Home. I think we're going to continue to see that grow in ten to a huge extent. Now that actually ties

into another prediction a different friend of mine made. I'm talking about my buddy, Shannon Morse, who was a podcaster, hacker, and wearer of many hats, both literally and figuratively. Shannon made two predictions for me this year, and this is actually her second prediction, but I'm gonna play it first. I'll play the first one later in the show, but it fits better in a different discussion. So for now, here's what Shannon has to say about the Internet of

Things in for my second prediction. I believe if that Mirai, which was a really big bot net this year that was able to attack Internet of things devices such as security cameras and the like, UH will create critical changes for the Internet of things manufacturers and is going to

spot spur more security focus from consumers on IoT devices. So, for example, I believe that consumers are going to be a lot more aware of what kind of security their IoT devices have on them before they actually buy them, and I hope that they will start asking the correct questions to figure out that security. I also predict that we are going to see a more consumer focused software

program made to detect IoT vulnerabilities and help you patch them. Currently, there is nothing that I know of, at least that allows consumers to really easily check their IoT devices for any kind of vulnerabilities. Yes, we do have things like malware um detection and antavirus for computers, but we don't have anything like that for OOT devices, for open ports

and like. So I would love to see somebody create, for example, and open source software that can be audited that would allow consumers to quickly check their devices, quickly check their ports to make sure everything is safe on their routers. And given the high concerns that we've had with mere I bought net this past year, I can see that as a quite a high possibility for now. Like I said earlier, I'm recording this episode in December

twenty one, two thousand and sixteen. I can tell you right now that Shannon is on target with this particular prediction. The Internet of things is a big focus of the upcoming ce SEEN trade show. Again, that's that big electronics conference that will be going to in Las Vegas. One of the categories of products that I'm seeing concentrates specifically on IoT device security IoT stands for Internet of Things.

Just in case I didn't explain that a few different companies are offering up smart home hubs to add in kind of a layer of protection between the gadgets in your home and the big bad world of people who want to exploit your devices. So, if you recall in my review episodes of twenty sixteen, I talked about several examples of hackers using unsecured devices to attack targets like web servers or even the heating system of some apartment

buildings in Europe. So if nothing else, we're going to see a strong push from the electronics industry and various agencies within it to employ new strategies to protect COOT devices and the people who use them. So I agree

entirely with Shannon's prediction. In fact, I think security tech alone will see enormous growth in tween we saw so many accounts of de dos attacks and worse stuff like intrusions into what should have been a secure system that I suspect the security industry will have the biggest year ever in twenty seventeen. All of that won't really matter much if people don't learn to practice healthy security, though, as we see numerous times, people tend to be the

weakest link in secure systems. There's no need to brute force an attack into a computer system if you can convince someone to give you access to it. Switching gears over to hardware for a second, I predict that we'll see a hardware kind of development level off a little bit. I don't think we're gonna see as fast progression in hardware capabilities as we have in previous years, or at least not an increase in power at the at that

same rate. So in other words, yes, once again, I'm going to predict that Moore's law will become less of a factor. I think most companies are now concentrating on ways to make more efficient use of their components in their microprocessors, rather than dedicate themselves to perpetuating an observation that was made half a century ago. As a result, I think we're gonna see focus placed on developing software

rather than pushing hardware. Even if hardware companies try to break new barriers, I think most spending will be on the software end of things. This is particularly true as more companies embraced cloud based services in favor of native applications on corporate computers. I also suspect we'll see at least one major issue with a cloud based service, perhaps even a catastrophic one, before the end of SEEN, and that might shake things up for the second half of

the year. It could cause big companies to reassess the strategy of offloading everything to the cloud. If a cloud service suffers a terrible failure at some point in SEEN, then you're gonna have companies saying, well, maybe we shouldn't

put all of our eggs into the online basket. Maybe we should have localized backups, localized instances of our data and a lot of companies still do that, but we've been seeing more and more kind of adopt the cloud approach over the years because there's a lot of savings involved. You don't have to have the physical space to hold all the equipment, you don't have to have as many people you're paying for a service in that sense, But if one of those services fails, it could be huge news.

And now I'd like to play another prediction, and this one comes to us from my buddy Jason Howell over at this Weekend Tech. Hey, Jonathan, this is Jason Howell Tech News Today for Twitter dot TV. You're no stranger to the show. We've had you on many times, but

thanks for asking for my prediction. For I'm thinking that maybe throughout the course of the year, maybe there's a little bit of a resistance, a pushback on things like social media, things like over sharing everybody's details to technology companies. We've gotten to the point to where we've really started to give so much of our identities of our lives

in exchange for conveniences. And I think what we're starting to realize is and and many people have realized this for a long time, but uh and warned against it, But is that as we give away all that information, it's really hard to take it back, and there's the potential there's a lot of potential for abuse, be it weaponized information, be it hacking and security, be it just

reliance on things. You know, people are worried of the thought of, like leaving Facebook, even though they don't like it, because that's how I keep in touch with people. Is it healthy to make one single, you know, service like Facebook or other social networks the one way that you get all of your information that you stay in touch with people. There's there's potential for abuse there, and I think we're starting to realize, uh, you know, starting to

react to that a little bit. I'm wondering if there is a little bit of a pull back, a pull away from over sharing, where people kind of start to take their digital lives back into their own hands, and uh, I don't know, just realize that there there are alternatives that they don't have to feel beholden to these companies who are really just you know, doing all of this in the best interests of themselves and their shareholders, not

necessarily for the users. I know, maybe that's a pipe dream something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I'm kind of hoping that going into twenty seventeen people think about that too. Anyways, thanks for asking me to do this. There's a lot of fun. I'm really hoping for a fantastic seventeen, but that is that happy new year, you know. I'd like to think we'll see behavior kind

of like what Jason predicts, but I'm not sure. I definitely saw a lot of people become disenchanted with social media over this past year, particularly after events like the Brexit vote in the UK and the elections here in the United States. But that's purely anecdotal and based upon my particular group of friends, and just because several people I know decided that they wanted to take a bit of a social media sabbatical doesn't mean it's an overall trend.

But it's also possible that it is a trend, and the people I see in my group are just part of a smaller part of a much larger movement. Now, whether that prediction is true or not, I do hope that in tween people give more thought to what they're participation on social media really means. And I know you guys know this because you've been listening to tech stuff,

your tech savvy folks. But it means that when you participate in social media, you give up some, sometimes a lot, of your privacy and security in return for the rewards you get with social media. That that level of connection, that immediacy of communication, those come into price, and those companies like Facebook and Twitter, they all profit off of our participation in these systems, Like we're the ones that make it valuable. It's not that Facebook is valuable because

of all of its features. Facebook is valuable because there's so many of us on Facebook. We're the part of those platforms that make those companies money. And if that's all okay with you, well that's totally cool. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. If you are aware of it and you're okay with it, that's fine. But if you're not okay with it, then you should ask yourself hard questions about using social media. Now. Personally, I'm going

to continue to use social media. Even if it were not part of my job, I would still use it. I don't have a whole lot of time that I can spend with my friends in real life, so social media remains one of the easiest ways for me to stay up to date with what my friends are doing and understand what's going on. Also, I can organize events really easily with stuff like Facebook. But then if everyone else leaves, it's gonna get awful lonely in there for me.

So I won't obviously won't be nearly as useful if everyone else does. So. Will we see people pull back from social media? Um? Some Sure. I think we will see some people pulled back from social media in I just don't know that it's going to be a large enough number for the majority to notice. But maybe Jason's right. I mean, I don't know. I feel like something is going to change. At least awareness is going to change. Now.

That brings me to a related prediction that I have, which is that Twitter is going to have a very rough In fact, I worry that if no one steps up to acquire Twitter with a serious bid, we could

see the service completely die. That's hard to imagine considering how many people use Twitter as a way to follow people and brands they like, or sometimes the people and brands they don't like it depending upon their inclinations, or the fact that celebrities, politicians, and brands use Twitter to reach out directly to an audience, but unless the company can make some positive changes soon, it may not be around. At the end of complicating that matter is the ongoing

issue of harassment on Twitter. The company has struggled to create and enforce a policy that satisfies users, and some people continue to be the targets of online harassment. Now that's not helping matters. And all that being said, I think it's most likely that someone will buy Twitter before the end of seventeen, but I bet they're going to buy it for way less than what Twitter was hoping for, so significantly less. Like essentially, if Twitter doesn't sell, then

it's not going to be around. Uh that's my prediction for seventeen with Twitter. On a related note, I suspect we'll see a renewed attempt to curtail fake news from spreading online. Personally, I think that's nearly impossible if you go back to the eighteenth century. In seventeen ten, Jonathan Swift, another brilliant Jonathan, there's been so many of us wrote,

falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it. The same thing is true now, more true than ever now falsehood flies across the Internet very very quickly, the truth stumbling along behind. And you know, Jonathan Swift made this observation all the way back in seventeen, you know, back when the Internet was super slow because it hadn't been invented yet. But Google and Facebook both have recently pledged to identify and limit the impact of fake news sites

to prevent misinformation from spreading so quickly. And here's my prediction. If they do a good job of identifying these sites, those sites will quickly die off because those sites only exist because people are clicking on those links. When people click on the links, they drive up the page views on those pages. Those page views are linked to ads running on those pages, which means the pages start to earn money. They earn ad money for the number of

impressions they get. The more impressions or views they get, the more money the sites get. So if Google or Facebook refuses to sell ads against those pages, or they adjust their algorithms to completely exclude those pages from their services, it won't be profitable to operate those sites, and the

people writing for those sites will go and do something else. Now, some of those people might truly believe in whatever message they're sending out even if they're sending out fake news, they may really believe in the point of view that they are stating, but many of them, perhaps even most, are just doing it as a way to make money. They're not It's not that they particularly hold the viewpoints that they espouse in there in their episodes or in

their in their sites. They're just writing what they think people will click on, which is pretty darn cynical. But then I'm doing a job I love, and so I'm in a position of luxury when it comes to that sort of thing. I'd like to think that if I didn't have this job, I would not be writing fake news. But since I'm not in that position, it's kind of hard to say for sure. Maybe i'd be a a fake newsmonger. Who's to say, Well, I've got a few more action But before I get into those, let's take

another quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, we're in the homes trench, so how about some doom and gloom. So we're gonna see a lot more automation in jobs in several industries. In some examples may just be kind of test cases, you know, not like a widespread rollout of technology, but more prototypes to see how it goes. Things like fast food restaurants moving into more automated systems, or delivery services relying on more automation like self driving

vehicles or other shipping methods. Now that's going to prompt more discussions about how automation will affect the workforce as a whole, and how to prepare people for the jobs of tomorrow. As more of today's jobs become automated, I suspect we'll also see more people advocate for a universal basic income concept, though I cannot imagine the upcoming US administration to be at all interested in that. We might

see examples of it in other countries outside the United States. However, something else we might see is an increase in electronics prices because I suspect trade relations between the US and China could get a little prickly. President elect Donald Trump has been really critical of China and has talked about imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, so we may see some fallout in the consumer market as a result of all this.

Now it's still early, so this could all change. But my bed is that we'll see trade strained in between China and the US, and stuff is going to cost more than it has for the past few years. On a related note, some analysts are saying that it's getting more expensive for companies to operate in China, so it's actually possible that we might see some of the manufacturing companies move out of China entirely and into a friend

country like Vietnam or the Philippines. Now back in the States, we have another concern that's also politically related, and that concern is net neutrality. So to talk about net neutrality, here's Shannon Morse again with her other prediction, which technically was her first prediction, but I saved it until now prediction number one. I believe that we are going to start seeing some large hits to security and privacy, starting

with net neutrality in bulk data collection for example. Just recently, just last week, net neutrality came under fire due to an FCC commissioner wanting to remove some of the regulations that it creates under the new newly led government that was recently elected in I suspect that other privacy regulations such as the us A Freedom Act, which did a weigh with a lot of the bulk data collection that the government was allowed to do from the Patriot Act

will also be stripped away to allow for more of a surveillance state kind of United States due to fears of terrorism. Now, while I do know that this prediction is kind of negative, it is something that I'm very keenly aware of due to the fact that I'm currently

studying privacy and security regulations for my own podcast. So it's something that I've seen as a growing concern in the last half often and something that will continue to be a concern in I think net neutrality is going to suffer a huge setback in Net neutrality covers a lot of territory, but one thing in particular I'd like to address is the issue around Internet service providers, as common carriers will likely see that decision reversed in twenty seventeen,

giving I s p s more freedom to operate the way they had been before the FCC reclassified them. And since many I s p s are also content providers, we could see fragmentation of the Internet experience as companies give their own content preferential treatment over competitors content. So, in other words, if you if you own the pipes, but you also own the stuff that's in the pipes, or at least some of the stuff that's in the pipes. Maybe you give the stuff you own more speed than

you do other people's stuff. You don't own that stuff, so but you own the pipes. So you're gonna make sure that your stuff goes through fine, and everyone else's stuff can move as at whatever speed you feel is necessary. That's the concern. Um here's an example. If you have Comcast as an Internet service provider, you might notice in this world, this hypothetical world, I should add that Comcast

content pops right up on your connected devices. So anything you have connected through your home that you're accessing that's a Comcast service, you get it immediately. It's perfect, no weight, great, great experience. But stuff like Netflix, which isn't owned by Comcast, doesn't have that smooth experience. Meanwhile, someone who's using a T and T S service has a different experience than you do. Comcast stuff doesn't come through on a T

and T S service. Instead, some native A T and T content comes through easily, but other stuff it's really slow. Discouraging people from using that other stuff and encouraging them to use the I, S P S own content. See, that's the kind of stuff that could happen if we see net neutrality dismissed. We could even get to a point where companies just say, you know what, I'm not going to allow that content across my network period. That's

a possibility. It's not necessarily likely, but it is possible, and there are a lot of other implications as well beyond this. Now, it's not necessarily true that all I s p s will immediately resort to strategies that fragment the Internet experience. You could see companies to used to remain fair with all content as a means of being competitive.

In other words, they're not gonna sit there and act against somebody else because the customers would say, well, I don't want to get my Internet service from Company A because they're doing this jerk face move. I'll go with company B. But that assumes that consumers have access to multiple I s P options, which isn't exactly the case necessarily. In the United States. For example, where I live, there's only one I s P that delivers speeds greater than

ten megabits per second. So there's one that delivers at a hundred megabits per second, and then all the others are at ten megabits per second or slower. Because of that, there's no incentive for the I s P I use to cater to customers because it's already got an enormous competitive advantage over all of the other I s p s. It's already ten time is faster than the other I

s p s in my area. So if it's already ten times faster, why do they need to bend over backwards to make sure that they're being fair to me? They don't. There's no incentive there. I don't have any real option. If I leave that I s P, I have to go with somebody who is one tenth less speed, which is not terribly attractive to me. And without those regulations of net neutrality, I don't have any protection that my I s P won't go off and do something that is puts me on a disadvantage. It's not great,

not great for me. It's fantastic for the companies, but for the consumers not so much. Now, I don't want to end this show on a downer note. So here's a positive prediction for I think in we're gonna see some real movement in the renewable energy market, both from big companies and from consumers. Google will be purchasing enough electricity from renewable sources to power all of its offices and data centers in just with renewable energy. I mean,

that's amazing. Google consumes a huge amount of electricity, so to purchase all of that from renewable sources is fantastic. Meanwhile, Tesla and Solar City will be merged at some point in seventeen. The merger has already started, and they will offer people the chance to switch to solar power and get off the grid, depending upon where you live and how much money you have, because it is not cheap to switch to solar power. Over the long run, you

might save money, but it's a big initial investment. But if you're able to do that, then you would be able to get off the grid and generate electricity through a renewable source. I think we're gonna see a lot more of that in tween. However, it's all so possible that we'll see fewer tax incentives and programs that make it easier to switch, like to create a financial incentive to switch. We might see fewer of those um and

that might slow down adoption quite a bit. But I still have high hopes that by the end of Seen, we'll see a big push for environmentally friendly power sources in lots of new places, both in big companies and in consumer homes. And that's it for my predictions for I want to thank I as Actar, tom Merritt, Jason Howell, and Shannon Morrise for their contributions to this show. I As works for c Net. He is at I As

I Y A Z on Twitter. Tom Merritt hosts the Daily Tech News show and another show called Cord Killers. He is at ACE Detect on Twitter. That's a C E D T E C T and uh. Jason Howell is a host of Tech News Today over at Twitter This Week in Tech and is at Jason Howell on Twitter. And Shannon Morrise is a host on Hack five That's j K five and tons of other shows. You can find her on Twitter at at s n U B S snubs And thank you for listening to tech stuff

for another year. I got a lot of plans for but I always want to hear from you guys too. If there's a subject you'd like me to cover, or someone I should interview on the show or have as a guest co host. Please let me know. The email address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com, or send me a message on Facebook or Twitter. I use tech Stuff H s W for both. Hopefully the next time you hear me, I will not have a cold, because I know you're all wondering why a sound weird

or weirder than usual. And I will talk to you again really soon. Happy New Year. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com m