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Rose-Coloured Predictions

As we come to the close of the first decade of the 2000s, it seems appropriate to dig around the Internets to see how people envisioned our current technological reality just as it was getting underway ten years ago.

It's obvious the 2000s can be summed up with a three-letter acronym: www. Everything else orbits around the coming of age of the Internet in all its forms. What follows is a sample of the limitless lists that are surely lurking in the corners of pundits' websites around the world. There is some gold in these links, and some surprisingly accurate statements.

Tech in 2000: The Predictions, by Wired
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/12/33353

"But, never let error hold us back: 2000 will have more lawsuits like eToys vs etoy, only even broader, stupider, and nastier. Large companies and/or opportunistic lawyers will be suing whoever they can -- other big companies, offshore ISPs, your mom -- for ‘stealing’ intellectual ‘property’, with both terms very nebulously and dubiously defined." Brad Bulger, Wired Digital

"Software will become omnipresent, personal, and intelligent. With the Web following us around, we'll expect all our data to come with it. Network data storage and application access will gradually replace fixed workstations. And the data following us around will be more personalized." Dr. Michael Witbrock, principal scientist, Lycos

"The Web brands that win this year will stand for something different, convey that difference simply and elegantly, and focus more on user experience than matching competitive functionality widget-for-widget." Mary Murphy, SVP Marketing Wired Digital

10 Predictions for Year 2000, by Edward Piou
http://www.ahref.com/guides/industry/200001/0101piou.html

"Weblogs, or 'blogs, will go commercial - more so than they have so far, anyway. It was only by buying the open-source 'blog Slashdot.org that Andover.Net was able to get enough credibility to IPO this past fall. More corporations (and maybe political campaigns) will turn to this format to generate web traffic and revenue."

You Can't Get There From Here: Twenty Predictions for the Year 2000, by By Robert X. Cringely
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/1999/pulpit_19991230_000403.html

"Intel and Microsoft will hit their all-time peaks of influence and profitability this year with a slow decline after 2000. Each company is already past the sweet spot in their core markets and started making mainly bad investments in a string of possible futures... I am not saying they will fail, but that they will enter a mature stage of growth in single, rather than double, digits. It's the end of an era."

Peter Cochrane Speaks 2000/1 Predictions (Video)
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-60EXpjrackA/peter_cochrane_speaks_2000_1_predictions/

"When that bandwidth is available right across the network everywhere, we will see a complete transformation of the gaming industry."

"Probably the single biggest breakthrough is when we become journalists, because we will all be wearing cameras and devices that can capture any event at any time. We'll be in the street, look up, see a car accident. That can be captured so that then can be made into a news item."

Predictions, by Michael Naimark
http://www.naimark.net/writing/predictions.html

"Collaborative artworks and performances made by millions of people on the Internet emerge and evolve. But also a new form of mob behavior, "virtual street gangs," emerge as well."

"Realizing that bits have to safely reside somewhere, new kinds of museums appear, as cultural data banks. These digital collections become a boom for small, remote, and specialized museums."

TECHNOLOGY IN THE YEAR 2000 (1988, be Gene Bylinsky)
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1988/07/18/70787/index.htm

"Quite soberly, Peers and his peers on the high-tech frontiers say that by the year 2000, computers that don't look and act like computers will surround you -- shirt-pocket and notebook-like devices that respond to handwritten and spoken queries and commands, maybe even gestures."

"When you travel, you may carry along an electronic book that opens up to display text on two facing screens. The book's memory will contain as many as 200 novels or nonfiction volumes; you just write the name of the one you want to read, and up it pops."

"The telephone of the year 2000 will evolve into what Bell Labs' Vice President for Research, Arno A. Penzias, refers to as ''an integrated information appliance.'' This would be a sleek device with a large flat screen that would allow picture-phone conferences in full color as well as offer all the other accoutrements of the information age: the ability to send and receive documents and messages, act as a full-size computer, and provide access to many information sources."

OMNI's predictions for the year 2000 (from 1989)
http://friendfaux.blogspot.com/2008/04/omnis-predictions-for-year-2000-from.html

"Computers will provide access to all the card catalogs of all the libraries in the world by the late ‘90s."

"Mass media will be more personalized as consumers use pay-per-view television to select movies. Viewers will download their choices from a "teledelivery" service, paying for the program when they see it."

"About half of all service workers (43 per cent of the labor force by 2000) will be involved in collecting, analyzing, synthesizing, structuring, storing, or retrieving information as the basis of knowledge."

The Tomorrow Show: Technology Predictions From 1994
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2007/01/the-tomorrow-show-technology- predictions-from-1994.html

"Printed newspapers won't exist in 40 years. Instead, the news will be delivered via a credit-card-style memory device to lightweight magazine-size tables. Full-color screen displays will have the clarity and contrast of ink on paper, with the ability to provide not only written words and still pictures but also full-motion video clips, animated graphics and sound." Roger Fidler

"Wireless communications in the future will be ubiquitous. Every aspect of our day-to-day living will be touched by new technology. You won't go outside to get the morning paper. It'll be delivered to a computer docked to your TV set, allowing you to call up only those stories you want to read on-screen. When you leave for the office, you'll remove the portable docking port where it's been collecting information and take it to your car so you can work while you're commuting. Once you're at work, you'll slip the computer out of its car holder and into a receptacle on the desktop." Jim Page, Motorola

The wrong stuff: In the future, predictions of the future will be as off-base as they've been in the past.
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/01/07/wrong_predictions/index.html

Top 30 Failed Technology Predictions
http://listverse.com/2007/10/28/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/


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