It's that time again... to make a few statements I can feel ridiculous about later on. I did take an advance position back in October regarding Internet platforms, so no need to touch that topic again just yet (especially after the additional HTML5/Flash comments in November). As before though, let's take a look at what my hit rate is.
#1 Oracle's jostling on Java patents will hurt Java as a platform: yeah, although it's hard to notice, what with the chatter on cloud platforms instead. Still, you've got to write that cloud-hosted application in some language, and though evidence is sparse, it seems to me that more devs are picking other tools. Somewhat insanely, PHP still ranks well in those selections, which proves that these things don't follow any observable logic, though.
#2 Amazing natural motion control applications during 2011: well, not really, yet. XBox Kinect has supposedly continued to sell well, though Microsoft hasn't given any sales data since last March (when they announced 10 million units sold), but applications are rather lame. Some pretty amazing research stuff going on though, which will ultimately enable computers to truly augment live views into the real world.
#3 Flash and new computing devices: see the other posts, linked above. Progress is steady but impact will take several years. As for the long-term view; while my daughter already understands that tablets and phones are for looking at stuff and playing, and keyboards are for banging, I maintain hope that in the next couple of years, she will be able to interact with computers by speech as well as gestures. We'll still need to invent the new human-computer interface best practices for that age, though.
Facebook/Timeline did finally launch before end of 2011. What do you think of it? I haven't seen a reason to change my view since October, although the "social reader" apps like Washington Post's or Guardian's certainly are annoying. Don't know if I should expect media companies to learn how to interact with people, though.
Now, the predictions. This one's gonna be difficult. Not because the world would be ending this year, but because it seems like quite a few macro trends are converging. Lots to feel optimistic about: locally, the interest in growth entrepreneurship and globally, new forms of peaceful citizen democracy, and the ever-continuing development of technology (gene therapy and data-driven, preventative medical treatments are exciting). A few that I hope will turn out well, though it's going to be a bumpy road: the ongoing Arab Spring as well as the Russian pro-democracy movement, the Euro crisis, which could still lead to yet another banking collapse. And finally, some political and regulatory changes that are quite worrying, even if I've tried to avoid a position on politics, and especially politics outside the EU. Still, these bother me for both their privacy as well as anti-competitive aspects and lack of due process: ACTA, SOPA, NDAA. Still, these are hardly going to bring the Singularity around quite yet, dystopian though they seem.
However, I don't want to pretend I care about or follow politics closely enough to understand why these things always come years behind and over-reach, so I'd rather focus on something more tractable. In terms of professional interests, the trend toward hosted, multiplayer gaming is, by now, quite unstoppable. We're moving on from the Social Games 1.0 of Facebook Canvas, though, and the future is more for games where the players' actions impact each other. The challenge is, we need to learn to design these games so that while they truly have group interaction in their core, they still remains games; that is, masterable, repeatable and somewhat predictable experiences people can continue to enjoy, and a source of richness their lives might otherwise be lacking.
As always, comments welcome. This year this post was quite hard to focus on anything in particular, and maybe you have better insight. Let me know. In any case, Happy New Year! Whatever you do, make 2012 matter.