TechStuff Predicts 2014

a couple of different things. Instead of our usual approach where we just alternate back and forth, but we've actually kind of divided up our predictions into different categories. We talked about them beforehand a little bit enough to see where we had overlap and just to organize this so that it doesn't end up being, oh, you know, when you made that prediction about such and such, I've got

a prediction. You know, we wanted it to be nice and clean and also keeping line that we are recording this particular episode on December twelve, two thirteen, so we're coming to you from the past, Yes, from the incredible past. There is a possibility example, an asteroid in the latter half of December fell on Facebook, Facebook headquarters then and we make a prediction about Facebook that obviously could not come true because of those facts. Uh, that's why it

hasn't happened to us yet. Yes, the same sort of thing, like there's um specifically, there's a bit about Microsoft and it's CEO, which that answered that question. May be resolved before we go into the new year. It would surprise me, but it might not, like it won't. But um, so my first prediction is about Facebook. What Okay, so what is your prediction. My prediction is that is that will be the year that Facebook goes into serious decline. Wow.

That's that's big. That's a big prediction. I I know that it's the ruler. It is a bold prediction, um. And I know that it is very much right now the ruler of the social media platform roost um as of this podcast. As of September anyway, Um, they had seven seven million daily active users on average and uh one point one nine billion monthly active users. And okay, so that's a bunch of people, y'all. I understand that. UM. But you know, and I'm not saying that there's going

to be a mass exodus. I'm not going to say that like, by the end there'll be three people on Facebook and one of the will be your mom. Right. But um, you know, I think that I think the people are going to stay on Facebook as a personal identifier, Like I think that right now, it is really the social network that is used by I mean, obviously is used by most human people as a kind of base present. But um, but I think that people are going to

start moving to other platforms, uh Tumbler, Twitter, I'm not sure. Um, but you know, even even Facebook themselves. During a third to earnings call, chief financial officer David A. Ebersman acknowledged that Facebook had been seeing a decrease in daily users, and especially Americans around the thirteen to fourteen years of

age kind of brains. So it may be that we're talking about a shift because as the demographic gets older, you don't see an influx of new users, and the people who start to go away aren't being replaced by by new folks, right right, And you know, like people aren't deleting accounts yet, but they are checking the site less often. And meanwhile, Twitter's audience is starting to skew younger than the rest of the entire Internet. And see you know, there's certain things I think that really feed

into this. I mean, there there there's more and more information that comes out that makes it plain to the average user what Facebook, you know, why? Why how Facebook makes their money? I mean, the fact is that the users are actually the product, right, That's what Facebook is selling and serving advertising to to those users. And how it does. Yeah, and they you know, doing things like having AutoPlay videos happen in the news feed, including possibly

AutoPlay ads. That's not necessarily a feature that a lot of users are going to like. And then you know, on the on the corporate side, anyone who's or just on the organizational side, anyone who has a Facebook page as and not not their own personal page, but a page for something a brand or a band or whatever. Um, they are discovering this getting harder and harder to hit

their reach. Like they might have thousands of fans who are following them, but when they post a tiny percentage of those people are seeing whatever those posts are, uns they pay money to pay it out to more to more users. Yeah and um, and all of this I think is making making Facebook seem more more corporate and less like a like an innovative play space to those

really critical younger users. Right, So unless something major changes that you see Facebook having at least uh a market decline, some thing that we could look at and say, all right, here, here are some quantifiable numbers that show that it's it's didn't have a great year. I think it's going to have a poor year. I I do not. I cannot in good conscience predicted that, um that either Tumbler or Twitter or snapchatter, etcetera going to overtake Facebook in terms

of user numbers. But um, but I think that any any one at least some probably Twitter, okay probably Twitter will will seem more daily action than Facebook will. Gotcha. Well, along those same story of lines, my social media prediction is that we're going to see more of the types of social media platforms that allow you to post things for just a specific amount of time and then after that time it's gone. So Snapchat mission impossible. Message that Yeah,

within thirty seconds of message self destructs. Yeah, because Snapchat. I don't know if you've ever seen it or used it. I actually haven't, which means that I'm really old and uncool. Right. It all depends on the kind of friends you have. But what's your experience of Snapchat is going to be.

But the idea being that you know, you can take a picture and share it with your group of friends on Snapchat, and it only exists for a set number of seconds, and you can determine how long it exists, and after that it deletes itself and the person cannot

go and look at it again. And uh So in that case, it may be that we're going to see more and more of these sorts of social media um platforms, partly, I think because we've got some people who are starting to finally care about privacy, especially in light of things like the n Essay story from those fifteen, which I

know is going to keep on going. So I predict that by the end often we're going to see other several other social media platforms that have the sort of temporary presence where you can post something and then not worry about it haunting you later because it's gonna go away um And so we should have a few of

those by the end of twenty four. Team And in defense of this, one of one of the news items that has happened over the past couple of months, I'm only white who was the former um, Facebook director of Business Operations with with Instagram. UM Instagram within Facebook, UM left to become the CEO of Snapchat Snapchat, so that you know, as as of the last round of investment, they had raised some like seventy million dollars. And yeah,

so there's definitely interest there. And Snapchat skews younger, right, so uh in the same sort of thing, like I think Instagram is another one of those things that had you know, it's skewed younger too, and then Facebook was like, all right, let's let's move in on that. And then people are like, oh, you got Facebook on my Instagram. Yeah, all right, so let's move on. We have a different

category you want to talk about now, hardware. Yeah. I have a prediction that UM that devices that the rule of device sales in is going to be price over quality. So something that's less expensive is going to be more popular than something that is by some measure made better, right and UM. And furthermore that UM that that in this trend, Apple is going to lose market share to to Android. UM. And you know, I mean, okay, so so I think that I think the mobile devices are

going to be really big. That's not really a prediction as much as like duh um, because everyone wants it portable and plans are still expensive. And so I think that that the entry price of the device itself is really going to be become the divider among the winners and losers here UM, and that you know, the push is going to be for creators to to be streamlining their components UM rather than really innovating new technology, and

and that that kind of sucks for everyone. However, I do think it's going to be awesome for software because more people are going to need to be creating, UM, creating programs that make more efficient use of what they have to work with. And you know, if you if you look at what how Apple has behaved in the last quarter of that's not a big you know, that's

not a big jump from that. You know, you had Apple for the first time offering a lower cost version of the iPhone at the same time as an updated version, you know, out of the gate, not not discounting an older model, but rather coming out with a new lower price model. UM. So you know, it may very well

be that they're they're seeing something similar in the future. Yeah, yeah, I think that they think that they got scared this year, they um you know, they dropped from almost of the market share in late back down to um more like which was their end of year numbers, and so that's you know, yeah, so they're they're kind of hovering around the same spot and occasionally seeing a little boost every

now and then. So my prediction was that, you know, I bet I'm going to see a whole bunch of smart TVs at c e S when you guys who are listening to this, I'll be at c e S next week and um from when we're recording this, it will be several weeks either way. My feet are all

a hurting in anticipation. But at any rate, uh, smart TVs or something, I expect I'll see a lot of We've already seen examples of the plenty of them in the past, but we're gonna see it more and more of those where the smart television stuff is incorporated directly into the TVs. I still don't think it's going to really take off, partly because you know, there's not like

a unified experience out there. Obviously, any particular vendor is going to have their own kind of application software, their own user interface, and that's going to cause things to slow down. It's not gonna be a fast adoption. I just don't think, I mean, unless someone has come up with a truly innovative approach, I don't think it's going to be enough to start selling lots of TV sets. I think that things like consoles are going to hold

that still. You know Xbox one for example. Yeah, yeah, there's way too many smart boxes or or media consoles that can do this kind of thing. And TVs are such a big purchase um for for for most people to to make right now, you know, the same way that I think that price is going to drive uh mobile cells. Yeah, sales, it's going to be kind of

the same thing. But I'm wondering if such a big ticket unitasker is ever going to take off honestly, unless companies stop making non smart TVs, right if if Yeah, that would be one way forcing everyone to move to it. Another way is if you open up your your user interface enough so that lots of different types of devices can interact with it. Because when you restrict it, you know, you forced someone to go into one ecosystem. That's not

great for the consumer. So my prediction ultimately is that by the end of the year, smart TVs on the consumer market will not be a huge deal. Like, it won't be It won't be an industry that takes off like tablets did. Um, and I think it's if they are going to take off, it won't be okay. Uh. My next hardware related uh prediction is that and and actually this is one that both of us had really had to be to be entirely fair, um, is that

fitness trackers are going to really take off. I mean not that they not that they have not taken off already, but that, um, that the kind of people who are not the early adopters of technology, like like like your grandma is going to have one of these. Yeah, the proliferation of these is going to be insane in fourteen is essentially what the prediction is. I agree with that.

I actually went further and saying that it would be wearable computing in general, although I think out of the entire wearable computing industry, the fitness trackers are going to

be the one that take the lead. They They've to me, the fitness trackers have done this better than the other types of wearable computing, and by that I mean specifically smart watches, I mean, and also, fitness trackers have the benefit of UM of being able to specialize, whereas I think that smart watches are trying to do a lot of things, especially for the processor size that they have

to work with UM. And and also I mean, you know you can with with a with a fitness tracker, you can really get get it down to to a size that it can wear and look like jewelry, which is what more people out there. I mean, I mean, as much as I do love the the kind of quirky eighties design aesthetic of the pebble, that's not something that everybody wants to wear. It's not the sleekest of profiles.

So yeah, I understand, I agree, And so I think I think we are going to see a big jump I think wearable computers, whereas I think smart TVs are not going to be the tablet of I think wearable computers are going to be the tablet often. I'm hoping that someone is able to make a smart watch that really resonates with the general market and not just you know, geeky tech guys like me. I would love to see

that happen. I don't know if it's going to happen, But I am pretty confident that wearable computers in general are gonna be crazy popular. Yeah, and I don't think it's um. Tim Bahran for PC mag was predicting that smart watches are going to die in and I think that that's way overly pessimistic. Yeah, I mean, I understand where that comes from, in the sense that a lot of the smart watches that have come out so far

just haven't really captured imagination. But every time, you know, I mean, I've still seen ads where they have the Dick Tracy wrist watch in the ad, and I'm thinking, like, this is an idea that isn't gonna die. As soon as someone figures out how to really tap into it, that market takes off. It's just that I don't think anyone's created the implementation where everybody wants one. We haven't

found the iPhone right exactly, That's exactly it. Um. So my next prediction is one that I had for twenty thirteen that I'm I'm centually saying dido on, which is, remember remember when I predicted that in NFC technology wasn't really going to go anywhere in the United States? Did over. I don't think it's gonna happen. Uh. The technology itself is fine, It's just that I don't think anyone is

ready to adopt it. It's not in enough handsets for it to be have a penetration level where vendors are going to spend the money to upgrade to get NFC technology into theirs. You know, you're gonna see it in places, but not it's not gonna be widespread. And Uh. Also, I think it's possible that we never see NFC takeoff in the United States and instead have to wait for some other technology that essentially does the similar thing but

through a different implementation. So in other words, like NFC is just one of those things that could have worked had we invested the money in it, but we just never did, and then eventually some other technology overtook it, and that's what we went with. That's what I'm not saying that we're going to get that technology inteen. I just don't see NFC going anywhere. Sure, no, I agree, and that is basically all that I have. You you

just said everything that I have to say about it. Um. So my next hardware prediction a lot of these are hardware, UM, is that the the PC is going to continue its decline. Um, you know, as as tablets get get cheaper and more capable, Um, the that that that drop off And by PC I mean PC and laptop this time. Actually, UM, it's just

just going to continue to decrease. You know, people are going to be holding on to to their heavy duty tech like that for longer in an attempt to save a little bit more money and turning to some of these incredibly cheap mobile devices in order to satisfy some

of their new gadget cravings. I completely agree. In fact, there's a little subnote in our notes where it's almost the same wording, where I'm like, yeah, PC sales are going to continue to decline in UH, that doesn't necessarily mean that every UH computer manufacturer is going to see a decline. It's possible that Apple might actually do fairly well.

And the reason why I say that is that, UH, if I'm in a position where I want to buy I'm going to invest in a new computer, then I'm probably going to try and go for something that's gonna that I perceived to be a truly a powerful, high quality computer. And whether whether you agree that Apple products are that high quality that's the public perception, right or

you know, at least something comparable. And I think that Apple is is a little bit more um user friendly than like, I don't know, like like alien ware or something like. Well, I certainly have like that aesthetic is really appealing. It's it's impossible to deny how appealing that their design aesthetic, as Johnny ives is a genius and so um, you know, and and again like guys, I'm

not an Apple fanboy. So before all the people out there who want to call me an Apple fan boy right in remember this is the same guy who back in the day was lambasted on iTunes for having a quote anti mac bias. In the quote he still makes fun of me for having an iPhone. Sometimes I'm not fun of my wife too, so but but yeah, it's this. This is backed up by a little bit number. The I d C is predicting a six percent to climb in PC sales next year, which is better than this

year's ten percent to climb in piece of sales. So it's gonna be declining, but not as quickly. Yeah, so that's good news. Um, But they're also predicting the worldwide tablet sales will grow by eighteen percent, in smartphones by a twelve percent. Right. I don't think that two for one devices are going to save laptops either. There are several that we've seen in the past where it's a tablet that can convert to a laptop or vice versa.

I don't necessarily think that those are going to be a huge hit, mostly because their price point tends to be higher than what a tablet on its own would be. And going back to your price versus quality type argument, even if you were to demonstrably prove that the two and one is a better quality machine, I think a lot of people will be like, yeah, I just don't need,

don't care. Yeah. Um and and actually this this wasn't recorded in the notes that we shared earlier, but if I can make a very bold related prediction to all of this, um, I think that Windows is going to get shunted out of the tablet market. I cannot imagine what they could possibly do to attract enough developers. Yeah, I mean, at this point, they would have to have a lot of other manufacturers buy into the Windows eight

operating system. Because the surface just hasn't done it. The surface has not really performed very well in the market compared to other tablets. And it's not that, you know, the surface is a bad product, it just hasn't caught on. Yeah. Uh you know, I think the Windows eight is part of that problem. But I'll talk more about that in a minute. So going on to another where this might sound a little weird for it to be a hardware thing, but it kind of fits in. We didn't have a

category that fit in better, so we put it in here. Uh. I said that we're going to see a lot more autonomous car technology incorporated into the models of cars that are coming out this year. We're gonna see a lot more of that, things like collision detection, parking assistance, that sort of stuff, lane assistance, but we will not see a fully autonomous car on the consumer market. Absolutely not.

Now I completely agree with this one. Everyone's talking like ten years for a completely autonomous car and um and you know, even though we've already got cool stuff like like Mercedes has a steering assist which uses a radar to detect the speed of traffic around you, and stereoscopic cameras mounted in front of the windshields were mirror that monitor your position within a lane. Um, and and we'll kind of beep angrily at you if you if you

move out of it. I mean that that kind of stuff is is amazing and really cool and helps with with safety standards and all of that is beautiful. But and I do think that that kind of like you were saying, yeah, line is going to see incorporation of a lot more of those kind of things, and a

lot more less than Mercedes Class kind of sure. Yeah, I mean, like you know, Toyota was working on all this stuff where it be a collision detection for pedestrians, like what the pedestrian is crossing the street that the car itself could detect and even slam on the brakes without you having having even noticed yet. So that sort

of thing. I can see that kind of stuff being incorporated. Again, not fully autonomous car, but a lot of these these various pieces that are necessary for an autonomous car to work will be incorporated into more and more cars. Um Our next note is gaming hardware, um the PS four

versus the Xbox One. And I'm sorry, we you you're just not even in this equation right now, um, But you know, it's it's really hard to make a prediction on this one because Microsoft is being squirrely about their numbers as of this recording, and there aren't a lot of compelling games for either cons all right now, so far the sales seem about equivalent. Um. But but I'm going to go ahead and predict that I think that Xbox, with its kind of family media center, uh, is going

to wind up being the winner of this game. It's it's interesting because this is a strategy we've seen incorporated over and over, and it might be that we're finally at the point where it will work. Because if you remember, all the way back in the three d O days, I mean we're telling the nineties, we had companies coming out with gaming consoles that were meant to be the entertainment center, but they were so expensive and so I

mean just poorly executed. Yeah, they were mishandled on multiple ends. They were badly marketed. They had some terrible games with lots of full motion video and them for no reason. Um. But anyway, and we might finally be at the point where all of that doesn't matter and and this could actually take off. I you know, I don't know. I'm wondering. I think personally, if I'm going to make a prediction.

I'll say that by the end of fourteen, uh, the PS four and Xbox one will be more or less on equal footing, assuming that they get the titles that they want to get. I assume they're going to be more or less in equal footing. Um, and that to see a true leader in that space is going to probably require more like three or four years. Wow. Yeah, no, that's that's fair. I mean, and I do think that the PS four is going to be more successful with gamers because from what I've heard so far, it seems

like they've got a much better developer lineup. Oh yeah, they cater to gamers, and they also cater to independent developers, yeah, which which I think is is going to really help them out. And I mean, I mean help them make a name for themselves within the rest of the independent console sector and and and hopefully I mean for them from the point of of of Sony beat out some

of those smaller right. They also finally made a controller that doesn't make my hands cry after five minutes of playing the you know, The Last of Us or something crazy. Thank goodness, thank you Sony for finally coming out with a dual shock that I can play alright, so, um, let's see my My last one in our hardware category is that I think we're going to see a lot of low energy Bluetooth beacon type technology. Now, this is a specific type of Bluetooth that requires very little power

to operate. Uh And if you were to create a whole, uh say, network of these beacons in a small area, you could broadcast information across that entire area, but you're not consuming a lot of power to do so. Yeah. Yeah, you can put these things out of strategic locations around, um, a shopping center or a sports arena or so. Let's say that you are you are at some event and

it's an event. It's almost like a second screen experience, right, like the idea of being home watching a television show and having a laptop open so you can find out what else that guy has been in because you recognize that guy, but you don't know what that guy's name is. Do I do that with everything I watch? Me too? Everyone? Does you think you're unique? No? We all do that. Stop kidding yourself anyway. Um, yeah, they the idea here,

well one idea, one implementation, it's just one. Is that you could put this and say like a sporting arena, and when there's a sports event, of which I am told there are many and some of them are popular, uh, and you are are made of some kind of leather. I'm pretty sure that you can hit a hail Mary pass in a basketball park. One of them is an

oblong spheroid. Yes, anyway, there. You know, if you're a sports fan or you know a sports fan, you probably know someone who has this kind of uh fandom where they love the statistics of the game. And so this could be something where you're at a sporting event, you opt in, you turn on your phone, you opt in into this network, and it feeds you real time information that pertains to the event you are at. So if you're at a football game and stuff is going on

on the field, you'll get updates about what's happening. You might even get updates to players statistics, which could be important if you're a fantasy football player. And it's kind of an interesting way of creating a more rich experience for real life locations. It kind of taps into the Internet of Things concept a little bit, but only in a It's it's really a one way communication from what I've seen, like it's broadcast out, not a communication two

way things. Yeah, I I've heard the example that in stores it could, um, it could push coupons to your phone for you or something like that. So yeah, if you if you're someone who's like this sounds awful, then I would suggest not installing any apps that would interface with that. Sounds completely awful to me. I I personally don't need my my smartphone to to have its battery drained by a little bluetooth pings by anything. And I need all the things, and I'm perfectly comfortable getting my

coupons from email like our ancestors intended. I tried to, but my wife hates it when I cut up our computer screens. All right, So that wraps up our our section on hardware. We've got some more predictions, but before we get into those, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, So now we're moving on to software, and my first prediction is that we are going to

see data collection um technology. You know, we've already seen it in those fitness trackers right where you get real time information about what your body is doing while you are exercising, like heart rate and how many calories it estimates that you're burning off. That kind of stuff. I see that extending to all sorts of different types of technology and in feeding the information back to us in easily digestible ways, whether it's in charts and graphs or

or some sort of running tally. And so we're gonna see more and more of our lives turn quantifiable. By that, I mean, you'll see it in things like car technology, where it will keep a track on your fuel consumption on your average drive. Things like that where you know you might notice like, huh, it's year because I drove to work, you know, four times this week, and one day I did a lot of you know, apparently I consumed a lot more gas than I would did on

the other days. What happened? That kind of thing. That's the sort of stuff I think we're going to see a lot more of where we're going to be able to analyze our lives on this sort of mathematical level. And uh, part of me thinks that's really cool, and part of me things like it sounds exhausting. No, that that sounds like exactly the kind of incredible future that I'm looking forward to. I I am a little bit pessimistic that that's going to be out for anything other

than like extreme early adopters. Yeah, I might not be. It might not be that we'll see a lot of adoption this year, but I think we're going to see a lot of examples. In fact that when I go to C E S, I would be shocked if I

don't see a lot of examples of this cool. UM. I think uh kind of relatedly to that, UM that that that our our transition to the cloud is nearly complete, and that um other service providers than Amazon are going to go really big, right, and this is this is part of that entire um you know, mobile device popularity thing that I think is is going to be happening.

You know, where we're going to be looking for for more software, more services, more software as a service, and um, more sinking tech and not caring as as much about about big device purchases and uh and and you know, therefore all of these kind of infrastructure systems are going to be growing up a lot more. Yeah. So here's

an example, a practical example that pertains to me. I use a password manager that I can install on multiple machines, and the passwords are you know, I've got this whole cloud based system where if I log into any one of those machines and then decide to change my password, I do it through the system. When I log onto my next machine, it will update, and then I'll have access to all those passwords, even though I changed it

on a completely different one. That's a simple example of something that you're talking about propagating across multiple industries, and we've already seeing examples of this too, things like you know, Google Drive is a great example of how it's not just cloud we're talking about as entire enterprises are moving to that. That's when we're talking about truly big data.

We're talking about massive amounts of information that's being generated and it has to live somewhere and be accessible and be understandable, right right, Yeah, the the I d C is predicting that the cloud is going to drive a hundred billion dollars worth of spending up over including the kind of hardware that cloud service providers are going to

need in order to keep up with this demand. Yeah. Now, one of my predictions is that because we're seeing big data gets so important, that there is an incredible job opportunity out there for people all right, So if if you're really good with numbers, and if you're really good at parsing information and understanding what's important when you're looking at huge sets of data, and you're also artistic and able to put that in a way that's visually accessible,

this is the year for you, my friend, because as data visualization is going to take off, when you're talking about data sets that are that large, it's really hard for the average person to get a grasp on what is going on. But if you're able to make like a simple series of charts or other graphics that explain the concept in a way that just latches onto a person's brain, then you are going to have no shortage

of clients in fourteen. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And and my my kind of related tag on prediction to that. This is again one of the ones that we both pretty much agreed on out of the gate, is that the big data is going to be named the sexiest tech of the year. Um and I have a snarky quote from Geeka System about this. They they they said the Harvard Business Review, a noted authority on things that are sexy, has declared data scientists to be the sexiest

career of the twenty one century. Um, but no, seriously, guys, I mean it's it's we we still haven't made really scalable, sellable ways to process all of the data that we are increasingly creating and collecting. And it's a lot, and it's it's gonna be it's gonna be hot. Yeah, I mean you're it's there's no way we could actually exaggerate how big it's gonna be, right, Um, no way at all,

not at all. I mean we could sit here for a billion years and say nothing but Big Dad is the most important thing that ever existed ever and even the Okay, maybe then we can take Big Dada all the way with the hyper Bowl. Now I'm gonna hiss exactly, I'm going to. I'm going to. However, I'm gonna take issue with one thing. Uh. I think if you're talking about Harvard, the sexiest thing out of Harvard is Harvard Lampoon.

So I'm just saying lampoon friends to the sexy. Alright, Okay, Um, I've got one more one more software note and I kind of sort of already made it a little bit. But um, I don't think that Windows eight is going to make it yet, Sad Trombone. Windows sevens share of the market as of right now is about of the top os. Um, it's still it's still on the rise. So what what's Windows XP? If I might be so bold, do you have that? I bet it's still pretty high. Um, but but Windows eight has leveled off as a Q

three and it's still under ten percent. And you know they've recently update the Windows eight point one, but it's still I mean, yeah, all right, well then let's move on to the next category. This one only has one entry. This is one that I came up with them and we just couldn't figure out where else to put it, so we called policy. Yeah. And also, I mean it's a big enough single entry that I think that that's

a fair point. Yeah. So I said that the United States government is forced to re examine the n S as policies. But even though they are forced to do it like that, you know, there are members of Congress who are very much adamant about let's let's bring this

to light and really talk about it. Yeah, because because some of our policymakers are just as freaked out as we are about all of this n S. A prism stuff, even keeping in mind that it looks like the majority of America still really don't either care or know about it. I don't know anyway, as though it's wildly complicated and severely misunderstood by the press themselves. Maybe so I think that the government is going to have to address this inteen in some way. However, I also think it's not

effectively going to change how things are actually happening. So even if the the outcome of this, you know, policy discussion ends up being, uh, you know, we've got to stop this, I don't think we're going to stop this. Yeah. Meanwhile, and relatedly, I do think that although there I agree with you that there's not gonna be any movement within

the US government on this kind of thing. I think that UM personal incorporate encryption industries are probably going to get a boost um all things D reported that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are already beefing up their efforts, and right I think I think that that's I think it's going to turn a large consumer trend towards being more cautious.

I think a lot of these larger companies too. You are also a big reason why we will see something happening in the US government because you've got them demanding not just maybe it's not the the US population, but some of the biggest companies that also happened to be um, you know, campaign contributors are making a fuss. Yeah. Um. In in digital finance, I think that we are going to see a lot more mobile money management. I think that people are really starting to lose their fear of

taking their money digital. Um. You know, I'm talking about like a rise in the use of bitcoins, um, and through stuff like coin base, which just had a had a twenty five million dollar investment through Inder sine Horrowitz and um uh you know, like a rizon in square usage, the debut of digital all in one cards like one coin. I think that this kind of stuff is is going to be really big. Wow. Okay, yeah, I can see that. However, um, what do you think about bitcoin specifically, Lauren? Um. I

think I think that bubble is gonna burst. Um it's done it before, and it certainly has. I mean, okay, so so it went from like twelve to thirteen bucks per coin at the beginning of two more and right now it's it's background like a thousand bucks per coin, but that kind of pricing just is not sustainable. Um, and I think it's going to fluctuate wildly. Yeah, it's it's again one of those things where it's not just the confidence in the currency itself, it's lots of complicated factors.

And I won't go into my full rent again because I just did it about five minutes ago, even though for you guys it might have been last week. So anyway, if you really want to hear my rent, listen to our two thousand thirteen year in wrap up, and I pretty much did it, then yeah, I mean, I don't think it's going to plumb it all the way back down to twelve or thirteen bucks necessarily unless it's on

a on a one off. But so I guess now we have to move on to corporate news, and this this is the Jonathan Show right here, so um, just really quickly now, as of the drying this podcast, Microsoft does not have a new CEO. Balmer has retired, but he's still acting CEO while they try and find a replacement, and they have not done that as of the recording of this podcast. If that changes before the new year,

then obviously this is a moot point. But what I actually it kind of still holds because I said that the new CEO of Microsoft will at best be an effective leader, but not an innovator in the sense that you know, when I look at the candidates that are being mentioned, I'm seeing people who have proven their ability

to lead large, complicated companies. But don't see anyone who's going to lead Microsoft in a new direction that makes it the name in some industry that it hasn't already played a part in or even regained the control of an industry where it once reigned supreme. But now is you know, fighting for market share. Yeah, the the really big name right now and the running is Forward CEO s Um Forwards CEO Alan Malally Malally who uh you know. As of the recording of this podcast, Ford wants to

nail down Malali. In fact, I think tomorrow on again, December twelve is when we're recording this. I think on the thirteenth is when Ford has demanded that they talked to Malally and have Malali give them a straight up answer. Are you being courted to? Like? Are you just are you considering becoming the Microsoft CEO? Oh? At the very least, I mean, even if it winds up and if he

if he winds up not being the first choice. I do think it would be very savvy of them to hire that kind of that kind of charismatic stop gap who can sort of work within Microsoft to train a successor who's more fulfilled, familiar with the industry and um and the inner workings at the company. So I think, I think, you know, it may even be whether it's Malali or someone else. I believe that even if they get a truly effective leader, they won't be they won't

become a true innovator in their space. They might they might be able to stop some hemorrhaging in a couple of yearsions, I think they've got a lot of recovery to Yeah, they do. And uh and so I think now that's the best case scenario. The first case scenarios they end up with someone who's who also is not an effective leader on top of not being an innovator. So I hope, and I'm saying all this, I hope

that I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope that whomever Microsoft ends up getting as the new CEO is able to lead Microsoft onto new greater heights. Because we're gonna benefit from a company that does well. We don't benefit from companies that don't do well. Yeah, especially that someone as big as Microsoft. That's never a good thing. So so, so don't get me wrong, I'm not saying like down with Microsoft. I want to see them succeed, all right. Next, I have that Google finally figures out

what it's doing with Motorola Mobile. Be about time they bondit. Uh. They said that they weren't going to use it as a means of creating exclusive hardware. They said they didn't want to do that, they didn't want to give preferential treatment to it. But they haven't really done much with

it at all. So one of the things I think is possible is they might spin off Motorola as an independent company that still has direct ties to Google that will create Android based hardware for Google and become kind of like a manufacturing arm, but that they are not, you know, under the direct Google umbrella. They'll be their own little independent entity. I think that's a possibility. So I think that that would make that would make perfect sense.

There we go. Yeah, so that wraps up all of my predictions and now we wait months and see how wrong we were, Yeah, Well, you know, we've been batting pretty well. I think it's not. You were very hard on yourself when we did our wrap up, but I think you did much better than you were getting think. I think I was fair, but I still I still accumulated many squids, So I feel pretty okay about that's true.

We are we are squid rich right now. We don't have any kind of squid flow in this office is amazing. My my squid cooin account is just overflowing. Yeah, So while we go and do a Scrooge McDuck dive in to our giant vet of squid, I want to remind all of you that it's a new year. But you can still contact us the old way. That's by sending

us an email. All adds is tech stuff at Discovery dot com, or you can always drop us a line on one of the many social media platforms that we happen to hang out on that includes Facebook, includes Twitter, includes Tumbler. Just look for tech stuff H S. W and Lauren and I will talk to you again really soon for more on this and bousands of other topics. Does it have staff works dot com