December 31, 2012

Predictions for 2013

Filed under: Main — Tags: — admin @ 12:01 am

Time to, once again, play my annual game of Am I Clairvoyant! Allow me to roll the cosmic dice . . .

Just to keep my ego stroked in a year, when I do my annual review of these predictions, here are the easy ones — or the ones I think are easy:

Near-Certain Predictions

Apple TV. Come on, Apple! Give us the TV that Steve Jobs would have given us! Make him proud!

iPhone 5s. I could say “iPhone 6,” but Apple has this “S” thing going with the odd-year phones. I expect it to be ho-hum. The stock will drop.

Windows 8 is a dog. I put this prediction in this section on purpose. I really don’t think Windows 8 will be widely-adopted.

Cell Phone Viruses. This could just be a scare tactic from McAfee, the people who panicked the computer world about the Michelangelo non-virus event many moons ago, or it could be real. I’m voting (reluctantly) for real.

Kind-of Out There Predictions

Image Searching

Computer scientists are madly (or should I write “Mad computer scientists are”) working toward mimicking the human senses. You’ll most likely see the results first with image searching. Even today algorithms are present to find faces in images. Soon you’ll be able to search for something like “Monkey eating a banana” and find such images — all without the benefit of metatags or text descriptions hanging on the file. As with other technologies, it will be the porn industry that drives this one.

Ick.

I predict that by the end of 2013, Google Image Search will feature a “beta” of such a powerful searching technique. In a few years, image searching will be commonplace.

Biometric Logins

Passwords will soon be a thing of the past. Let me clarify: Text passwords will soon be a thing of the past. I predict that tomorrow’s PC will let you log in merely by looking at the thing. Your visage will be recognized and you’ll be logged in without typing a thing. Android devices feature the Face Unlock security scree, which is merely a primitive preview of the technology. In fact, future logins may merely be made by technology picking up your smell. Wouldn’t that be something?

Off-The-Wall Prediction

Facebook Has a Melt-Down

I just feel like writing something negative about Facebook. I mean, as an Internet phenom, it can’t keep going on the way it has. Something is up. Something is going to crash, or get hacked, or some other wannabe is going to take down the King of Social Networking. If not, I’m going to be very surprised.

Enjoy your 2013!

2 Comments

  1. It would be great if textpasswords were a thing of the past. I can see eye recognition being successful, but not smell recognition. Because wouldn’t perfume confuse it? But assuming I’m wrong, with that kind of technology, could that mean it would also be possible to watch a video of a rose etc, and be able to smell it?

    Comment by The Gnome Whisperer — January 1, 2013 @ 4:15 am

  2. The article I read referred to all the senses being emulated electronically, including smell and taste. IBM is working on that. I think for password recognition we may see visual and scent oriented. Remember that the human sense of smell isn’t that well developed. I’m sure that a dog can recognize its owner regardless of how pretty or foul the owner smells. Hopefully a computer/tablet/phone will be as discerning.

    I’ve played with the Face Recognition feature in Android Jelly Bean. It works, but my problem is positioning the device properly to catch my visage. Most of the time I’m too close and so the phone only sees my eyes. Apparently the technology just isn’t there yet.

    Regarding generating smells, that would be something!

    Comment by admin — January 1, 2013 @ 11:31 am

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