The Kojo Nnamdi Show

Allison's Crystal Ball 2012

Our Computer Gal picked out 5 trends she thinks will endure in the the new year, and identifies how she thinks each is playing out right now.

1. Shafting Users
   As Google continues to stick with its kumbaya message that Android should remain free and open for anyone to use any way they please, its users are getting shafted. They have no guarantee that they'll get updates as Google issues them unless they buy a Google-approved Nexus device. For example, a week or so ago Samsung announced that its line of Galaxy S phones, one of the most popular Android phone models of 2010, will not get Google's latest version of Android, "Ice Cream Sandwich." That means about 10 million people who bought the phone are going to be stuck on the outdated version 2.3 Gingerbread (or 2.2 Froyo in many cases) until they decide to drop more cash on a new phone. Samsung says its hardware isn't powerful enough to support Ice Cream Sandwich and its TouchWiz skin for Android. (TouchWiz is the extra layer of design Samsung adds to its Android phones. It looks a lot like iOS.)

2. Sensors
   Pressure sensors in car seats could be used to identify drivers and could help provide anti-theft protection. Researchers at Japan's Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology have developed a system that uses sensors to take precise measurements of a driver's posterior, its contours, and the way the person applies pressure on the seat. The researchers say a car seat identifier could serve as an alternative to biometrics techniques such as iris scanners and fingerprint readers. They note that pressure sensors would not carry the same level of stress and psychological baggage as other biometric techniques. The team has lined a bucket seat's lower section with sensors that measure pressure on a scale of 0 to 256. Ninety-eight percent accurate!

3. Personalized Government Apps
   The U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is in the process of having a personalized iPad application made for him. The customized app will help Cameron stay on top of government affairs and news, including employment rates and crime statistics. It will also feature real-time information from social sites, like Twitter. Once the app is finished it will reportedly be released to the public (the expected launch is March). In essence, it's little more than a time saver given the fact that there are plenty of existing apps that individually accomplish this. It's a little like Flipboard... with the exception of some data we're going to go ahead and assume only Cameron is able to access. The security and privacy of Apple products has been called into question before, but it becomes all the more important when you imagine world leaders with personalized data using the devices.

4. Hacking
   (It can happen even in cars).
   Imagine this nightmarish possibility: al-Qaida terrorists remotely disabling the brakes on thousands of cars racing down a Bay Area freeway during the morning commute, leading to massive chaos, death and destruction. Implausible? Maybe not, some experts warn. Today cars have an increasing reliance on computer systems that control everything from airbags to crash-avoidance systems which can leave them vulnerable to cyberattacks. "I can definitely imagine organized crime or potentially even nation-states leveraging weaknesses in these functions to cause different kinds of havoc," says Intel's Ryan Permeh. Car manufacturers are taking the threat of cyberattacks very seriously. For example, Ford's Rich Strader says the company is "working to ensure that we've developed a product that is as resistant to attack as possible."

5. The Digital Eternal
   The data trails we're leaving around the web can seem vapid and ethereal, but they're very real fragments of ourselves. Piecing them together into AI like ghosts isn't all that far off. As Bradley Horowitz from Google notes, they're already on it. With Android, Chrome, Maps, Voice, and YouTube they're able to track where we go, what we browse, what we watch, with whom we communicate, even what we sound like. From your photos, the program in the cloud could create a 30-year old version of you that never ages. The program would know how you speak, based on your email and other writing. It would know all of your preferences, your passions, your hot buttons, your finances, the identities of your friends and family, and anything else that flows through your computer. You could create your own digital ghost to live for eternity in the Internet and maybe do some haunting.

The Guys Identify Some Trends/Predictions

1. Selling Media Online
   Comedian Louis CK independently released his video, "Live at the Beacon Theatre," for $5 on his website with, in his own words, "No DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap." As of December 21, Louis has already brought in over $1 million.

2. Continuing "Airing" and "Ultra-booking" of Mainstream Laptops

3. iPhone Will Dominate

4. The Cloud Will Get Bigger

5. Ethical Decisions Become More Complex (as with the choices about whether or not to release breach information)

6. You Will Get an SSD

Other Tech News CC&G Are Watching

1. Cyberthreats to Power Grid Put Utility Investors at Risk

2. Chrome is Surging

3. Data Breaches and Smartphones

4. IBM Forecasts Biometric Passwords, Mind-Reading Tech for 2016

5. Carrier IQ = Rootkit?

6. Download race: Apple clocking in at 18B, Google at 10B

7. Stanford's Apple History Archives: Sneak Peak

8. Sony PlayStation Vita Handheld Launches

9. RIM's BlackBerry 10 Products Delayed, to Late 2012

10. The Next Generation AppleTV is Already Here

11. Intel's Thunderbolt Technology Spreading to More Products in April 2012