Yes, it is the time of year where we see how well I did at predictions for 2019.
- I was correct about social media. Just about every platform started filtering content it didn't like based on politics and sadly all one side of politics. The freedom lovers had to set up new platforms to provide commentary that was not aligned with the activist side. Alternative services were set up but as expected these things take quite a while to grow so the huge mainstream set of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter and the like still dominate easily and so the world only gets to see one side of many issues. This was exacerbated by the Democrat and Republican polarisation in the US. The interesting aspect of this polarisation was that groups and individuals typically aligned to the left of centre were also ostracised by these platforms and so were pushed further to the right as the definition of left became more extreme.
- Also as expected there has been a large push in the machine learning space now described by the overarching term Artificial Intelligence, or AI. It dominates IT marketing, but true or human-like AI is as far away as ever, still only existing in novels and TV shows. By comparison the Internet of Things, or IoT, was mentioned more than a few times but as expected it has not taken off as security concerns dominate. See the commentary on Ring doorbells below as an example of why.
- Data as a service and the whole idea of Big Data is another growth area but as expected the focus on that platform as a solve-all has not gone so well. Some organisations have still not figured out that it is not great for business transaction processing. Blockchain was quieter than I'd expected. It appears the security and cyber departments in large organisations are not so enamoured with the idea after all. This also saw more regulation or even the banning of crypto currencies. That didn't stop Yahoo from trying to promote their own version of the monetary exchange layer. To date the response has been lukewarm at best.
- Cloud computing tried to expand and was successful in some areas. In others however adoption has been slow or even with some reversal back to on-premises installations. Again, security and the concept that your data could be held in another country was not appealing in some areas. A few easy guesses like a growth in digital marketing, incremental improvements in mobile phones and virtual reality technologies were easy predictions. For the latter however it is still not there in a form that entices me, hopefully next year will be better. In the smartphone space there was more memory, better cameras, and even foldable screens in an early form but nothing awe-inspiring and Apple once again failed to deliver any wow this year.
- I was wrong with the 12TB drive; it was 10TB that grabbed the sweet spot, but the 1TB microSD appeared. No real change with printers, nor monitors, though the curved monitor seems to becoming more popular these days. No wetware, ie direct brain interfaces, but there have been improvements for medical applications like providing basic sight for example that was nice to see. Sadly, no real improvement in battery technology either. All in all, I did quite well but then again, I didn't make many detailed specific predictions either.
- In news this week, China has ordered all government offices to start removing all non-Chinese computers and software to support domestic manufacturers and suppliers. This will be complete in three years. Some see this as a response to the US trade impositions that have pressured Chinese companies like Huawei. How deep this goes remains to be seen because there is a lot of computer bits and pieces like CPUs that primarily come from the US or Korea. It will also mean replacements for some major software components like operating systems and world-popular applications. The target is currently only for government machines.
- One of the blogs I watch regularly advertises Ring doorbells. Ring was purchased by Amazon last year. It has been uncovered that Ring works closely with authorities funnelling videos and data from your device. Don't buy one, as it has also been reported that their data security is so poor, they reportedly share it with a Ukraine-based research team. They have also exposed Wi-Fi passwords to hackers, which is troubling. Another problem is owners are automatically enrolled in the Ring Neighbours app that shares your Ring with others in the area. If you own one already, I encourage you to read more on just how much info is being passed around.
- It's almost 2020 and you can still be infected by a nasty font file in a web page. The font-parsing vulnerability has been around forever. Using an infected font file, a system can been attacked when the page is visited. Microsoft had a fix for this in the latest round of updates but why is it still even possible?
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.