A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
Happy New Year! It’s that time again for everyone to make their annual predictions about what will happen in the future. Not me. You all should know by now how I am usually a little different. After all, people with much more intelligence than me can probably predict the future with much more accuracy than I could ever hope to achieve.
For instance, the following prediction: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” This prediction was made in 1932 by none other than Albert Einstein.
Is there anyone who hadn’t heard about Steve Jobs predictions on a stylus pen, smaller tablets and larger phones? That puts him in the same league as Thomas Watson, IBM chairman in 1943, when he said there was a world market for maybe five computers. IBM predictions improved in 1959 when they told Xerox that the world potential for copying machines was about 5000.
There are many other examples of brilliant people making the same types of accurate predictions. In 2005 Steve Chen, the co-founder of YouTube claimed that the platform couldn’t survive. He said, “There’s just not that many videos that people want to watch.” A year earlier, Bill Gates predicted that SPAM e-mail would be solved within two years. He also stated that his company, Microsoft, would never make a 32 bit operating system.
I could go on and on for pages about other people who made tech predictions that didn’t quite come true. How about these other predictions?:
1) Subsidized cell phones will continue to decline and maybe even join floppy disks in the “I remember when” category.
2) Smart watches pass out of the what is it good for stage and replace cell phones the same way that automobiles replaced the horse and buggy.
3) Windows 7 will hang on as long as XP did.
4) Apple will invent wireless charging.
5) 3D television will make a comeback.
In case you might be interested, those are all predictions that I made in my January 2016 column. You can see that my accuracy isn’t any worse (or better). I’ll only make one prediction for this year: 2017 will bring some great computer club meetings, a lot of information on the club’s web site and some excellent monthly trips to Texas.
Thanks for reading.