Here at Toronto Standard, we’re done with year-end lists before we’ve even, well, done them. On to the next! And best. And worst. And weirdest. And so it goes. Here, our trusty tech critic gives us some predictions that are definitely going to come true for 2012.
In a field as rapidly and repeatedly changing as technology, making predictions about what is to come is nigh on impossible. Or at least, it is for lesser publications. Here are five things we absolutely guarantee* will come true next year in the world of tech. (*Note: no we don’t.)
1. RIM will release new phones and the world will respond rapturously. When the new, long-awaited Blackberry 10 phones launch in late 2012, history will literally change. Despite the fact that Blackberry’s new phones will basically be equivalent to current smartphones on the market, minus those pesky “apps,” the world will cast off their iPhones in disgust to dip into RIM’s new, shiny and mostly indistinguishable operating system. By 2013, maybe 2014 if they’re lucky, Apple will fold their decimated mobile business and so total will be RIM’s domination, the words “cell phone” and “smartphone” will largely disappear from the lexicon in favour of the neologism “TenBerry.” “Now, where’s my TenBerry?” the kids will all say. Line-ups for RIM’s new phones will start in August and, in a weird little twist, will be so widespread and go on for so long, they’ll inadvertently resurrect the Occupy movement.
2. The tablet will become commoditized. The mainstream popularity of new, cheaper tablets like the Kindle Fire will have a similar effect on the market to Data flashing lights at the game-addled crew of the Enterprise: dazed and bewildered, people will awake from a stupor and wonder aloud “wait, I paid Apple $600 so I could read web stuff while sitting on a couch?” Instead, look for prices to sink even further as the tablet becomes the “everyone has one” commodity it’s supposed to be and not the domain of, oh, let’s say “indebted tech writers who can’t remember why they thought owning an iPad was so important.” Besides, we already have proof that when tablets are cheap, everyone and their mother wants one: when HP discounted theirs to $99, people went nuts for it.
3. Microsoft and Sony announce their new consoles. After years of hardcore gamers whining that the transformative capacity of video games to beckon the individual to identify with the Other is, and we quote, “totally fucking ruined by the pixel count, dude,” Microsoft and Sony cave to the pressure and announce the Xbox 720 and Playstation 4. Despite the fact that the new consoles will have enough computing power to run the administrations of not one, but three mid-sized countries, the massive success of Gears of War and Call of Duty means it will mostly be put to use rendering in exquisite, mind-breaking detail the most popular new video game ever, Gears of Duty: Brown People are all Terrorists, Women are Dumb and Art is for Teh Gayz.
4. Apple release the iTV. Surprisingly, Apple’s slick new TV set is even more revolutionary, ground-breaking and magical (did I miss any?) than everyone expects. Unfortunately, its sole flaw is that it’s not resistant to liquid damage from spilled drinks or the fluid by-products of sexual activity. Sadly, because millions finally take their fetish for Apple to its logical conclusion, the no longer functioning and slightly sticky TV sets are returned en masse. The entire episode is promptly wiped from Wikipedia and is never spoken of again until it is unearthed in 2430, when fascinated post-post-Lacanian historians label the era “The Great Silent Shame.”
5. The tape makes a comeback. Hidden under the usual guise of “seeking the authentic,” status-hungry elitists will find in the cassette tape a veritable bastion of rarity and lo-fi truthfulness, and bright yellow Walkmans make the usual journey from Williamsburg to Parkdale to just being everywhere. Unexpectedly, however, a generation unaccustomed to waiting a minute or two to fast-forward to the next song finds that they use the time to look up and see their own reflection in Queen West storefront windows. In the process, they discover that irony had long ago abandoned whimsy and that most populist modern fashion is actually just late-capitalist malaise aestheticized. As scores of youth begin to understand the ways in which both the individual and freedom have been subjugated by economics and corporate influence, governments around the world topple in what will later be known as the Cassette Revolution.
