Welcome to 2007, I certainly hope the holidays and 2006 were kind to everyone and that the new year will bring many more good things to everyone! We’re jumping right in with our Inquisition of the week:
What new technology do you predict for 2007?
On October 23rd, 2001 the world was introduced to Apple’s iPod, which after not too long became the staple accessory for pretty much anyone anywhere.
During the weekend of May 3rd-5th, 2002 the first Spiderman movie becomes the first film to break $100 million in an opening weekend. On July 3rd, 2002 Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is released and introduces 3d graphics into Blizzard’s typical RTS formula, as well as setting the groundwork for what would soon become the company’s biggest cash-cow. November 15th, 2002 Microsoft launches their online console service X-Box Live to luke-warm success. This would later be the building block for their extremely successful online service for their next-gen console.
iTunes was introduced in April of 2003, which revolutionized the legal future of the digital music industry.
On November 23rd, 2004 the behemoth game World of Warcraft was released and would soon sky-rocket to over 7 million subscribers and approximately 30 millions lives ruined due to addiction, neglect, and ninja-looting.
November 22nd, 2005 was the release date of the X-Box 360, which showed Microsoft’s dedication to attempt a massive takeover of the videogame market by getting to the next-gen consoles first (nearly a year before anyone else), taking its cue from the Playstation 2 which got an early start and ended up becoming to longest lived and most popular console to ever exist. More important, however, was in March of 2005 when Doctor Who returned to television after 16 years in his ninth incarnation!
On the soon to be fateful day of November 19th, 2006 the Nintendo Wii was launched and is quickly on its way to being one of the most sought after and popular consoles ever released.
If you notice anything major that I missed, please point it out. The next year should be an excellent time for all of these fields, with Windows Vista on the horizon, Spiderman 3 due out in theaters, and an expansion looming supposedly in very short time, the status quo could change completely! The new millenium has clearly brought countless innovations and suprises, but will we really have flying cars and self-replicating nanotechnology by 2010? Only time will tell!
I hope the blu-ray disc fails miserably.
I’m actually predicting that the PS3 will slowly (very) but surely build up some speed as more and more must-have games come out, and with it Blu-ray will become more and more popular.
Specialists are saying that there will be an HD-DVD/Blu-ray combination player by the end of this year, so I don’t think the differences between the two will really matter and a clear winner may not emerge for a while (if at all).
I’m also hoping for blu-ray failure, although I don’t think HD is particularly better. Most people have no use for something that works the same as a DVD but requires an additional player.
The combo is what happened to the DVD+R/DVD-R split when groups of companies couldn’t agree on a standard. Eventually the difference didn’t matter and just added headaches to retail establishments and employees.
Also not looking forward to Windows Vista. It was inevitable that a new OS would come out but Microsoft is continuing to try to lock out people from doing what they want with their own computers.
My only guess to something new is that Google will do something completely crazy. I’m not sure what it is, but I bet it has something to do with YouTube.