2017 Predictions
Posted on January 1, 2017 • 3 minutes • 538 words
After 9 years of predictions I’ve been wrong with my predictions more often than I’ve been right. Read my 2016 predictions here (with links to previous years) and read below for predictions for 2017.
- Security (or lack thereof) had some ugly displays in 2016. Unfortunately, 2017 is going to be much worse. Internet of things devices will continue to have flaws as hacks become more sophisticated. In 2016 DVRs and webcams took out a major DNS provider and it was just a drop in the bucket for what’s to come.
- Securing systems is so hard that companies are going to move even faster to cloud providers. This includes moving server infrastructure and also moving workstations to hosted virtual desktops. It will help with security simply because cloud environments force better policies more than they are actually more secure.
- VR kept making news in 2016 but there was still a lack of adoption. Lack of content and high cost of entry is going to make VR news turn dark. The promise of a future with VR will turn to news about VR companies shutting down and VR never catching on. There will still be some new/novel ways and new start-ups creating cool VR demos. But they will forever stay demos.
- Open source all the things! Time and time again companies that were focused on being open grew considerably. 2017 will have more companies open source their technology but with negative outcome. CEOs will think that dumping a bunch of code on GitHub is enough. This will cause problems because the open source community is a community, not a code dumping ground. It will also be a problem because at least one company will publicly expose code with critical security vulnerabilities and passwords/keys to access that companies infrastructure. They will frantically have to re-key before hackers cause too much havoc.
- Politics. All I can say is things are going to go dark (encrypted) for law enforcement which is going to cause much more drastic measures from government. Expect more back doors and companies being forced to secretly expose private data under gag restrictions. Also expect innovation to stall as creative solutions for securing data to be a focus of big companies and startups to fail under regulations for government access.
- Manufacturing is going to grow in leaps and bounds in 2017, but only for the companies that invested in automation instead of cheap labor. This will include Apple and Tesla. Companies that aren’t forward thinking will struggle as global economies collapse and labor expenses skyrocket.
- Consumerism is going to grow in 2017 as the economy is on a rebound. Unfortunately, by the end of 2017 there will a downturn in the economy and all the innovation that is announced in the summer will have a hard time gaining a foothold in the fall. I could be wrong about the timeline but the downturn will come before the end of 2018.
- Wireless charging! Finally wireless charging is going to become main stream and make it into more devices. A wirelessly charged iPhone will come out this year including laptops, tablets, and various other gadgets.
That’s all for this year. Let me know your predictions in the comments or on twitter .