2021 Prediction #6:  COVID-19, Clubhouse, and the Great High School Reset

To this point in my tech predictions for 2021 I have ignored COVID-19, which we all do at our peril. Now that we know the pandemic is real, that it won’t just disappear, and that half a million people are so far dead from it, what are predictable longer-term impacts? I see plenty changing in how we work, how we use social media, and how education has generally failed. Coming out the other side of this mess several aspects of life will be different, but school probably won’t be one of those.

I have an unusual perspective on these times since I am a parent of three sons (19, 16, and 14), I have […]

By |February 26th, 2021|2021, Education, Health, Predictions, Social Media|71 Comments
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2021 Prediction #5:  Apple (and maybe Google) saves the world

Back on January 23rd, the New York Times published an Op-Ed piece by Kate Murphy titled America Has a GPS Problem, citing fear at the highest levels of government and industry that international bad actors might bring down the Global Positioning System satellite network, running your Tesla into a guardrail in the process. It’s just the sort of story you’d expect to read here, rather than in the Times, but what the heck. And the story is absolutely correct: we are all in danger. But Ms. Murphy, beyond wringing her hands, doesn’t say how the crisis will be averted or who will do the averting. I predict that Apple will fix the problem […]

By |February 9th, 2021|2021, mobile technology, Phones, Predictions, Privacy and Security, space|136 Comments
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2021 Prediction #4: WiFi 6 is a bust (for now) as Bufferbloat returns thanks to ISP greed

Remember Bufferbloat? It’s a subject I was among the first to write about a decade ago, starting with a prediction column just like this one in 2011. The problem at the time was that every video or audio application — the big bandwidth consumers — was trying to solve performance issues through pre-buffering. You’d launch Netflix (just one example — they all did it) and it would pause for a few seconds filling a huge buffer intended to smooth-out any playing glitches. Except performance didn’t improve and in fact got worse because of buffers buffering buffers. These extra buffers were defeating TCP/IP’s own flow control mechanisms, often leading to total […]

By |February 4th, 2021|2021, Internet, networking, Predictions|36 Comments
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2021 Prediction #3: Get ready for more GameStops as hedge funds are no longer the only bullies in town

Sorry I got my puts and calls mixed-up in the e-mail version of this column. It should now be fixed. My 16 year-old copy editor says he won’t make that mistake again. — Bob

Today is my birthday. Thirty-five years ago today I was drinking coffee in my Palo Alto kitchen when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on TV. Thirty years ago today my father fell over, instantly dead of a heart attack while walking between gates in the American Airlines terminal at DFW. I was expecting a call, just not that one. Life is full of surprises and some of them aren’t good, as hedge funds are learning this week while their […]

By |January 28th, 2021|Finance, Government, investing, Predictions, Uncategorized|62 Comments
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2021 Prediction #2: Peak Facebook as Zuck runs out of role models

If 2020 was a Trump- and Covid-inspired year of social media excess, 2021 can’t help but see some reversion. But it’s more than that, with big Internet companies coming under greater regulatory scrutiny worldwide, especially Facebook and Google. This year is going to be a tough one for Mark Zuckerberg, especially. And while I don’t expect Zuckerberg to abandon his CEO job this year, he eventually will, simply because it isn’t as much fun as it used to be and there will come a point (maybe in 2022) when leaving the top job will help Facebook’s stock.

At this moment there’s reportedly a bot operating on Telegram selling for $20 or less the […]

By |January 26th, 2021|Uncategorized|45 Comments
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