turntable / as the table turns

robot dog

self assembling robots

luke arm

If George can anoint himself “The Decider” then I can confidently take the title of “The Predictor”. I was just crowned (literally, I have the tiara to prove it) 2008 Visionary Of The Year by Unlimited Potential. Which is pretty impressive, considering it happened in the first month of 2008.

It was another fun event and my fellow predictors had plenty of prescient and witty insights. Hopefully UP will post all the predictions somewhere.

The following is my outlook on the year to come. It contains a fair dose of wishful thinking, but sometimes technology and events do sneak up on you quicker than you expect.

2007 Greatest hits and misses

DRM finally goes away
Hit. Woot!

Wellington weather will be shit
Miss. Woot!

2007 Report card

User generated video advertising
Good progress: LiveRail, BrightRoll, YuMe, Adap.tv, VideoEgg, Adotube, Google/YouTube

Enterprise SaaS
Good progress: Netsuite IPO, Force.com

Web OS
Good progress: Macbook Air, gOS, CloudBook

Mobile Media Centers
Not so much: iPhone + Apple TV

2008 Better mobile experiences

3G iPhone with GPS, still won’t be available in NZ

Mesh networks start catching on thanks to Wireless USB (WUSB)

Somebody will provide a standard wifi billing platform (think OpenID + Paypal)

Presence detection gets real, gets fun:
get pinged when social network in proximity,
“scan” a party, cafe, club, biz conference to see profiles,
mixing and mingling privately while standing in a crowded room

2008 Hyperlocal on the homefront

Oil nears $200 a barrel, travel increasingly becomes a luxury,
people start thinking and acting a lot more local

Biofuels start becoming more efficient, demand surges
Aqua Flow becomes a leading provider

Working and learning from home becomes more and more of a necessity, collaborative web applications thrive in response

Lending networks thrive, microloans help ease economic turbulence

Home bio scanners start to hit the market - letting people scan food, detect viruses and germs, capture and analyse medical data, send data to a remote expert for further analysis

2008 Geeks Robots rule the earth

Portions of Google Earth and Streetside become available as realtime video

Mashed on top of this “open surveilance” framework will be
massively multiplayer game experiences

Hardware widgets and software widgets will converge producing very hackable, very personalised, interoperable device components (Buglabs, ThingM, Chumby)

New software driven materials interactively, physically reshape on command

2008 will go down in history as the year the robot uprising started taking shape

2008 Politics

Obama wins by a landslide

Helen wins (barely)

Kerry resigns in disgrace over conflicts-of-interest scandal

Tom Beard becomes the new mayor!

Finally, in my acceptance speech I predicted that next year the panel will include a woman!

It’s been a great start to 2008. We had a gadget filled Xmas: Nintendo DS Lite, Leapster, Eyeclops, a head mounted video camera, and an OLPC.

After Xmas I spent a week doing some long overdue gardening (weeding, to be more accurate). Which is where I came across this beauty!

Then the family hopped on the Interislander to spend two awesome weeks off-the-grid at the top of the South Island. We camped for a week and then we shared a holiday house on the Marlborough Sounds the week after.

To top it off, Emory and I conducted our own personal Amazing Race to see the Police in Auckland. We started with a ferry crossing, rushing to the airport, buying tickets, jumping on a plane, booking a hotel, rushing by taxi to the concert, then we spent most of the concert in an ambulance.

Expect a big update to my Flickr site this week.

What’s UP 2008?

Last year I participated in the ‘What’s UP’ predictions event. They’re having a follow up 2008 event and I’ve been invited back to face my predictions and make some new ones.

Last year was great fun, so I definitely recommend it.

Price: FREE (price includes pizza and beer)
When: Wednesday 30 January, 2008, 5:30 for a 6:00 start.
Where: Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Level 28, The Majestic Centre, 100 Willis Street, Wellington.

There’s another Webstock Mini coming up on June 19th (my birthday!). The line up looks as great as always: a RoR workshop by the legendary Koz, a tour of Second Life, the low down on Firefox 3, followed by a panel “debate”. I happen to be one of the invited panelists for that debate.

The topic of the debate is “Web 2.0 is all fizz and no substance”. I’m not exactly sure what there is to debate. It seems like a pointless folly to me. I’m hoping we’ll have a bit of fun with it.

In the spirit of web 2.0 and user participation, I urge you to contribute to the wiki I’ve created for the occasion. I’m really counting on some user contributions. Please don’t let me down.

This afternoon I met with my fellow debatrs Brenda Leeuwenberg and Che Tibby to plot our triumph, over lunch at Ka Pai (my new favorite lunch venue - I’ve eaten there 3 days in a row - finally yummy, affordable salads in Wellington!).

Maybe we could all do a Meetup prior to Webstock? No flashmobs please.

Found via (via Edurev via Reemer)

Here is the back story and source of the video. They’re currently making an updated version and they want you to contribute your thoughts and questions.

When I did my predictions at the What’s UP 2007 the prediction that seemed to get the most snickering and eyes rolling was my suggestion that “DRM finally goes away”.

Well, it’s official. EMI is making their entire catalog available on iTunes completely DRM-free.

Well, what do you know? Another of my predictions for 2007 is just now coming to the surface…

Internet advertising works best when anyone can produce a simple ad. This was first shown with Doubleclick ceding ad prominence to Google and now it will be shown in internet video with blip.tv’s new DIY ad program.

It doesn’t appear to be as advanced as what I proposed - bidding for ad placement, different ads served to different users, with green screened product placement ala in-game ads. However, that will emerge. Count on it.

Steve “iTunes Lock In” Jobs is pushing to abolish DRM. Looks like another one of my predictions is moving ahead nicely.

Not that I’m keeping tabs.

The What’s UP 2007 event was good fun. I met some really nice, well clued-up people. Here are the slides from my predictions (use the < > keys to navigate). The day after UP, I headed out on our family summer holiday.

As I write, I’m in the exquisite Northland region of NZ (in Oakura Bay to be precise). It’s been ideal in every way. Swimming, kayaking, bbq-ing, reading and sleeping. It’s warm here day and night, and there’s no wind. It’s really been making us question why people (us included) live in Wellington.

At the holiday house I perused the book shelf and noticed The Google Story. I tend to have a strong aversion to business books. However, I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s a good piece of storytelling. The thing that’s sticking out for me is how Larry and Sergey have always had the tenacity to do things their way, along with the perseverance to execute first and foremost. Ultimately, it’s really about having the conviction to relentlessly pursue what you believe is best and have fun doing it.

At the UP event, I noted that several of my predicted future platforms could easily be generated out of NZ. Foo Camp is coming up this weekend and I’m really hoping to see strong evidence of that same type of tenacity, conviction, guts, plus the ambition to build something big and important and useful from this beautiful country, something that the world needs and NZ can deliver. Peter Jackson did that for the film industry. Who will do it for ICT?

I’ve been challenged to put up or shut up in the future predicting department. Next Wednesday (24 Jan 2007) you can witness me doing my best Nostradamus imitation in front of a live audience at the next Unlimited Potential event: What’s UP in 2007?

Will I amaze and astound all those present? Or will I be a bitter embarrassment to all those who know me? You can be the judge, but only if you go.

Fortunately, the future does not depend entirely upon me. There will be a group of wiser, better informed internet rockstars to help me look even more foolish.

• Mauricio Freitas, Mr. Geekzone
• Hamish MacEwan, Mr. Citylink
• Tom Beard, Mr. Urban Planning
• David Farrar, Mr. Politico

If you don’t come to see us clowns, you should at least come for the free pizza and beer.

When: Wednesday 24th January 2006, at 5:30 for a 6:00 start.
Where: Creative HQ, at 25 Marion Street, Wellington.

Hope to see you there. Got any good tips for me? Please.