2009 Predictions Follow-up

Posted on January 1, 2010  •  3 minutes  • 544 words

I thought I would follow up on my predictions for last year  and see how I did.

Computers:1. Multitouch — While this didn’t make as big of a push as I hoped, hardware development is very slow in a recession, there have been announcements of hardware coming out in 2010 that defiantly take advantage of multitouch inputs. Project Natal  and the PS3 motion controller  did surprise me though.2. Linux Market Share — I cannot find a good answer on this one. But lets just say market share boomed but not where I thought it would. Android and webOS are both Linux based devices that saw a huge jump in market share from where they were in 2008. And there were also reports of Linux having a 30% market share  in netbooks. Those numbers are good enough for me to say this is confirmed!3. Microsoft Solutions — Windows Mobile was a failure still because WM7 got pushed back, the ZuneHD made huge progress and if weren’t for apps would be preferred over the iPod Touch in the tech world. Just the fact that I had 4–5 people ask me about the Zune this year makes me think it was a success. A year ago if you said Zune nobody knew what you were talking about. Windows 7 was a success but I think more than anything Microsoft no longer is the joke of the tech world, Apple is . Just getting their reputation back was a huge success for them.Video games:1. Wii — No it didn’t crash, sales are still relatively strong but with addons upon addons for the console and no new games that are any good. This will remain a console that collects dust in peoples entertainment centers.2. PS3 — Totally confirmed! With the launch of the PS3 slim and a couple big games that finally came out sales jumped tremendously. From what I could find the PS3 actually surpassed the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales. And that is saying a lot considering how much the US and Europe loves the Xbox 360 and how much of the market share that accounts for.3. Online play — Was it key? Not anymore than previous years. But the PlayStation Network is growing in popularity, and usefulness, and casual Xbox 360 games even needed to sign up for accounts for Netflix streaming, which I think is lame BTW.4. PS3 3D — It is later than I thought but it is sill coming .Other:1. DTV transition — Wow, that was uneventful. I guess people were more prepared than I thought. It also helped that a good portion of OTA users switched to cable or satellite.2. Streaming video — While this probably wasn’t because of the DTV switch. Many online video sites flourished , and some failed .3. OLED — Besides a few mobile devices, OLED was unheard of in 2009. I blame that on the recession, that crap is expensive to develop. All in all though, there was no projector built into a laptop and pocket projectors just started coming onto the market. Stupid recession.4. New site — Nope, didn’t happen. Twitter really took off but nothing to surpass the growth of facebook. Although MySpace is finally bleeding users.

Originally published at 1n73r.net  on January 1, 2010.