5 Predictions for 2012

Structured Audio writes "Mike Langberg of the Merc put up his 5 technology predictions for 2012. Well chosen, although of course in 2012 speech recognition will still be 10 years away :-)."

All present and accounted for -- always.

[ejdmoo]

Great...can't skip work and go on the Duff Factory tour...

unless I leave my cell phone at home :)

My prediction...

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS will still not have bathed.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I predict...

[packeteer]

...FLYING CARS!!!

Finally, we can talk to our computers.

[Sophrosyne]

.....what gives? I talk to my computer all the time..I guess I'm ahead of the times.

In the year 2012

[LordOfYourPants]

In the year 2012:

Junis will upgrade to a 386

Jon Katz II begins writing articles for slashdot. His premiere article: What caused Columbine to happen II? A 37-part epic.

Stephen King and Alan Thicke will still be dying on a daily basis, missed by all.

The goatse.cx hole will increase in radius by 3m.

The (meta)-moderation system will still be broken.

E-paper will be coming out "real soon now"

The "How about a beowulf cluster of these?" joke finally gets played out.

Mozilla supports yenc decoding.

Nonono, he's got it all wrong!

[Freston Youseff]

In the year two-thousand and twelve, we will have inexhaustable electricity sources, flying cars, commercial zeppelin transports, jetpacks, a non-crashable Microsoft Operating system and of course SPAM(TM) that is edible.

moving sidewalks

[Anonymous Coward]

They've always been promising us moving sidewalks. Why can't They keep their promises?

2012!!! The Future is here...

[Droz1313]

Unfortunatly, Duke Nukem Forever was cancelled again in 2011....

They are moving already

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earth is rotating as well as moving through space, right? So, I say moving sidewalks are already everywhere! A stationary sidewalk will be the real development.

Here's my predictions for 2012:

[tmark]

(drumroll please)
5. computers will be much faster than they are today
4. computers will be much less expensive than they are now
3. programs will take much more space than they do now
2. hard drive capacities will be much larger than they are now
and finally... (drumroll please)
1. there will be even more duped articles on Slashdot

Hopefully wrong..

[WillRobinson]

The car: You should not have to ask how far it is to the next gas station. The car knows how much gas you have, how many miles to the next station, and your gas millage, maybe even the terrain. It should be more like:
Hal: John, I have determined you should not have passed that last station, maybe you should turn around now.
Hal: John, you have two miles more before the point of no return to that gas station you passed.
Hal: John, are you listening to me?
John: Shut UP! You dont know i have a gas can in the trunk!
Hal: John, yes you do, but its empty! Remember last time?
John: Nag, Nag Nag..

Re:Speech Recognition

[Tumbleweed]

No way, you'll say, "computer", not "car". You wouldn't be speaking to the car, but to a computer. Like in Star Trek, they call it 'computer,' and not 'ship.' ;)

Either that, or you'll give your car's computer a name and use that. "Chitty, give me directions to the nearest movie theatre."

Re:Nonono, he's got it all wrong!

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

And every Slashdotter will have a lady.

Riiiight...whatever.....

Re:Speech Recognition

[digitalsushi]

Nah, when they spoke to the computer, it was always much louder, and if they were alone in the room, always rhetorical.

Re:2012?!?!

[Evil Dead]

To be more precise, it will end on Dec. 21, 2012. Even more suprising is the fact that everyone I work with finally gets our additional vacation time on...Dec 21, 2012! I think our CEO is in league with those Mayans, X-Philes, and the Aliens. We're all doomed to have the world end without getting to use our additional time! Damn aliens...

As Avery Brooks said:

[AnamanFan]

"Where are my flying cars? I was promised flying cars..."

- Avery Brooks [imdb.com] (In a IBM [ibm.com] commercial)

Re:Speech Recognition

[ActiveSX]

how did it route the person-to-person commnications before the individual spoke the receipient's name?

Ahh, this is an easy one:
IT WAS WRITTEN THAT WAY IN THE SCRIPT.

of course, we'll have much larger hard drives.....

[autopr0n]

220 gig hard drives are already on store shelves. You can easily build a 1tb raid array today if you want to. Think about the size of hard drives in 1992. What, 120 megs? If the triend continues we'll have half petabyte hard drives by then.

Of course, they will run at 400 degrees and last a week, but tradeoffs always need to be made...

RFID cloaking device, uncappers

[goombah99]

my counter-predictions for 2012+1

In 2013, after you install the water limiter uncapper, your maytag washing machine finks on you and collects a reward.

In 2013, the invention of the RFID cloaking devices (aluminum lines shopping bags), leads to whole sale shoplifting. An new chain of stores called "shop-naked" emerges, and becomes wildly popular not only as a place to meet members of the opposit sex, but because it is the only place that sells food in the city anymore.

in 2013, stranger-on-a-train parties become an out-of control trend, with complete strangers exchanging their Presence ID tags. Thus subverting the tracking scrutiny of big brother and his computerized corporate stooges. Faced with a loss of control over ordinary citizens, President Jenna Bush imposes mandatory ID tatooing and all babies receive an injected RFID module.

Re:Hmm

[packeteer]

Because in 2012 the mayan calander ends and well all be dead anyway so who cares...

Re:Speech Recognition

[Delphix]

After our semi-intelligent voice recognition car breaks down on the side of the road:

Driver: "This car is a piece of shit!"
Car: "The nearest restroom is 200 miles down route 54."
Driver : "God I hate this car, I want to kick it's ass."
Car: "The nearest brothel is located 4,364 miles away in the state of of Nevada."
Driver: "That's it, I've had enough of this you fucking car. I'm going to kill you!"
Car: "Security system activated. Electrifiying body frame."
Driver: Bzzwaaaarrrrrrzzzwaaaaaaaaaaa

Talk to computers?

[miffo.swe]

Imagine an office landscape of about 100 people. It will sound like a chicken farm on fire.

Isnt handsfree silly enough to watch? Will the computer understand foul language and respond by deleting files (happens anyway if you use Windows).

Re:only 1 terabyte ??

[Orne]

1 terabyte should be enough for anyone...

Re:Presence exists... big brother is stalking you?

[Alan Partridge]

I ALREADY hate Star Wars 3 and I haven't even seen it yet

Re:Hey

[Telepathetic Man]

I predict 2012 will be a great year for whine!

How the car will REALLY answer...

[dpbsmith]

Driver: Car, how far to the next gas station?
Car: Eight miles ahead at exit 37 there is a Chevron station.
Driver: Is there a Mobil station there?
Car: No.
Driver: Are there any closer gas stations?
Car: Yes.
Driver: Where?
Car: Six miles ahead at exit 36 there is a Citgo station.
Driver: Are there any Mobil stations within the next twenty miles?
Car: Yes, there is one four miles ahead at exit 35.
Driver: Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?
Car: To keep the costs of the service low to you, we present you with value-added featured placements first. By the way, wouldn't you like a larger penis?

Plan

[tadas]

1) Make predictions [bayarea.com] in 1992

2) Have a lot of them turn out right

3) ????

4) PROPHET!!!

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[flewp]

In Russia Soviet we have... errr forget it.

Can anyone play?

[mtec]

There will be a pill men (and women) can take to remove the need for shaving. Trade named Depilorex, those that take the pill will lose all bodily hair and be referred to as 'smoothies' leading them to start a cult that worships the head of Steve Balmer.

After years of mis-understanding and accidental death, new Tablet PC's will come out that are chewable, in colorful Flintstone shapes.

Bill Gates will be a distant memory having been killed in 2006 in a bizarre accident when his computerized bidet malfunctions (a brief investigation can find no evidence of tampering and very little evidence of Mr. Gates)

Steve Balmer retires from Microsoft in 2005 to star and produce in a remake of the Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Mr. Balmer also becomes heavily involved with the smoothie cult as it's symbolic leader and introduces ritualistic clapping and hopping to the group before being asked to reduce his role and "just be the head"

Terrorism is a thing of the past when, in a 2003 CIA plot, the leaders of al-Qaida are clandestinely fed Depilorex and cannot look at each other without giggling and are too embarrassed appear in threatening videos.

The new head of Microsoft, an incomplete 6 year old Bill Gates clone hastily harvested from the scene of his death, announces (via a translator 'Mr. Wuzzy his Spokes-Teddy Bear') the switch to a new open source philosophy, introducing the new direction with a new mascot, a fuzzy green reptile called 'Opensaurus' and changing the marketing tagline of the company to "We wanna play too! "

this has got to be a joke...

[IlluminatedOne]

The world ends sooner that 2012 according to this [yahoo.com] [yahoo.com] article.

The Most Important Improvement!

[dajalas]

Dildonics matures, but is still too expensive for the average geek.

Re:Speech Recognition

[etxjrh]

It did, they just cut those bits ;)

Re:In the year 2012

[stwrtpj]

The "How about a beowulf cluster of these?" joke finally gets played out.

But the "all your base are belong to us" variations will still be going.

Cluster

[willpost]

"The 'How about a beowulf cluster of these?' joke finally gets played out."

Steve Ballmer will be chanting:
Distributed!
Distributed!
Distributed !

Re:In the year 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

..and, if so, will everyone complain because its already been posted?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, according to Terence Mckenna, 2012 will be a time of infinite novelty, according to his theory of fractal time which is based on the I-Ching.

Think I'll post this one anonymously. Don't want to explain how I know this.

Speech recognition... hee hee hee...

[tlambert]

Speech recognition... hee hee hee...

Can you imagine speech recognition becoming so common it gets built into every computer?

It would be worthwhile paying for a 1U slot in a colocation facility, just to have a machine that has no purpose whatsoever, except to randomly scream out at the highest volume on it's sound card "SHUTDOWN NOW!" to the other machines...

-- Terry

Re:I predict...

[randmairs]

In 2012, I predict that I will be in my Flying Car listening to my satellite radio when my speech recognition computer picks up the tune "Fly me to the Moon" and will get ticketed by NASA, the FAA, and a dozen State Troopers.

PS My Flying Car will be a fuel celled vehicle and the gas station will serve nothing but hydrogen.

Re:Hmm

[treat]

And how do you look inside a pizza box to decide whether it has four slices or one? And how do you tell if the Chinees takeout was from yesterday or last thursday?

Xray, MRI, GC/MS. Camera logging when the item was put in the fridge.