TechStuff Predicts 2016

be panicking. Yeah, we're um, We're going to do the episode I look forward to all year long, which is the episode where I stick my neck out and usually have a guest also sticking his or her neck out to make predictions about what will happen in the following twelve months. And we're recording this episode on December two thousand fifteen, although it's airing in January two thousand and sixteen. So I just want to throw the regular caveat out there.

Some of the stuff we predict might already be the path by the time you hear it. Yeah, if some of these things come true, we can just say we knew it. We knew this was going to happen, and we didn't have any insider information whatsoever. These are guesses. Yeah, yeah, Now, these are all wild stabs in the dark. And I also told I as this before we started recording, I decided that I'm going to make bigger predictions than I have in the past, because, for one, uh, playing it

safe hasn't helped me. I I do not have a great record. If you're gonna go go big, that's right, we go bigger, go home, right? And I can't go home. They won't let me, so I have to go big. So we're gonna talk about some predictions and then maybe, you know, question those predictions, justify them, maybe even change our minds based upon the conversation we have. And I'm gonna go first. And my first prediction is probably if it's in, might not be the craziest one I have.

It might be the second craziest one I have. But my prediction is that in Microsoft will buy Yahoo's core business. Now, for people who have been paying attention to the news, you've heard the rumors that the board of directors have been thinking of selling off yah Who's core business, which hasn't really been profitable and quite some time, and holding on to its stake in ali Baba instead of being this kind of content slash search engine thing that Yahoo

has blossomed into or exploded into. However, you want to think about it. So they're talking about the possibility of selling off that core business. But who would be in the market for that. It can't be Google, or at least I don't think it could be because Google already has such a dominant hold in search. I don't think anyone would allow that to happen. It would become a more more of a monopoly than it already is. So could it possible possibly be Microsoft? I mean, Microsoft and

Yahoo have teamed up in the past. Being was the search engine powering Yah who searched for a while. It's not like they had the best relationship ever, but I could see that being a possibility Now, I asked, what about you? Do you think I'm completely off base here? Do you think there's some other entity that's way more likely? Uh? Or is it just that Microsoft would never even touch

Yahoo with a tin foot poll? You know? I think I think Microsoft might be the wrong suitor for this because they do have Bing and Bing this year actually made revenue and so it's being a loser like it's been for years. It actually did something good and being is so we're baked into Windows ten that I don't think they need to muck with that too much. Also, yeah, who's got a lot of email kind of situations. They've got Tumbler, they've got Flicker, and Microsoft has a lot

of those things already. So to buy those core assets, I think it would be duplicative. I'm thinking who might be a better suitor. It might be somebody like maybe a wireless carrier, Maybe somebody like Apple if they wanted to have a better search when it comes to their own internal search because they have such a beef with Google right now stale, even though it's a lot better

than it used to be. But maybe even a like a video company who needs a better search and content farm because between Tumbler between maybe even this is gonna sound nuts. I wasn't even thinking about this before we

started the show. But maybe even Facebook because they could use a better search algorithm in general when it comes to mining all of the data they have, if they could use Tumbler as an as an option, if they could, you have Flicker, If they have this infrastructure that everybody exists, why not tack it on. That's those are great points.

I mean, you make a very strong case for for other very realistic entities that could come into play here, and purchase up those those that core business if in fact, yeah, who does sell it. As of the time we're recording this, that has not actually happened yet, but could it could have. At least the ball could be rolling by the time this episode goes live. Uh. Those those are excellent points. I'm gonna stick by my Microsoft prediction because that way,

when it becomes true and I review this episode. Uh and at the end of twenty sixteen, I'm going to sound like a genius. Well, the other thing is, yeah, who's board mentioned that this whole potential plan with a spin off, yah, whose core business? It could take up to a year to make that happen, So maybe even more so if it does happen, let's say January, I'm gonna give you that one. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, that's nice.

That's very very a generous of you to allow me an extra month, particular least it's we're recording this one a month early exactly. Maybe we should be doing this in like a fiscal years and might maybe even tell April who knows, because there's no rules unless we make the rules right now, that's true. Uh, Well, I will say this that that if an entity purchases Yahoo's core businesses before the end of that entity will most definitely be Microsoft that way. That way, I've planted my flag.

And if it's not, and it's one of the other entities that I has mentioned, that's gonna be great content for my wrap up show at the end of the year. All right, so what is your first prediction? Okay, unlike you, I'm gonna start off small but a little crazy. I'm gonna go three D printers are gonna become way more mainstream next year. And this is tied into this big

push that I've seen in camera technology. Intel has this real sense camera and what it allows people to do is or allows computers to do, is to sense things in three D space, and like, well, people are like, what's the use of that? Why would you care about being able to see three D space with I don't know, your cell phone camera or the camera in your laptop.

So you can literally hold up an object and it's almost acting like a three D scanner, and so why would you ever need any of this stuff for three D printing? That's what I'm saying. And a company like Amazon,

so this is all very very three D printing. Amazon could introduce its own three D printer that they would sell to you at a discount, so then you could buy schematics from them and print out stuff right at your home like Amazon Prime Instant, so faster than a two hour delivery window, although it might take out a couple of hours to print out something large because three D printers aren't super fast. Do you think three D

printers in the home would be mainstream next year? No? Um, let me let me justify that instead of just saying no and then moving on my next prediction. No. Uh. The reason why I say no, it's it's not because I don't see the potential there. I absolutely do see the potential. I've also had experience with three D printers, like we have one in the office. I have worked with it. These are finnicky machines and you have to

have all the things working just right for it. You know, you have to have the heating plate at the right temperature so that the plastic adheres to it but doesn't melt. You have to have the extruder at the right temperature so that it the plastic flows at the proper viscosity. There are a lot of different things that it's it's not as user friendly as your basic plug in play

printer is. There's a lot more variety going on there that that you have to pay really close attention to if you want to get the results you hope for.

So my prediction would be my counter proposal to your prediction would be, We'll see a lot more three D printing houses where you would send a three D printing job to one of these houses, where there are people who have worked with the stuff and specialize with it, and the prices are gonna come down because the actual equipment prices the three D printers themselves, those prices will come down, So it won't be incredibly expensive for you to send a three D print job to a local

UH group. It might not even be like a big company. It might be a small group of of students who are who go to a local technology school for example. I'm using very specific examples because that's happening here in Atlanta. We've got a whole bunch of UH student run businesses that are using three D printers, and the students are all affiliated with Georgia Tech. And so I have actually

used one of these services just this past year. I had a special mask printed for a cosplay outfit and h and so it was a three D printed mask, and and it was it was great. But I don't see that slipping into the consumer market. I think there's going to be more of a prosumer market, more so

than there is now. I think it's gonna be bigger than it has been, But I don't think it's going to get to the point where your average Joe is going to go out there and buy a three D printer and be satisfied with the way it works, to the point where we're gonna see this kind of marketplace spring up on the level that you are suggesting. Okay, you're making some really good arguments, and I'm gonna hearken back to my weasel language. It will become more mainstream.

You're you're totally right by the way. Three D printers are finicky, finicky machines right now. It's not plug and play like an ink jet, which has you pulling out your hair for different reasons. But when it comes to this kind of three D printing world, I agree with you with the idea of three D printing houses. I believe Staples has some services where you can do this. I'm sure those will be the faster, more ornate, or

better quality stuff you can get. But I think I still think the next year we're gonna have not the dot matrix style printers where we're like, this is kind of chanky, it doesn't really work, but it's the beginning days. We already had the beginning days of these three D printers being low cost. I think we're going to have

more consumer friendly versions. Now they might be for prosumers, they might be a little bit expensive, but inc it's finally going to make its break because it's had years to actually mature and it's still isn't dead, And I think the idea of people could have Wait a second, I can print a case from my phone, or I can add different a lego piece that's missing. I think these ideas are becoming more mainstream, so that might drive

a demand. But as it's more mainstream, not like it's gonna be like the laser printer you have, So you could you could argue the market will double, but the markets like five thousand units units, that's not the big a deal. If these statistics continue, disco will be the best. It will be the only music of past I know. But Anyway, we're on another We're on another show where we constantly are striving to be the best podcast of two thousand fourteen. So we're all about living in the past.

We'll get there. Yeah, yep, one of these days. All right, Well, that's that's that's interesting. With that caveat, I can I can lean more towards supporting your your prediction because uh, it definitely creates more perspective on what you were getting at um and I agreed as Weasley. So my next one is probably the safest of my predictions, which is that Apple is going to start offering up more products that, at least on first glance, are going to seem further

removed from the vision of Steve Jobs. So an example of this in our and in this past year was the iPad pro and the the pencil peripheral, which is essentially a stylus, which Steve Jobs famously dismissed upon the uh the introduction of the iPad, He essentially said, who wants to deal with the stylus and had had pretty much all but completely dismissed the notion entirely. And now Apple has one. And whenever this happens, people point out you know, that's not really what Steve Jobs said, or

that's not how Steve Jobs would do it. Mine argument is that this year we're going to see more things that are truly a step away from what Steve Jobs quote unquote would have done. Uh. And that's not a bad thing, because I don't think a company can continually hold itself accountable to the ideals of someone who is no longer around m hm. So I will be one of those finicky people because here's here's what I remember.

The introduction of this this whole stylist nonsense with Apple and Steve Jobs in particular, he said that if you had a stylus, basically, then they're doing it wrong, and not that it was. At the time, the stylist was a requirement of smartphones and you shouldn't need this stylus at this point is an accessory. It's a theoretic. It's not against it. But there are a lot of design choices these days that if people going Steve wouldn't approve

that look because that looks like some kind of horrible compromise. Yeah, yeah, like they like we In my notes, I mentioned the I Hump battery case, which you came across a different name for that, right, Yeah, b gr Boy Jeans Report had the nickname Hunchback of Cupertino, which I found quite creative and it's quite accurate for the design of the Apple Smart battery case cover, whatever the heck it's called. Yeah,

and that's if you haven't seen it. It creates this bulge that sticks out the back of the case, and so it really destroys the profile of the iPhone, and I have a feeling that that would have been something that would have stuck in Steve Jobs's craw so to speak, destroys or makes you appreciate the slim profile without better I don't think. Sorry, I'm just my devil's advocate there. I agree with you. I think the styling on this

un certain objects are not exactly as beautiful. That could be actually an issue for the eye who's in charge of software and hardware at this point. So maybe he stretched a little thin. That could be an actual structural issue with an Apple. But that's a whole other thing. And as we're talking, there's a whole I believe a restructuring of Apple and new CEO, a whole bunch of

things going on. Yeah, I think I think the real thing is that Steve Jobs is not walking around Apple headquarters inspiring terror and all of his employees, Like when you think I could get fired on any given day. It creates a different environment. It might stop certain designs from maybe getting past the drawing board, like no, this isn't gonna work, versus going, okay, wait a second, we do have these batteries that are shaped a certain way. Maybe we can repurpose them and get a good mark up.

Because in the world of business, accessories make usually there's a higher profit margin on accessories versus the actual hardware, although Apple's famous were making very high profits on their hardware. But yeah, I could see things potentially maybe be even that mythical. Nobody wants to have gorilla arm, this idea of the iPad and the MacBook finally merging, because I believe even Tim Cook says we're not going to do that.

Then again, Apple is quite good. It's in the past saying we're never gonna have this product to do that thing like an iPod with video. Nobody wants an iPod with video, so they made an iPod with video. So there's no We're never gonna make a tablet We saw how that worked out, So it doesn't necessarily mean just because they said we're not going to do something that they won't do it and say, oh, this is why

we waited, because it's much better now. Also, they'll say now you want it, they in, they wave their hand and yes, exactly, they do the force mind trick on you. All right, so what's your next one? Okay, wearables will be better. This is another incremental kind of thing. I think that we've had a real interesting kind of live beta test of smart watches the past couple of years.

We had the Android where hitting the market ahead of ahead of the Apple Watch, Apple Watched original version being a little bit clunky, with a UI that people had to learn, which is very not intuitive at first, this digital crown kind of thing. Samsung's got their Gears two with a very cool kind of circular iPod like circle

um interface wheel. I think next year is the year that all of those small issues with UI, all the issues with battery life, the true actual application of why on earth would you want a screen on your wrist? That stuff is actually going to be figured out next year and there's going to be a compelling reason to

have a smart watch. And while I'm saying wearables in general will get better, I'm thinking the fitness devices, like the fitbits, the misfits, all those little things, they will go maybe more and more simple, where these devices can handle just the fitness tracking and it talks to either your watch or talks to your phone, and it's not necessarily trying to be it's one true thing. I don't think the fitbits surge, those kind of smart watch hybrid things are gonna do well. So I think that the

fitness tractors get dumber, smart watches get better. I got you. So that way, you end up having a more of a low cost market for your fitness trackers because presumably they won't be as expensive. They'll be simpler devices. So if all you wanted was something to help track your activity, then you get one of those and you're spending less

money per unit. But if you want something that has a lot more applicability in various situations, then you might go for more of a higher end thing, a smart watch that incorporates those features as well as other ones. It's the middle ground where you're still to see that kind of filter out because there won't be as much uh you know, why why go for something that's kind of good if you could go for a smart watch, you know. And one of the things I've seen this

year was there's like a device called the Move. It's this little disc that you can have on your wrist and it can determine whether you're how you're moving. But what they recommend is if you have to, it can really do these excellent metrics for things like a boxing exercise or workout. So maybe instead of these devices being all in one wonders, it's that they're really just sensors

that you have on yourself. So you realize, Okay, the smart watch is great because it's the actual brain versus your phone because you don't want to carry you phone necessarily getting larger. It's very awkward to keep a phone strapped to your arm. I've seen people run with them.

I think that's really odd. But a smart watch acting as this intermediary brain for all these other sensors to get actual accurate data because okay, were you erasing furiously with your Apple pencil or were you doing jumping jacks? Does the device No? I don't know, So that's that kind of thing. Yeah, No, that's interesting. I pretty much agree with you. I think, um, I think we will

see that sort of improvement. I hope we will see smart watches that are compelling enough where even people like myself, like I own a Pebble. I bought a pebble early on, and I did so knowing the limitations of the technology. I knew what it was capable of doing, and I knew what it wasn't going to do, and I was

fine with that. But for a lot of people, when they get into the idea of buying a smart watch, they don't really know what the watch can and can't do, and uh, what it's like to actually use one, and so you get this disconnect from what they were expecting and what they actually get when they purchase one. I would like to see that gap decrease in two thousand

and sixteen. Uh. My hope is that by two thousand seventeen, you compare something like a smart watch with another device that's akin to the Microsoft Hollow lens, and then get holographic images displayed above the watch when you look down because the two are working together, and then you get like the three D representation of someone's head as they talked to you. All Superman of course that's you you would want to do when you're walking on the sidewalk

with floating and disembodied heads. Look, if I'm not paying attention to a so whether or not the sign says walk or don't walk already, it's not gonna kill me faster as long as there's some kind of collision detection center that you have. I can just imagine text popping up and says you're gonna die now. It's like, would you like to close all your accounts right now or deliver your password over to your next You have one

of two options. You're like, oh, wait a minute, this is this is the death notice, and maybe I should get on the street. Uh yeah, no. I I always advocate for the responsible use of technology. I am one of those people who I will not have my phone out as I'm walking across the street. If I'm on the sidewalk, maybe, but definitely not on the street. And that being said, even as someone who has occasionally used a phone on the sidewalk. Yes, I have collided with

a telephone pole it has opened. I have yet to do that. I have gotten very close to telephone poles, far too close, but not in any rapid speed. Well that's good. That's good. Let's hope that that prediction like that that or that trend continues through to predict I predicted because I said that on this podcast. I'm going to smack into something. All right, Well, here's another super crazy prediction. Now. My last one was an Apple prediction

that was pretty you know, pretty modest. This one is crazy, and I have to admit I am not the one who came up with this idea. I actually saw someone else and I wish I had written down, but I saw someone else pose this possibility and I thought, well, that's just crazy. I have to include it, which is

Apple will make a move to a Choir Tesla. And the reason for that is that we know that Apple is interested in developing an electronic car, but it makes much more sense to purchase a company that has already made great headway into doing that, particularly if you can purchase the company that would already be your chief competitor

once you enter that marketplace. If you can buy the name and Electronic Cars and use that as now you know, this is what you own, and now you can incorporate your technology directly into the next models, then that would be the way to go. Whether or not uh Tesla would decide to allow for that to happen is a different question. But I think that that it's not out of the realm of possibility that Apple will at least

make a move to try and do that. Okay, So when you first said this, the first thought I had was that's crazy, that's absolutely insane. And then I was thinking about Apple buying Beats, which also sounded crazy and absolutely insane. And they were the leader in this kind not a leader, but they are a very well known brand.

And one of the things that Apple does over they had done for a long time, was do you take a product or a company, they buy it and they basically can assume it and they become new Apple instead of it being Beats by Dre and Tim Cook. You know. So the thing about buying Tesla, to me, what what I find problematic with this idea is Tesla already has the name. So with Apple's purchase, if they bought this company, the rebranding aspect would be so difficult that they wouldn't

do it. Maybe that's the Unapple like move you're talking about, where they're like, you know what, we just we owned Tesla, and that's that's just the way it is now. We're just gonna we're gonna continue to call it Tesla and not call it the I Car the Tesla. It's a Tesla and Apple company. I just can't see that kind of styling when it comes to Apple, because they're very They're the top dog. They're not gonna be like the

secondary little logo somewhere else. Although what I the second or third thought I had with this thing was, you know, I could see Apple, either either Tim Cook or any of the board members of Apple becoming a board member of Tesla and having some kind of influence on how they do things and or a significant investment in the company, whereas they don't buy the company, but they do have a stake in it, so that way there is a future with them, a kind of partnership that Disney and

Apple kind of had with Steve Jobs being at the time a shareholder, a major shareholder of each company. Or you had this idea where you had Eric Schmidt, who

used to be on the board of Apple. There was a lot of friendly information being passed along to the to the point where Schmidt ended up recusing himself and leaving the board because of concerns about a conflict of interest exactly, And I think that would be Maybe that's the kind of way Apple gets really into the car business, is not necessarily by being in the car business, but influencing a major company that is the most Apple like

of car manufacturers. Interesting that that that sounds more realistic. I'm gonna stick with line. Apple is gonna try and buy Tesla. I don't. I didn't say they will buy Tesla. And so they're gonna try to buy Tesla? You mean you mean the motor company, right, not just buy a Tesla exactly? Like all right, who's whose turn is it to drive the Tesla this week? I get employee of

the month gets to drive the Tesla. Uh? No, I mean that they buy the company Tesla uh or try to Yeah, because I think that that's a pretty crazy prediction myself. But in in another sense, it makes perfect, It makes it makes it's logical because why would you try and go into would you just hope for your your company's uh the perception of your company to to push you to a successful competition with an already established some might are you equally iconic company? Um? I don't know.

But I do know that Apple's getting close to being a one trillion dollar company and they got some cash to burn, So so why not go into a business that's dominated by a few companies. Well, especially as we get more and more towards people leaning to electric and alternative fuel vehicles. I mean it, it's it's gonna be. That's a market that's just gonna grow. You know, there

is there is some information to support this. Tesla did introduce its own iPhone cases made of leather that is that is normally used for the car seats, and Tesla's right there, that's where this this always. I've gotta say, I was really shocked when Apple didn't move to acquire ed Hardy, which also made Apple cases. You never know that rumor that did happen. Pretty sure that will happen in Alright, your your turn, I as okay, my turn maybe equally crazy. Okay, Google is gonna go wireless for

real this time right now. They do have Project five, which is this kind of envy and Oh where they are using some T Mobile and Sprint networks combined with these devices and WiFi. So it's it's kind of like soft entry into the wireless world. They already have Google Fiber.

I'm saying next year is the year Google either builds its own wireless infrastructure or just purchases a wireless carrier flat out so they have the infrastructure, none of this leasing nonsense, actually owning a wireless network that is fast enough to do what they want to do, because they want to cover basically everywhere and Internet so that you could use their services and they can learn information about you. That's that's one side. But I think we're going to

see Google actually becoming a wireless carrier. What do you think. I think it's a distinct possibility. I mean, you already mentioned Project five, which uh I was invited to be an early tester of that, and I ultimately decided not to, the only reason being that it would have required me to use my Google Voice number, and almost everyone knows my actual phone number, and very few people outside of my mom ever call me on my Google Voice number, and just training the humans in my life to call

a different number was going to be a problem. Um, But I agree that the that's a distinct possibility. I wonder if it's the right move. I also wonder what that would do in the overall wireless marketplace, particularly the cellular marketplace, because I can imagine other carriers saying, well, we're gonna we're gonna put a real restriction on which Android phones we offer on our systems now, But that seems like that would almost be shooting themselves in the foot.

I mean, where else are you gonna go besides Apple to get really compelling handsets? Um this, I think this could be an incredibly disruptive move, and it's certainly makes sense from the standpoint of where Google's moving right now, especially now that they've got you know, their Alphabet company, so Google can can make these kind of potentially risky moves without affecting other branches of its business. I guess technically I should have said Alphabet is going to do this,

Because I don't know Google. I guess Google fibers. Google Fiber is still part of Google. I don't I don't have the exact I don't have the Org charts out the breakdown. I know Google X is outside of Google now. It's research and development is a separate arm, and a couple of the companies that acquired are in separate arms as well. Uh, they might just create a new subsidiary for this sort of thing. I think it could work.

I think the thing with Google, they they are very aggressive with the rollout of fiber, but there's areas that is hard. They're very difficult to get into. And with wireless there is this barrier decreases. So this idea of like Google will will be giving WiFi or they'll be giving some kind of cellular connection is physically easier, so they don't have to worry about, Okay, we're gonna get permits.

Do we have to shut this part down to make this happen, especially if they buy a pre existing carrier, like either a T mobile or Sprints just sitting around, you know, Sprints just sitting in the corner, just wondering is one day somebody gonna make something of them. They're just just waiting to be asked to the dance. Well they're at the dance. They're just in the corner by the punch bowl. Well, they'll be waiting to be asked

to dance at the dance. How about T mobiles out on the floor like basically throwing down T mobile slam dance. I guess what T mobile is doing. It's got it's it's it's like a one man mosh pit and you're like, why, it's like John, just it's it's a polka. You don't have to go thrashing. Okay, so there's a chance of that. What's what's your next one? So the next one? This one is one where I as and I both have predictions about the same general type of technology, but we

have slightly different takes on it. And this is all about virtual reality and to a lesser extent, augmented reality. My prediction, and I actually really hope I'm wrong about this. This is one of those where I'm like, I'm making the prediction, but I would love to be wrong. But my prediction is that VR is ultimately going to fizzle

out in twenty six team in the consumer market. And the reason I say that is that I think it may have taken too long for the consumer models of really compelling VR headsets to actually make it to the shelves. We don't even have them yet, like the not the really big names, not We don't have an oculus, like a branded oculus system beyond something that turns your phone

into a VR headset. We don't have the Morpheus, you know, we don't have these things apart from some early builds, developer builds where you can you can get something, but you already know it's it's essentially a prototype. It's not the final form of whatever the consumer model will be.

And my fear is that by the time it comes out, all the excitement that they built up from the crowd funding and the marketing that happened over the last three years will have completely died out, so that VR becomes a non starter. Either stuff never makes it to market because analysts decide, hey, we're gonna lose money on this, it doesn't make any sense for us to do it, or it will make it to market, but it will have very low adoption due to the high cost of entry.

We expect most of these devices are gonna cost in the hundreds of dollars, so some of them may be just as expensive as the hardware they are paired with in the case of consoles, for example. UM I think augmented reality has a better chance because as a wider application than virtual reality does. And honestly, I think there's more excitement about augmented reality UH and the potential for

it than there is for virtual reality. Although it should be said augmented reality could follow the same path as VR and ultimately fizzle out too. So that's my prediction that VR is not gonna make it in TwixT. Even if the device has actually come out, there's not gonna be widespread adoption. There won't be enough support from developers to create content for them, and it'll be just like we saw on the nineties where there was a lot

of hype but not a lot of payoff. Okay, so I maybe agree with maybe about SI what you said there. I don't think next year is the year for VR. I think it needs a year or two before it's really really ready. And the thing why I think it won't die next year than anytime soon is because there's Facebook behind Oculus, so there's a lot of money there, and they have a partnership with Samsung, and we both

know the Samsung No. They love to throw stuff against the wall until it sticks, and I don't think they're going to stop. I don't think any of those companies are gonna stop until there's an actual working device out there. Because in the interim, Samsung has their Gear VR that allows you to take your select Samsung phones. So I'm not gonna add you put it in in this like helmet so you can see these VR experiences, and I've gotten to try those out a couple of times, and

they're very good. Stuff like Google Cardboard, which makes it way cheaper and allows you to use pretty much any Android phone or pretty much any phone, so you can see these VR experiences. And I think right now, the experiences, it's what's holding it back because you're like, oh, wow, I'm in this virtual theater watching a movie that's not really interesting. I can do that in my living room, so why am I bothering with this. It's to have

the compelling content for that. So I just don't see a ton of products coming to market next year, even though they're supposed to. I just don't see it being gigantic. But I think it's not going to die off, and because of the rapid technology cycle when it comes to phones, I think it's really this combination of VR helmets as an accessory to your phone that's really where this is.

This idea that it will work with video games, Yeah, that's that's gonna be a nice little uh niche for a while, but I think the mainstream adoption won't be for another like two years, where people can just swap a phone in with really high red screens, because this is actually when it becomes important when that phone is right against your eyes and you're seeing this this of the image. If it's low res, you're seeing like a screen door effect, and it takes you out of it.

And if you want to be in VR, you really have to be immersed, and that actually takes it out. And maybe one to two years you'll have even the low end phones with really high rise screens such that you won't have that problem. Yeah, to me, it's not so much the resolution of the screens that's the big issue. It's making sure that there's no latency between your movements and what you see on those screens. Because I I've I've been in virtual I've done virtual environment stuff where

the graphics were pretty low quality. You know, it wasn't like photo realistic graphics or anything, but it's still a very compelling experience because of the the response of the system. So to me, that's the most important part is that the processor is able to handle the input of you moving your head around and seamlessly incorporate that into what you are looking at within the context of the view.

I don't know I'm still very skeptical that I almost see VR following the same kind of path, oh sadness as the Microsoft Connect sensor, which had a lot of potential but never got Like you were saying, it didn't have a lot of support, like there weren't there weren't a lot of really compelling reasons to use it. You can see what the potential was for it, but because those those potentials never became reality, ultimately it's not even

included in most bundles of Xbox hardware now. It's it's a peripheral that hardly anyone purchases or uses, and in fact often updates to the Xbox users uh experience the user interface will remove functionality from existing connect hardware. So that makes me think, well, I think the R may follow that same path, where unless there are really compelling reasons to use the technology, it doesn't matter how good

the hardware is. Uh So, I don't think the hardware is gonna necessarily all come out in and I don't think that there's gonna be enough content to even support the really good stuff. And again I hope I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, that's awesome because I would love to

have really great vr UM. I don't think I could go so far as to outfit one of my rooms in my house with the valve approach, where you've got the cameras that are mounted up and you can actually wander around your room and it creates uh dynamic barriers so that you don't bump into stuff like your walls. But you need a big room, empty room to do that in. I don't have that, so I don't I

don't think I'll go that far. But if they could come up with something that really does UH, that's priced well, that works well with the the devices, that actually works as a peripheral H, then I would be satisfied. I just don't think it's gonna happen. Know it's sad. A lot of the technologies we're talking about are really cool. They're extremely cool. It kind of reminds me of when the first tablets came out. The first tablet PCAs like, this is a really cool idea, but there was a

lot of problems with it. With the ultramobile PCs, there were tiny little computers they can carry with you. Really cool idea execution not there. And I don't want to say this because if people will label me a fan boy. I'm very curious if if an Apple approach would make it different because a lot of these products have been out there and they've been iterated upon. But what will it take for to go Oh that's amazing, because Apple tried to watch thing and people aren't like blown away.

So the question is what is it going to finally take it. I don't know if Apple can do it and make the headset look like a daft punk helmet they got it made. Well. That also helps you when you're walking around you're not but when you bump your head into a telephone pole, you got protection, right, and and then raves just break out around you and it's, you know, kind of awesome. I like this idea, Yeah I do too. All right, well it's my turn for the next one. So my next prediction is that the

cable industry will see shrink subscriber numbers again. So this year we saw some some the cable companies, cable television is what I'm talking about here. Cable television subscriptions were starting to go down. Uh, they were not able to add more consumers than they were losing. And there's a growing population of people who are never getting cable in the first place. So the people who are leaving cable, those,

of course, are called the cord cutters. And there have been predictions for years that that population was going to explode. It hasn't grown at the speed that a lot of people had predicted, but there are more and more people who are going that route. And then there are the cord never's. These are the younger people mostly who are who just never bothered to sign up to cable in the first place. They get all their contents some other way.

Now they might have a cable company as their internet service provider, but they're not they're not subscribing to cable television. I think we're gonna see that trend continue. I don't think this is gonna be like the tipping point where we suddenly, uh see cable subscriptions just drop off at a really sharp cliff. I don't think that's gonna happen in But we are going to see the trend continue

as it has already started. I think we've already experienced peak cable television, in other words, and now we're on the decline. And this decline, you know, it's it's gonna be significant, but it's not going to be a huge percentage of the overall population of cable subscribers. It's just not gonna be a good story for cable companies to tell their shareholders. It's an interesting idea. I think you might be onto something, but I'm going to argue with

you for the sake of arguing with you. Well, you are. You do have training as a lawyer, so yeah, there was a time. I'm retired lawyer. There's a there's a as an actual piece of mail that sets. So anyway, let let me let me run this, this this scenario. There are so many different over the top solutions you can get. When it comes to video. You can pay fifteen dollars a month for HBO. You can pay nine bucks for Stars uh, ten bucks for Showtime or whatever.

All of these things you can keep adding on. Okay, and you're still paying your cable, sorry, your internet bill. When you start putting all the math together, at some point these cable in the cable industry needs to realize something.

There is a tipping point where it is cheaper to just get that streaming pipe of garbage where you're getting every single network and you have a DVR and potentially cloud DBR storage with certain certain cable companies that it just makes more sense to have cable There's no, there's not necessarily a network issue when it comes to oh, we seem to have some congestion. Are you playing a video game? Is that why we're getting crappy streaming? Is

that what's happening? No? No, No No, that doesn't happen with cable I really think if they brand this properly, because we have so many options, it's actually cheaper at some point to just get cable TV, And people who record members might go, wait a second, that's cheaper, and I get all this other stuff, and I get so why would I ever bother with all of these apps when I know I just have to change my input to H d M I two it only it only really

works if the consumer really wants all that that content that can only be available on different services. Right, if they are satisfied with one or two services, then that's not gonna they won't they won't find a compelling case to adopt cable television. Uh. If they're into live sports, that's the strongest cell that cable TV has. I would say, like that's the that's the biggest Uh, attractive thing that that cable TV can put hold out in front of

potential consumers. But if they think, well, there's this small group of programming that I'm really interested in, and if I get HBO Go and if I get is a Goer, now, I guess its Hbo now. Um. But if I get the Hbo app and if I get the uh, you know, Amazon Prime subscription, that's everything I need. And if I look at the basic cable service I'm getting and I add all that up and it's still gonna be the same or less than what cable TV is, I'm just

gonna go with that. Um. But yeah, I mean that there is definitely a tipping point because if you're talking about more than that, especially when you factor in the cost of a Internet service provider, which maybe if if the I s P is the same as the cable company.

You and I both know this, there will be that will come up with bundles where it's cheaper to get the bundle than it would be just to get a single service, and that at that point you're like, well, from a financial standpoint, it just makes sense for me to have cable TV, and even if I never hook up the cable box. That's exactly how I lived. I did that, I got my faster speed, it was cheaper. I just had this basics that top box, which I've

never bothered to hook up. It just made more sense monetarily. So if the argument can be made by the cable companies and this will require them to actually be trying to get consumers on board, that's the crazy thing. There are cable companies right now, at least even in New York, Time Owner Cable will give you a ten dollar option where you can get a limited bunch of channels through a Roku that they provide you, and if you have any of the rokus around the house, you can watch

it that way. It's not the same functionality as a cable box. You're not getting all the same on demand stuff. You're not getting maybe all the channels. But if they're willing to do that, I don't see why they can't figure out, Oh, by the way, it's cheaper if we do it this other way. Yeah, I mean, I can see where your argument is. But however, the whole bundle thing and approach has been around for a while and we're still seeing the trend of people getting away from cable.

Some of that may just be due to customers who are fed up with cable companies. You know, and and because not to name name, but one of the guys on this podcast is certainly fed up with his I s P. And and and also and and would not blink an eye about going away from cable and just going straight to a different I s P and just getting internet service. Uh that guy is not I s By the way, Well, I'm not happy with my sp here, but that as I'm more pleased with it now than

I used to be. That's a whole other story for a whole other time. Yeah, and a different podcast. So at any rate, Uh, I think we're still going to see the trend continue. I I do agree that cable companies have an opportunity to position themselves in such a way where they can make the argument that it makes more financial sense to be a cable subscriber than to go all a cart But I don't think it's going to be enough to reverse the trend. It may slow it,

but I don't think it's going to reverse it. What's wrong with the buffet? That's that's that's the tagline. You get, what's wrong with the buffet dim some charge. It gets really really expensive, but you can get a FAE. That's it's a hard sell. You know, I don't know either. The few buffets and you start to realize what could be wrong with the buffet? Why you don't eat at a buffet? Like the quality isn't very good? Right that that food has been sitting out there too long? What's

your next? Okay, bold acquisition prediction. The more I look at it, the more I think it's wrong. So I'm gonna stick to it. Anyway, Facebook's going to buy HTC alright, So HTC for folks who have forgotten they exist. They make electronics used I believe that the HTC s to stand for high Tech Computer or something like that, and they've had trouble really regaining the dominance they used to have in the Android space. They were, I believe, the launch partner with Google when he came to the first

h first Android phone. It's a little banana shaped looking phone. It was. It was the first Android phone in the United States. I owned one, the G one right the slider keyboard, so it was a It was a really interesting idea and they did a great job skinning Android where it was an usable product because at the time,

Android was a little bit less than polished. These days, we've got Samsung, We've got LERG trying to nip at the heels of Samsung, but Samsung is really the big dog and Android when it comes to just dominance and and Google itself has gotten better at skinning Android so that it is more user friendly and attractive. So even if you're going with the flagship Android phones that haven't had a lot of additional stuff put on them by other carriers, it's still a lot better than what it

used to be. Yes, So Facebook has been trying to make some kind of headway into the phone space. They tried to have a couple of different phones that had like a Facebook dedicated button. I believe a CC might have made both of them in another phone that had Facebook Home, which I think was their launcher replacement when

it came to using an Android phone. But Facebook has not had a lot of success when it comes to this kind of this kind of entry into the phone market, so I think they're not just gonna bother to make

their own phone kind of like Apple did. What they would do is go out purchase atc and the reason why I started hedging at the very beginnings, like well, ATC has a VR side to it with the HTC vibe, not realizing wait a second, they could use that type of those people and put them with the Oculus team, or they could just spend them off from sell them off anyway. But there's a lot of money on Facebook. There's a CC sitting around kind of floundering. Why not

Facebook is not doing anything anyway. I have no argument one way or the other for this one. It is Uh, I can certainly see it happening. I mean not if Facebook's also gonna buy Yahoo. That's just too busy for two thou sixt so, but that's okay because I've already stated Microsoft the one buying out who. So I don't have any argument here. I think you might be onto something. So with that, I'm just gonna segue into the next one so that this episode doesn't go four hours. My

next one is that this is another gimme. This. I think this is probably the biggest gimme, just that we're gonna see some a lot more growth in online media. Uh, we're already seeing it. I mean, we're seeing lots more interest in web series We're seeing a lot more original programming from Amazon and from Hulu and Netflix. I think that's going to continue. We already know that these companies are going to be offering even more original content, but I think we're going to see that also from a

lot more independent uh creators. I think the real challenge of twenty sixteen is going to be something that's already been tough in the past, but now it's going to be the defining challenge. It's going to be discovery. How do you get the thing that you pour your heart and soul into discovered by your audience. You know, it's not even necessarily for the independent creators. It may not even be a question of how can I get paid

to do this? It may just be how can I make sure people see what I do so that I'm not just creating something and shoving it into the void and no one ever notices it. But I really do think we're gonna see a lot more experimentation in the space because the fact that the Internet allows us to create content that does not have to conform to any particular length the way television shows do. We don't have to stick to the twenty two or forty four minute format.

We can make whatever links we want. I think we're going to see more content creators experiment with longer form content. But for the longest time, the message has been keep it short because people will drop off and stop watching your stuff after a minute or two minutes, you know, whatever the length happens to be. But I think that there are some properties out there that are proven if you make good stuff, people will stay and watch the

whole thing. Yeah, you're gonna have people drop off. That's always gonna happen. Partly, it will happen because people will be like, well, I've I've watched the beginning of this, but I need to pause it now because I have to go do something else. But I'll come back and pick up where I left off later. So I think we're gonna see a lot more experimentation and just a lot more volume of online media, uh, from all sorts

of different parties. What do you think? I think I think you're pretty much right, because the thing is making video content or making audio content, making content available or just creating it that is and making it available. Both of those things are really really easy. Nowadays. You can describ a phone, you can do a recording, you can put it up on YouTube. You could periscope that's available for a little bit. You can do a live stream of video games. You can do pretty much anything at

any time with a phone or your console. I mean, this stuff is that this this the sharing stuff is right. I feel like an old man. The sharing stuff is built into the consoles, you see what I'm saying. But yes, there this stuff is so simple to upload. And it used to be there was this larger barrier when it came to hosting space. Where am I gonna put this three d megabyte file for this this six forty by

three sixty video, where I'm gonna put this right? And there's all kinds of places that are are just given away all this space for free because there's all kinds of perhaps dastardly kind of things. Oh we own all this stuff you made or whatever. We can earn money in some other way through the fact that you are providing content to our service. Exactly you do the content, we can put ads on it. That's the way that's gonna work. So it's it's so much easier than it's

ever been. And the thing is with online media in general, this this world of online video in particular, I'm thinking about that's changed entirely. Like when when you think of originally about Netflix, or when they started streaming a lot, there was just this catalog of of just lots of old video. Then there's this it's actually essentially a network where they're having their own content being what's the word I'm looking for here, commissioned, So they're getting they're comissioning

their own stuff. Same thing with all these other services, Amazon and even I think Sony's Crackle hasn't its new service, it's got a new series. All of these different companies are looking for this. So I think it's only a matter of time before companies like that start commissioning even smaller people. They don't need to keep following the television model. There's nothing saying that something on Netflix has to be forty four minutes or twenty two minutes. We're just kind

of conditioned for that right now. And I think what's happening, like you were talking about with cord Never's or cord cutters, this idea that there's no reason why you have to sit through certain parts of a video. You can just jump to where you want to go or you want to say this is three minutes, it better be a damn good three minutes. But I still think there's this learning curve that's going on right now of what is the optimal length of video because there's there's no such thing.

You go to a movie theater, you see a classic, it's gonna be over two hours. Nobody's saying, well, god Father part two, you know there's gonna be a lot of viewer drop off. People just gonna walk out the theater at it. It's like, you know what, if you have a compelling story, the timing isn't the problem. It's about coming up with the proper way to keep people engage the whole time. So just a lot more experimentation because there's so many more creators who can get their

voice out. But like you said, discover ability that is very difficult. It takes more sense for a company like here you go, Netflix goes and buy Yahoo because they're like, okay, fine, we have a search engine. It's better now happy. I don't know, yeah, it's I mean, it's it's truly tough. Like larger companies have more more options obviously, like if you want to utilize social media and purchase advertising on social media to get your your stuff out in front

of more eyeballs. Then that's great. But if you're a small, independent creator, you might not have the budget to put towards that kind of marketing effort, And in that case, it just does become this challenge of how do I get this thing that I'm really proud of that I think is high quality, that I think people will like if they see it. How do I get it so that people can actually find it? That's just gonna be

a continuing challenge. And anyone who figures out really cool ways to aggregate various content or point customers at stuff that they would already like, uh, they stand to make a killing like that could be a huge business if you can figure out a way of doing that and in a way that's transparent and not underhanded, right, Not like, Okay, I made deals with these ten content creators and I'm gonna keep pushing them to all of my customers and

nobody else gets seen. That's probably not gonna work. But if you can create a service where you really can aggregate stuff, sort of similar to like YouTube, the way they the YouTube presents videos that you might also like based upon your past viewing experience something along that, but better because I think YouTube, I keep seeing the same videos pop up under suggestion and I'm like, I haven't

clicked on it yet. YouTube today is not the day either. Well, I mean the thing is it used to be YouTube was horrible at that. Now it's a little bit better. And then eventually figure out, Yeah, we get the hint that there should be a button like take a hint. Well, I think we've reached the point of the podcast where we go into kind of the quick fire mode. I know you've got a couple of quick fire things you wanted to mention, So why don't you go ahead and start?

And then I've got some questions for both of us to kind of mull over, and also for people out there listening for you guys to mull over. Maybe you come up with an answer that is different from ours and you want to share it. I welcome that kind of opportunity. So shoot I as a rapid fire predictions for the Nintendo n X. It's next system will be good. Greed disagreed. Uh, it has to be good. If it If it's not good, that's really not good for Nintendo.

Apple will finally let you set default apps on iOS. No Apple will create default iOS apps and tell you that you like them. That's that's what they do. Which we're thinking, and we are going to see a battery tech breakthrough next year. Either it's gonna be fuel cells in phones and that's gonna be like gonna happen, or we're gonna have something that has like twenty million powers. I would love to see this. This is one of those where you're starting to run up against the challenge

of physics. You know, there's only so much you can do with electrochemical batteries. Fuel cells are an interesting idea, but you have to keep refueling them. I I hope that this is the case. I know there's been a lot of work with various nano materials that have really increased the the time that a battery will hold a charge, as well as decrease the amount of time it takes to charge it up to full. Like we keep hearing stories about this battery can recharge and in thirty seconds

to power downside is after ten cycles it's dead. So I'm hope. I'm hoping that it does happen. That's what I've got. Okay, Well, here's some rapid fire questions. Okay, this one, I think, I think I know what your answer is gonna because I think it's gonna be the same as mine. But maybe you'll surprise me. Will we see a truly autonomous car debut in two thousand sixteen for the code consumer? No? I also think that's no

in the US anyway. I agree. I think if we do see any autonomous cars, we're gonna continue to see them pun intended, rolled out in a uh in a in a way where it's going to be used for a very specific use case, but not for general transportation,

not yet, not in two thousand sixteen. Okay, do you think there are any companies that are poised to have a big shakedown at the executive level something where maybe we see a CEO Alsted or some other massive restructuring major companies or just saying asking for companies, Well, major companies would probably be the one I would look at. But yeah, if there's any like, yeah, you know there's this uh pizza place I go to, I think I think Peppers and Johnny's is just fine. But I think

a STC. I keep saying a CC because they're they're in the muck and otherwise, why not BlackBerry shuffle. That's a yeah, that's a pretty good bet. Yeah, um yeah, I agree with those. Okay, So how about do you think there are any tech bubbles that are ready to pop something that's been overhyped to the point where in two thousand sixteen it's going to deflate entirely. I think maybe terminology like the uber of X. Yeah, We'll go away because I'm tired of the It's the uber of

dog Walkers. It's like, okay, it's like how all action movies became. It's die hard on a blank, on a boat or on a train. I agree with that. I also think things like the food delivery services, it's gotten really kind of crowded in that space. That's that's related to tech. Obviously, it's not exactly tech. It's in that weird like usually use an app to interact with it. So that's kind of why I lumped it in here. I do think that those are, at least some of

those are going to go away. It's really hard to do that in a profitable way because you're spending so much time just going out and getting the food, not even including the time it takes to take the food from the location to the destination. The cut the consumer that finding a way to charge for that service that isn't prohibitively expensive and still pay the people who work for you is really hard. Now in robots, when not top of his cars do roll out, it will be easy,

but right now not so much. Um, do you think any technology is going to officially become dead in something that? All right, no one is is seriously pushing this technology anymore. We're walking away. You know, you might still see it on store shelves somewhere, but no one's no one's advertising it. No, because everything I think they should be dead is not dead. Like MP three players are not dead. Smart TV apps and are not dead. They are getting better smart TV

app but they don't die. They just kind of become a bullet point on a list a smaller just just an item for a smaller niche market. I guess I would love to see three D television just not even be mentioned anymore, maybe like have it on as a bullet list on a television box just says it's three D capable. But uh, three D television was one of those products that the industry really pushed really hard, and

it never really got anywhere because for multiple reasons. I think a big one being that the the content wasn't really there. There wasn't enough yet when they started pushing three D TVs, and also the old saying that everyone who who winces at the thought three D television brings up. No one wants to have to wear glasses to watch television, or an additional pair of glasses in the case of

some of us. I think the only successful wearable in the history other than wearing glasses, weable technology that we actually wear. And nobody seems that blink and eyat is, earbuds and earphones were okay with that. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I agree. All right. So do you think the Facebook Professional Services platform will be a success? I had to look this up because I didn't know that was a thing. But what what I found out it was it's kind of like YELP, and I think it'll be a sneaky

success maybe in a year or two. I don't know if it'll be a success next year right away, but Facebook needs to be able to explain what it is because sometimes that search fields like do you want to see pictures of Jonathan or do you want to find a pizza place. It's like, yeah, what am I? What am I doing on Facebook? Exactly? Yeah? Well, and Facebook

Professional Services. The idea is to like, Facebook has reached such penetration that it's going to be really hard for them to grow from that perspective, right, I mean, once you hit a billion users, it really does start to get hard to make that number get noticeably bigger. Meanwhile, you've got stakeholders who expect the company to grow so expanding by creating a platform that businesses might be able to use. And uh, there we've seen some components already launched.

There's a Facebook Professional Message app that launched on Android earlier this year. I haven't used it. I have no idea if it's good or not. I don't know if this is going to become the new tool for businesses, so that you know, this becomes like a new productivity communications tool, kind of like something like Slack is. But then I'm also at the age where I don't really understand the value of Slack, So maybe I'm the wrong

person to answer this question in the first place. I do know that whenever I open up Slack, I question why I'm on it. I'm like this I remember when this was Google Wave and nobody wanted it back then. Um, it's got a better it's got a better branding. It's okay, I guess Google. Yeah, alright, So this next question, I'm going to to accuse i As for answering it, because uh, he's not as big into the computer games as I am. But the question I wrote was will the Star Citizen

game actually come out in six Now? First of all, I As, have you heard of the game Star Citizen? Just now? Okay? So Star Star Citizen was a crowdfunded or is a crowdfunded game that raised a ludicrous amount of money, like seventy or eighty million dollars, a crazy amount of money for a crowdsourced game. And part of the game, a large part of the game involves flying spaceships around in this enormous space environment within the game, and you purchase with real money your spaceships like you

can you can use. I think there's some that are just standard with the game, but they're very limited in their capabilities. But you can spend real money, and I'm talking in the hundreds of dollars in some cases to buy a little virtual spaceship that has different capabilities, and then you you own that it's like in your hangar and you get this one of the ships you can use. And that's one of the ways that they've raised so

much money is by selling this virtual spacecraft stuff. And there are some limited uh programs that let you fly your spaceship around. But the actual game hasn't come out yet, and it's been delayed and delayed and delayed, and the official announcement is that it will come out sometime in two thousand and sixteen. Most people are expecting in the fourth quarter, So at the end of two thousand sixteen, I am skeptical that it will come out. My fear

not that I'm invested in this game. I haven't purchased it.

I don't own a spacecraft in this game. But my fear is that it will become sort of like Duke Newcombe Forever, where you have a game that's been in development for quite some time, and as they're working out the bugs and making the game just work, stuff changes enough where they want to update what they've already done in order to take advantage of new capabilities that are computers, which then pushes the actual debut back even further and

this continues until ultimately you just have to throw your arms up the air and say, we just have to put something out. And I fear will not be that year that it will slip to tw if it comes out at all. Um, based on what you said and what I've learned, No, it will not come. And if it does, that's awesome, especially for the people who have spent so much money. There's another podcaster that I listened to who has spent I think close to nine dollars on a computer game that isn't out yet. Nine on

a computer game. I as you could have a gaming rig for that. Yeah, you could buy an arcade machine for that. Not one of the good ones, but you could. Um. And then final question, I think this is the most important one out of all the ones. Do you think Star Wars Rogue one, the first Star Wars spinoff film, will be any good? Any good? Sure? Will you go see it? Probably? Yeah, I'll go see it. I'm seeing Star Wars the tonight, the day we record this on

December seventeenth, I'm seeing it tonight. So finally going to see the fourth unleashed or awakened, rather awakened. It might be unleashed it could be if they put up, if they put the Force on a leash, it's gonna break free. It'll be unleashed again. It's got to be woken up first, that's true. It doesn't have to wake up first. It's been asleep for like, you know. I guess that's how you get a leash on it. I guess that's true. Is you can sneak up on the Force while sleeping,

leash it. It wakes up unleashed Force awakens, is what I meant. Um, Yeah, so that I'm going to see that tonight, I expect. I actually don't know how I feel about the idea of Star Wars spinoff movies because part of me is less interested because it does not relate to the overall story arc of episodes one through nine and maybe beyond if they decided to continue, which

it's Disney they're gonna continue. Um, but you know, and it also makes me worried that's going to turn into something like the Marvel franchises, which have gotten a little too crowded. I think I think we're getting a few too many Marvel movies per year. Now, that's impossible. I can't wait for Disney to finally have a crossover between Star Wars and Spider Man. It's actually they do have rights to Spider Man. But they could do a crossover at some point and it could happen, and we will

be horrified when it happens. When when when Iron Fist shows up at the Cantina, and yeah, that would be he Wait, well, that's that's crazy. You need a time traveler or somebody who's been around forever, hasn't been like Apocalypse. Actually, Apocalypse is not usable because he's in Fox. You're gonna have to use Doctor Strange. He can't use Silver Surfer. He's with Fantastic four. Oh my gosh, he's stuck. Oh no,

he's over Sony. This is very depressing. Yeah, well, we're gonna devolve into a discussion about where which Marvel properties belong to which movie studios. So would that in mind? I asked, thank you so much for joining me and sticking your neck out with mine to predict what will happen in ten Keeping in mind some of these maybe true or false before the episode even airs. Where can

people go to find out all about the stuff you do? Well, the best place to go is Twitter, Twitter dot com, slash I S. That's I Y e Z. That's where you find me promoting things shamelessly. Or you go to see net dot com. It's this little website that's got a huge amount of people putting together awesome content. It's not just me. Should go there, or she'd go to g FQ network dot com because they do a couple of shows there with one of them with Jonathan Surprise.

That's true. Yeah, so thank you again. I ask guys, thank you for listening. If you have any comments on the predictions we made, or any predictions of your own that you would like to share, please send them into me. My email address is hext stuff at how stuff works dot com, or drop me a line on Facebook, Tumbler or Twitter. The handle it all three is text stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit hast works dot com.