1. StuxnetI agree with all of these; they nail it.
2. TARP is cheaper than expected
3. Common school standards
4. Rise of natural gas
5. Twilight of the desktop
IBM has released their list of five innovations for the next five years: IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years
* You'll beam up your friends in 3-DThese are so general and sound a lot like a 'Popular Science' magazine cover article from the 1960's. I have no idea what IBM is thinking here other than trying to get some attention via a press release.
* Batteries will breathe air to power our devices
* You won't need to be a scientist to save the planet
* Your commute will be personalized
* Computers will help energize your city
In no order these are my musings for 2011:
- the decline of Microsoft will accelerate
- the popularity of Android devices will peak
- Facebook will attempt to replace the OS
- Apple will NOT release a television but will make apps available on AppleTV
- peak oil will be accepted as having happened and an oil production plateau will become conventional wisdom
- the future of energy research will be concentrated in bio-butanol, oil from algae, and technology that replicates photosynthesis by combing CO2 and sunlight to produce energy
- people will stop talking about ethanol and the hydrogen economy
- Ford's reputation will surpass Toyota's
- wok cooking will be the big food trend in 2011
- Verlander and Bonderman will have amazing years leading to a Tigers vs Phillies World Series
- cancellations of cable TV and landline telephone subscriptions will increase logarithmically; providers will lose money until the figure out it is a packet based world and customers will pay for those packets
- continuing research will indicate things thought to be good aren't necessarily always a good thing; things like marriage, mortgages, running shoes, pillows, drugs/vitamins, the suburbs, college
- the phrase "climate chaos" will replace "climate change"
- wingnuts will get even nuttier
- Twitter and the Tea Party will both be replaced by the "new thing" in communications and politics respectively, pleasing many people
- the economy will get stuck between oil prices and stock prices - as one goes up the other goes down leading to stagflation until a non-carbon based energy breakthrough is reached which will break the cycle
- there will NOT be an Arrested Development movie
- alien life will be acknowledged/discovered and the response will be the same as if someone told you Liberace was gay ("and so....??")
- political parties begin talking about an economics which includes social costs
