 Coming up, we find out who's 2021 predictions were on the money and whose fell flat. It's our predictions results show. This is the Daily Tech News show for Thursday, December 30th, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane Salt Lake City. I'm Scott Johnson somewhere in St. Louis. I'm Patrick Norton from Columbus, Ohio. I'm Rob Dunwood from Los Angeles. I'm Lamar Wilson and I'm Roger Shank. The show's producer. Welcome to our end of 2021 predictions results episode where we look at those predictions we made last year about technology and say, huh, I was so right. Well, maybe one of us will say that most of us probably won't. Thank you all for joining us. Before we get into the results, everybody feeling good about the new year? Yeah. I mean, it's just it's not going to be worse. Yeah, I think some of the stuff, some of those things we all thought were 2020 things. Maybe those will be 2022 things, you know, like all the hot new innovations. Yeah. Yeah. Cause the running joke of people don't remember for years before 2020 was that everybody said, ah, that will be a development in 2020. And then we did get a development in 2020. It's just not the one everyone was pretty good. So yeah, maybe, maybe 2022. All right. Let's look at how we did at the end of last year. Starting with you, Sarah Lane, your first prediction for this past year was that Oculus Quest two would get an app that would make it a must have in homes as the pandemic continued through 2021. Well, okay. So so the the quest to specifically I it was new. So I think I was just throwing that in there that the quest as a platform in general is going to things are going to get a lot different over the next, let's say year, right? Because the quest has been up until this point sort of the consumer product. And I am very, very bullish on it, but I'm very bullish on certain things. What would make it a must have in homes is not the apps that I'm using. I use exercise apps. I love them. People who also use them love them. You know, we're all in Facebook groups together. And and it's great. But I don't think I don't think there was some like every day breakout. This is the new messenger kind of thing. That's that's where this falls down. The pandemic continued. You got that part right. The quest kind of generally did do well because of people staying at home more. It's not called Oculus anymore. So they're going to they're going to get rid of that. But that's until next year. So I don't think you I don't think you have to worry about that. But yeah, there's just not that one app that everybody can point to. Is there? I don't think so. No, I mean, and I I I feel like I'm the outlier in many cases where people go like VR has I'm not doing that. Like how fun it couldn't be. And I'm like, it's so fun. But no, I think it's I think I would I would call this still a fringe industry. And I hope that it it becomes something that's a little bit more mainstream in the future. But 2021 wasn't it. Wrong. All right. Yeah, second prediction glimmers of a post Facebook and Twitter world will emerge from a company that isn't LO or parlor, but something new and different. And that was 100% wrong. But meta. Yeah, meta. Sure. I mean, Facebook changed its name. Okay, I mean, change the name of Facebook, though, just a parent company. So I passed. I kind of I don't know. And so the reason that I made this prediction a year ago was because people were sick of Facebook, frustrated with Twitter. There were so many, so many. So many things that consumers wanted that neither company could deliver on. I would argue that both companies took very different stances to that. Twitter very recently, going through a big change, got a new CEO will, you know, kind of remains to be seen how that will change. But I did feel like that the sentiment was so negative that there would be an alternate social network that rose up somewhere. And yeah, you mentioned LO, you mentioned parlor, Tom. I mean, you know, I did. I mean, as examples of like, well, we've tried this before, but never gained a lot of traction. And there wasn't anything else. I personally, I just want to say I personally shared your wishful if we want to call it wishful thinking, because I really had hoped maybe something would disrupt that market as well and do it in a really meaningful, powerful way. And nothing, nothing did. But I was, I remember when you made this prediction, I was like, I really hope she's right because I would love that. That'd be great. Closest thing to it was TikTok, right? I was gonna say, so not TikTok. Yeah, I was gonna say, but now it's video. So and also it wasn't wasn't like it was new back back a year ago. Right? Yeah. Right. It just it just kept kept going gained traction for sure. But it already existed. And they added a lot of stuff to make it more social media-ish, like, you know, how you reply and get friends and suggest friends and that sort of stuff. So they've they've made attempts in that way, but it's not really what I think we were looking for. Although I really like TikTok. So maybe it did. Maybe I got it and I didn't notice it. I don't know. And your third prediction, Bitcoin gets back into the mix, never went away, but price fell long enough that people stop believing. I think I get a point on this one. All right. What however you feel about cryptocurrency, there was a time. Yeah, was a time at the end of about a year ago, that it was kind of like, oh, was such a bunch of vaporware, you know, like, no one's gonna make any money off of this. And now Bitcoin is, you know, launching. What what did they just do in Miami? It was like the Bitcoin conference kind of thing like Bitcoin is Bitcoin's back. And I also use Bitcoin as just a term for crypto in general. And it's very volatile. I kind of I dipped I dipped my my toes into the crypto world. When I was laid up a couple months ago, with devastatingly bad results for me. Because it's just, yeah, it's just stupid. Good thing I didn't have enough money to actually lose. But but no, I think I think I think we're I think we're back up. I think there was a point where it was at least, I don't know, in my social circles of people who care about the sort of thing, it was kind of a Bitcoin, that that's not really going to go anywhere. And and it seems to be roaring back. What do y'all think? Yeah, yeah, she noted that was definitely that one, you nailed that one. That was definitely up. It was it was around the March April timeframe, when Elon Musk started talking about, was it Dogecoin? Yeah, crypto just became a thing again. And in Bitcoin is definitely one of the primary beneficiaries of just being in the mouth of everyone for the last nine months, eight months. In fact, it's so much back into the mix now that I looked at this and was like, what do you mean get back into the mix? Like, Oh, right. December of last year, Bitcoin was down and it crashed. And we're like, well, maybe other cryptocurrencies, my like it was, it was kind of crazy how much it turned around in a year. So yeah, I think you nailed this one. Good job. Well, thank you. I'm one for three. I feel really good about that. All right. Hey, you know what, you could win a National League batting championship with 333. Exactly. Yeah, not bad. Scott Johnson, we move on to you. You said Netflix will lose a massive share of streaming audience to Disney plus Hulu and HBO Max by the end of 2021, forcing a price drop or at least no price rise. Yeah, I got that wrong. I think I think I got it wrong though in a nuanced way. Like for sure, the streaming market itself, I think expanded or at the very least, people that are happy having Netflix were also happy to add something like HBO Max or Disney plus to their to their services they pay for every month. And while no port prices were dropped and it didn't really put the kind of pressure on them that I thought I think that Netflix is doing great. It's kind of the opposite of the core of my prediction. I am happy to see that space being patted out with more options, more competition, more content that I'm interested in. So overall, I mean, I don't know if we blame some of this on the pandemic or where this comes from for me in my head, but I think the current state of streaming is kind of awesome. And so much of it is, I mean, we are creeping closer to that thing. Tom always talks about where we're going to have so many it'll be like cable again. Or I guess people said that it in the show all the time is not necessarily your take, but I hear it all the time. And maybe we're headed there. But right now it feels good. And it feels like I can get a lot of choice for not that much money. And I'm really happy with it. So I'll take the loss, but I'm happy with where it is. Yeah, I think you you were not alone among people who sort of forgot it's not a zero sum game, right? Disney did expand its audience. You were right about that. Absolutely. It just wasn't at Netflix's expense. Yeah, I think one of the reasons we were we were thinking is I remember when you made that prediction, what we're thinking this is because everybody was taking back their content. And and so now what does Netflix have that is original and are the audiences really interested in original content? And we've learned from, you know, from the squid games to the recent anime thing that just came out of Netflix, that was that was great that yeah, people will will flock to original content. And if it gets it gets popular, it gets very popular. Yeah, Netflix is maybe leading that charge still. And the Maramax is a really good point. Like we were at a point where we were like, Oh, man, Netflix is losing all their movies. They're losing all this peacock stuff. They're losing all the NBC stuff. They're losing all these things Warner Brothers. And so it looked bad. So I feel okay about the basis where I mean, all about Netflix over the years. Oh, they're losing stars. They'll never survive. They always figure out a you know, it was also what not even a year ago that the Mandalorian was a huge, huge Disney plus hit. And I thought the same thing like, hmm, I wonder, you know, they all can't survive, right? Is Netflix going to take a hit for this? Didn't end up happening this year. But it doesn't mean it won't. Of course, Scott's next prediction was after their their price drop, they will release a show about squids that will make them recover everything. Is that not right? I mean, I feel like I was prophetic there, but I don't want to take too much credit. I may have had an inside job. What was your actual next? My next prediction was the Nintendo was going to release a full generational sequel to the switch, a switch to a proper switch to with a couple of big Nintendo titles. It would be a monster head. It would be on the on the tales of what they've already done and succeeded with this which came out in 2017. And while this wasn't necessarily the full generational timeline that we usually have with a new Nintendo product, I thought maybe it was time and that thing was shown its its age. What we got instead was an OLED model of the thing and it's nice and it's got a few other improvements here and there. They seem to have fixed their controller drift problem and they've had some big hits this year. They're doing fine. Nintendo's doing great. But it wasn't quite the generational jump. I'd hoped it would be. And now I'm in the mood for saying this. That'll be something we'll see in the next year or two because I really do think it's time. But that old, that OLED device is pretty nice. And that'll, that'll get them by for another three, six, if you hadn't said full generational, you know, if you'd fudged it, I know, I mean, there's always this desire to have Nintendo play in the old playground they used to play in, which is with the other big boys and everybody's trying to compete for heart or for speed and power and everything else. And they just, they don't do that anymore. It's not their thing. They play on IP and good enough hardware and unique uses of that hardware and it's working for them. So I shouldn't be surprised that they haven't rushed that through. Nintendo doesn't rush anything. They're, they're internet stuff still bad. Like they've got a lot of stuff to work out and get through. But I'm hopeful that whatever the follow up to the switch is, is not like the Wii U or in some respects, the GameCube as much as I love that device, you know, where they, where they have a real dip. I think they've learned some lessons and they'll stay, you know, they'll stay extremely relevant no matter what they do next. What would you say the, the, the monster hit would be? Because I can't think of one for Well, for me, it would have been kind of what they did last time and say, Hey, you know how we told you we were making a Breath of the Wild sequel for the Switch. Like there'll still be a scaled down version of that there. But instead, that full blown sequel is going to be on this new one, like we did with Twilight Princess and the GameCube and like we, and the Wii and like we did with, with Breath of the Wild for the Wii moving into the Switch, those were, those were all intended for the previous platforms and technically released on them. I thought maybe that would be the way to do it. That game is just a system seller automatically. And I was certain we were heading that way. But now we, we actually didn't do that or get much information on that new game. So who knows what the heck they're doing. Well, we did get Metroid, right? So we did. Yeah, it's pretty good. Can't be too sad. All right. Last prediction, Scott. Game Pass will take Microsoft to the top spot of this console generation in unit sold profitability overall. Sony will spend a year trying to match value add features. I think I get a yes on this one. And here's why. We have numbers from just last month or last quarter, whatever it is, the specifically the S model of the new generation of consoles, not the X, but the S, which has been more available, is now, has now taken the top sale spot over PlayStation 5 and over the Switch for the first time in this generation. I'm looking at the MPD group stuff and it says the Switch is still in front. But is that a combined? Is that because they combine Switch OLED and right? But also, they also combine that with the, the, the light. So I'm guessing those are part of those numbers as well. Yeah. Okay. But as far as like just single console sales, that got them there. And I'm not sure. I'm not 100 percent sure this is the reason why, but I have to think a big part of it is the success of Game Pass and just the ridiculous value of Game Pass. That thing is almost a joke. It's so good. I don't know how they're getting away with it. Well, it's Microsoft. They're, you know, they're lost leadering this thing to death, and that's good for us as consumers. I don't know how it is for them long term, but combine that with what they're doing in the last couple of weeks with Halo numbers and how things went with Forza. They're having a really good couple of months and my series X has never been happier. So I think that they, they did it maybe not in a way that where everyone's like, oh, clear in a way. They're running away from everybody. Maybe not that, but they've gotten to a place where they're dominant in some way, certainly in services, and they've got Sony on the run trying to figure out what to do to match it. And I think they had to do that. Sony did. And now we're in a place where I can give that a tentative Y, Tom, in the little column there, a little Y there. What do you all think? By the numbers, PlayStation 5 still 13.4 million to Xbox series X and S 8 million, but Xbox did pass PlayStation 5 and US sales on the MPD group this past year. Game pass. Definitely successful. Are we giving credit and Sony trying to match features? There's a rumor of that, you know, that game pass thing with them. So yeah, I get it. Yeah, I think that's a plus. All right. We're good. We're good. We're giving you a lie. All right. One, two down, one good. I'm Sarah, Sarah, neck and neck. All right, Patrick Norton. Let's move to you. You said at least one of Lenovo HP or Dell, the top three PC makers by market share. We'll work with Microsoft to follow Apple's lead and start making custom arm CPUs. I feel comfortable in calling this mostly 90 percent of fail. It's funny. Like I think like four days after we recorded this, there were a bunch of reports that Microsoft was designing chips for its servers, arm based chips for servers, and that may trickle into the surface species that was a tail into 2020. Since then, there's been some like some rumors that Microsoft's working with AMD to do a custom surface arm CPU. There's been some noise around some possible Microsoft arm development, but nothing I would I would say calls us away. And I also would like to call myself an idiot for saying Lenovo HP or Dell instead of saying Microsoft because the operating system is really comfortable to make work with the chip integration, especially after seeing the release of the M1 Max and the M1 Pro, where a friend of mine got an M1 Max and it was completely life changing as he worked with massive data sets and the fact that Apple basically bombed out of a server processor that has this ridiculous amount of bandwidth running from the memory to the chip has just made huge differences in his ability to process data. Yeah, I feel like Apple's far and away and ahead. I have a friend who who put this in the context. He runs a hardware review website. He he has all of the fastest hardware and I think it was. He said he he touched DaVinci Resolve on his wife's MacBook Pro, not the Max or the Pro, but just her original MacBook. And he basically just wanted to burst into tears because it's so much faster than the desktop. He normally he personally runs DaVinci Resolve on. So I think the idea is solid, but it's nowhere near fruition at this point. So what you're saying is what you meant to say was in 2022, Microsoft. What's funny? I remember this prediction and I remember at the time hoping you were right, didn't have an M1 yet and was thinking it was eyeballing one ended up with the mini. And I can confirm like everything's better, faster, better for you on a Mac platform, if that's where you already were out there and you're all wondering how is it worth it or whatever. I'm running Intel based stuff faster than it ran before the M1 chip and it's running through, you know, Rosetta two. I have some stuff that's running through two layers of of compatibility or translation. And it's still faster than it was on the raw Intel version of this thing from the previous year. So I'm while I'm not as knowledgeable about all the under the hood as you are, as as someone who needs a certain kind of workflow and I have certain kind of expectations blew my mind. I am loving that thing and I'm I'm all in as long as they'll screw it up. All right, Patrick's next prediction was that by some minor miracle, Starlink actually will manage to blanket most of the U.S. with ninety nine dollar a month unlimited internet causing radical changes in data pricing by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. I mean, I wanted it. I so wanted you to be right on this. We were all cheered for you. So we wanted you to be right. It could even be one. Don't get it wrong. I still gave it to you. So there's a couple really cool maps and they actually show all of the basically their maps of of the the Starlink satellites in space, they have coverage. They just don't have enough coverage. I spent a bunch of time on the Starlink website yesterday and I was typing in, you know, remote places I've been. I started with St. Louis and started working my way out. And I finally found like Gerlach, North Nevada is a place that doesn't have the the basically the hexagonal cells of coverage. So I found like after about 15 places I've traveled to or lived, I found one hexagonal cell that isn't saturated at this point. So if anybody wants to move to Gerlach, which has very inexpensive rent and it's just a easy 90 minute to two hour drive from a supermarket, that is a place where you can currently get Starlink. Everywhere else, it's mid 2022 before Vail Mildee. So the other thing that came out is is it's really if you can't put it on your roof if you have trees or hills or tall buildings around you coverage is pretty brutal. But there's some interesting speculation that the, you know, how wide of an area or how sort of wide a field of view you need of space to make it work will reduce as they pack as they as they launch more satellites. But, you know, this was a dream and definitely has not happened. But I will also say I've been surprised as it works as well as it does in the field. So what you were meant to say was by the end of 2022. All right, third prediction for Patrick, 3,000 series NVIDIA GPUs and AMD's 5,000 series CPUs won't be easy to buy at MSRP until June. Hopefully that one too. June of what year? You could have just stopped at MSRP. You would have nailed it. Say it, Tom. Say it, Tom. I'm going to give you a half credit. I think we should give him a half credit. Yeah, I do too. That's fair. I mean, it's it's very true. It just happened to be longer than that. Yeah. Yeah. It's still true. Yeah. Yeah, it's still very true. True and still true. I will read this when we first put this together. I'm like, oh, Patrick, oh, June. Yeah. I think we give you a half credit on that, which puts your batting average at 187. But still, you know, that's not bad. You're in the hunt. All right, let's move on. Let's move on to Rob Dunwood. Your first prediction was that you thought boutique and gig consulting would skyrocket in 2021. Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm right on this one or not, because my thought process led me to believe that, well, at the beginning of the pandemic, so many people are laid off. They're learning other skills, and then they'll get a gig job to employ that skill so that they can actually go get a real job. What I think I'm wrong is that, no, they actually went and got jobs. You know, you have seen significant numbers of people who have completely changed careers because they took free training or they may have paid for some training and they took enough online tests that companies were actually willing to, I'm just gonna, you know, you did so well in this test. I'm gonna hire you in. I don't need you to be a contractor. I want you to come work here because companies need people so badly right now and pretty much all this year. Numbers for hiring are just ridiculous right now. So like I said, I don't know that I can call that a, I don't know if you can give me a full point for it because I thought it was gonna really be consulting that was gonna be the thing. And it's like, no, these people that I thought were gonna go on to consulting, they actually went into full-time positions. I hear it all the time. I've got friends and family members who have actually, you know, I was driving a bus. Now I am a PeopleSoft developer, you know, after, you know, taking six months of courses and I just hear story after story after story of that. So wrong because they actually did better than I thought they were going to do. Yeah. I think if you hadn't said consulting specifically because there was just a recent article, I was trying to find it almost on Forbes or whatever that, although I definitely agree with you and your experience and your numbers. There were a surprising amount of people who decided to find a way to work for themselves too. You know, and those numbers are not exact because you had to wait some tax time to really find out who those people are. But yeah, there are a number of people, even if they jumped into like a door dash or something, like they just decided, I wanna be my own person. Maybe contractor would have definitely kind of etched you over to that full point. But consulting is a fair one. I would, when you said that, I agree with you, I thought people would be more, you know, hey, I have this skill and I wanna share this with other. I wanna train other people on how to do this. And so, yeah, it's an interesting one. It's a tough point to give you. So how much do we give them? I say half. Yeah. I give you half. Yeah. The consulting word is the only gray, right? I can just say from personal experience, I've heard from people who were like, guess what I'm doing? I'm doing this stuff part-time. A lot of my artist friends are doing logos for sites that that's all they do is they produce content that then then sell to people as gig stuff. So that has been an uptick. Now I don't have a way to measure that or anything else. But I remember when you said this prediction, I went, I think he's probably a hundred percent right. And just, you know, anecdotally, people have said, yeah, I'm doing that now. And I feel like there's more of that going on. So I think that's fair. All right. Have credit for that, Rob. Your next one was 2021 will be the year of Copy Hat Clubhouse social network startups. Ding, ding, ding. No, I think I nailed this one. So just off the top of my head, you've got Twitter spaces, Facebook rooms, Discord stage channels, Slack, Huttles, Telegram voice chats, LinkedIn. I don't know what theirs is called. Spotify recently purchased Betty Labs where they're going to start doing this stuff. And there are many, many others. The party line is popping right now. Clubhouse is absolutely onto something. Unfortunately for them, I think the leader in the space is probably going to be Twitter because Twitter is killing it. They just recently did, I think it was during Jimmy V. Week on ESPN where they actually ran Jimmy V. Week in a Twitter, you know, in a Twitter space where you could actually donate and those kinds of things right from the Twitter platform. And you're going to see all kinds of things even moving into 2022 where these platforms are going to get bigger and bigger than what they are. But I think on this one because there are so many copycats of Clubhouse and the big players, I mean, Facebook is doing it. Microsoft is doing it with LinkedIn. I think I get a point on that one. Yeah, oh yeah. Oh, clear. I don't think anybody's going to dispute. I mean, I looked at this and I was like, he didn't say Clubhouse would be successful. He said there's going to be a lot of copycats. And yeah, and that is 100% correct. If anything, to the expense of Clubhouse, you were so correct. I've heard of Clubhouse since Twitter Spaces. I have not heard one person. Twitter is killing it in this space right now. I feel sorry for Clubhouse because they were first, but man, you know, it's hard to catch up to a company that literally can count their user base in the hundreds of millions where they've released this too. It reminds me of Meerkat in some ways, like that kind of come out of nowhere. Oh my gosh, look at this startup. And then Twitter comes in and says, yeah, we're doing Periscope and then no one heard of Meerkat again. And I don't think Periscopes have a big deal anymore, but same idea. Twitter comes in, let's do spaces. I just wish it was smarter about who I am because when I go to spaces, it's a nightmare in there. I don't want to go to any of those rooms I see, but I'm with you. I think this is like a hot new thing. Obviously it is. The big players are doing it. All right. And your third one, can you get at least half on all three? Your third one was mobile payments finally become mainstream in the United States. This one's going to go to the judges. So here's what I will say. I personally no longer feel uncomfortable pulling out my phone and trying it more than one time to make it work. At a terminal, people don't look at you like, what are you doing? Because they probably were going to do the same thing too. But I don't know that it's mainstream yet. I see signs where you go to a particular establishment a particular restaurant. They actually will tell you, we prefer if you use Apple Pay, we prefer if you use Visa Pay or Samsung Pay or what have you. But people aren't, we haven't jumped the shark yet. Folks are still primarily pulling out credit cards. So I don't know if I can, if I can get the, it's mainstream in the sense that a lot of people are using it. No one is shocked by it, but it's not where I was thinking that this is how most people are going to pay for things. I was really thinking that and we were in the throes of the pandemic last year, I do not want to hand you a credit card. I don't want you to touch my credit card. I need you to spray it off before you hand it back to me if I have to give it to you. As compared to me just holding my phone near something and me being able to make that payment. So I don't know if I get a whole point on that. I will say this though, the mobile payment applications like PayPal has always been there. But when you start to look at like Cash App and Venmo, which is, they've been there, but their use and the way that people are using them, that has really, really increased. I mean, because I look at things like my parents are using Venmo in Cash App, where they didn't know. So that's what's different. It's not just millennials in our generation or really in the tech. It's like my folks are using Cash App. They're like, you know, hey, I just cashed out somebody, something for their birthday or cash at me this. I see it at the store. I want to pick it up because I know you've been looking for it. That is different. So mainstream in the sense that people are aware of it and they're not frightened by it like they used to be. And they don't get upset with you when you're standing in line and you're trying to do it because it's a poor terminal. But is it mainstream in the sense that it is what we do most of the time? No, that we're still not there. People still generally are going to pull a cash out or pull a card out for the most part. I'll say. I was just... Go ahead, Tom. Good job, you go ahead first. Well, I was going to say that I just went through this this morning. I went to the market, had to pick a couple of things. They definitely accept Apple Pay. I know that. I've used Apple Pay there before, but I mean, I have my wallet on me. So just do the card thing. That is like, it just doesn't seem that much better unless I forgot my wallet at home, then that would be a different issue. But it's like, it doesn't seem to have crossed over into the point where people just say, well, of course, you just pay everything, mobile payment on your phone. Why wouldn't you do that? We're not quite there yet, but I am with you on the non-grocery store type mobile payments, Cash App, Venmo. I mean, I pay my rent on Venmo. All of the things have completely moved over to that, to the point where now when someone says, how's that work? I'm like, really? Where have you been? I feel like, and granted, I don't live on planet Earth, I live in Los Angeles, but I feel like in the past couple of months, all of a sudden everywhere I go, I'm like, oh, I can pay with my phone? Great, I don't have to pull my wallet out. I already got my phone out because I was taking a picture of your beignets or whatever, right? Like that is happening more often than not to the point where I'm running into places where they're like, oh, this terminal isn't set up for that, or oh, we don't take that. Oh, yeah, no problem, I'll get, I am leading with my phone now, and that is very recent behavior, like that in which now the unusual situation for me where I can't use the phone, whether that makes a mainstream or not, I don't know, but that's just something I've noticed personally. It's so regional, though. It's very, very regional, and it develops a lot when you're talking about a national chain or local stores. There are a lot of small lawnmower pop chops here in St. Louis. There are still not as bad as it was a year ago, but there are still a lot of places where you can't even use contactless payment or a chip. Now, I'd say it's down vastly from last year, but having driven across the country like a couple more times this year, or another time this year, it's still amazing how many places where you can't do contactless payments or they're still running as incredibly beat-down, credit card machine. I think we're closer, but I think it varies so much by national chains, most of them have it sorted. Smaller regional places. What's weird about that in LA, and this is an example of regionalism, it's the mom and pop places that have contactless here. It's the national chains like Ralph's that don't. Right? Yeah, exactly. So weird. Yeah, but you're right, it is totally spotty, it's totally regional. So what percentage are we giving Rob on this one? I'd give him a full point. I'd give him a point. Give me the point. I'll take it. Point, point. Full point. Full point. Full point. Two for three. Actually, two and a half for three. Take that. Rob's in the lead. Yeah. All right, let's go to Lamar. Lamar's first prediction, all movies will go same day theater streaming for all major distributors in 2021. Okay, so I probably shouldn't have said the word all. On that one. So, okay. So while it didn't happen that way, many movies or companies did adopt this, right? Like even late in the year, there was what? Warner particularly. Yeah, all their movies, right? Warner did all their movies. Paramount at the end of the year did like some kid movies because the parents were, if you bought the kids went to the theater. So there was a Clifford Adams family too, I believe went same day. The one that was surprised me, Peacock made the decision for Halloween kills. That was the same day release. So there's, Disney did a few more than we thought they'd do. So there wasn't a full, hey, let's get together and just make this happen. But there was some progress made that I'm hoping the Pandora's box being, I'm hoping they don't stuff it all back in there. I think there's- It does seem like the effect has been reduced window, not day and day. Yeah, I was gonna say that. There's a paramount. Yeah, that's true. But like you were dead on about HBO in particular and Warner Brothers. In fact, they ruffled a lot of feathers and made a lot of people mad within the industry, but they are still doing it. The Matrix comes out day and day in a couple weeks. Did I predict it before HBO made their announcement? Oh, I don't know. See, that gives you extra points if you did. I think the show was on the 16th. They didn't make that announcement until like near the end of the year. I think we knew Wonder Woman was, but not all the movies maybe. So I did nail it for Warner. Okay, all right. Yeah, I think maybe you get a point at some point. They also wanted to have- I don't think the story- HBO Max, oops, sorry, Rob. I was just gonna say, I don't think the story is completely written yet because the numbers are not going in the right direction. You might see them decide to, okay, we're gonna go back to release at least same day, if not completely online. And definitely that window is gonna be reduced because what you can see is that these companies are not making the same kind of money on movie premieres that they used to. They just aren't. And I don't know that they are going to again for years. So like I said, I don't think the story is quite written yet. Yeah. Warner decided to go back to theater leads on a 45-day window. Universal announced a 45-day window, except for two movies, a Chris Nolan movie and a Jurassic. They'll get longer ones. But as right as you are, Rob, the prediction was all movies, 2021. So... So arrogant. Just pointing it out. Are we giving Lamar the point? Or half? It's gotta get some, right? At least get a half a point. Half a point feels fair. All right, all right. We're giving half, all right. Thank you. Lynn Lamar said that Disney would fold Hulu into its Disney Plus app as a hub and combine the subscribers to more than 100 million. Okay, so I demand half. And this is why. Because internationally, they 100% did this. They created Disney Star, which literally is Hulu, but international, added ABC shows and we just can't get it because Comcast, that whole Comcast Universal agreement does not expire for another two years or so. And so that's the problem here in the States. But internationally, it did work. They did create those hubs. So... Are they still separate apps or is there just one app now for all of them? There was no Hulu internationally, but it is spiritually right. Also, if you had said Disney folds ESPN Plus into Hulu as a hub and combines you like... I would have nailed it. They absolutely did that. Like they did what you were talking about. They just did it with two different brands in the US. Yeah, they did FX also. I definitely think you get partial credit on this. Yeah. They're pointing towards that consolidation. Yeah. And if they could do it here, they would. I believe that Bob Dude would totally do it. It's just they're stuck with Comcast right now. The Bob Dude. I mean, I think they like having their... Remember in the 80s, they had Touchstone. So Disney was all the family stuff and then Touchstone was the stuff was a little edgy. It's like Hulu is their Touchstone now. It's like they put all their edgy stuff there, at least in the States. And if you want rated R, you go there. And if you want Disney, you go to Disney. What they might do is put Disney Plus as a hub in Hulu. Oh, that's possible. To be like, Disney Plus is the app for families. But if you want to have the bundle, Hulu might become the hub for that. That would be crazy. Save that for the predictions episode. All right. So we're giving you... What are we giving Lamar here? Half? Half. Half queen. All right. Thank you. Final prediction from Lamar, game streaming starts to become mainstream by the end of 2021. Okay. The key here, it starts to. The key... No phrase. It's a little vague, but okay. So I will say Stadia fell off, at least from public notice. I'm not saying they're not still working. They're working more of the developer side. But Xbox Cloud is, well, Game Pass Ultimate, not only has taken off, but now it's become one of those things where is on your actual Xbox, and you may think, well, why would I want that? I can just download it. Well, I used to the other day, a friend was like, hey, you got this game called Golf of Friends. I'm like, I don't want to download it. So I didn't. I just pressed the buttons to play in the cloud instantly right there. And it's like, it kind of remind me of like instant demos. So... Yeah. You're right about that. In fact, I did a, the other day I was like, I want to try this game, but it's like 30 gig. And I'm like, do I really want to download 30 gig to try it? I don't even know if I'm going to like it on Game Pass. And now that you can just play with cloud on there, I got, I don't know, an hour into that game and had to remind myself, oh right, I'm just cloud gaming this. And the cool thing is any progress I made, it's all saved. So when I do download it, if I want the ultimate experience, it's all there still. I think you're right about the starting part. I think it's a full point personally. Yeah. Full point. I would agree. All right. Because it started and this is going to take off next year and into the future. Yeah. It's just going to be different names. Google tried. I think there will be a good back end. I really do. I don't think the stadium is going anywhere. It's just consumer, right? They weren't ready for it. So you guys have demoed a couple of games, but like literally every streaming service that has attempt to do this stuff off servers over the internet has crashed and burned. Well, no, Amazon Luna is still a thing. People play Amazon Luna? There's one or two. It's a good question. I just think with them owning Twitch, there has to be some Twitch people that are sponsored by Luna to play it. So technically, sure, one or two. There's a lot of experience. There's a lot to say that what NVIDIA is doing with the GeForce Now has been very successful, certainly in a niche market, but successful nonetheless. Can you count that as cloud? If you can count that as cloud, you are absolutely right. Oh, 100% you can count it because you play all of it. GeForce Now is all over cloud. So you can totally count that. And I think that helps your argument. But I also think it would take somebody like Microsoft, a big platform holder, Sony as well, somebody to like make it, get the traction it needs to not be an also ran like, like Patrick's describing. Cause he's right. Like in the past, it's never worked out. Online was garbage, well not garbage, but it just didn't work. And others have tried. This I think is the time. It's like the tablets before iPads. It's like the, I hate to use Apple's example, but you know, it's the iPods before iPods. You eventually somebody goes, no, this is now. This is the time when we're gonna make it work. And I think their, their approach is the thing that's making it work by saying, here's cloud, here's download, here's cross-save, here's PC. Like that part of it is what's probably gonna make it stick this time, in my opinion. Cool. All right. We've got two full when you count all the points up for Lamar just right there, right there behind Rob. All right. My predictions, which I have a feeling I'm gonna predict will not change the standings. At all. My first prediction was we will see the first attack by self-learning malware that gets past AI-based defense systems like Defender, just did a search for self-learning malware. And there's lots of great articles from December, 2020 about self-learning. So what I meant was in 2022. Oh, you just got the year wrong. I see. Wrong! Yeah. I mean, I see where you're going with that. Well, thanks. You're just a little ahead of the game. That's right. I'm ahead of my time. Trailblazer. I remember actually all year long, this one kept ringing in my head because of Rob's reaction when I made the prediction last year on the show. Walmart, Amazon and Alphabet become healthcare providers. And Rob was like, what are you doing to me? AI malware and these folks become healthcare providers. Thankfully, while Walmart already had when I made this prediction kind of an association with emergency clinics, we did not see any extension of that. And we definitely, if anything, saw Amazon move away from healthcare, kind of move more into the enterprise provision of it, not farther into pharmaceuticals and that sort of thing. I thought they went deep into pharmacy, deeper. They started to and then they pulled back later in the year of like, we're not gonna sell to end users. We're gonna make a platform for pharmacies to be able to use our technology because they didn't want that any trust attention. Yeah. I thought the Alphabet call was a good one just because it just seemed like something Alphabet would do, like something they would reach out and create for this, for a new division for Alphabet. It just felt right, but. But you know why, Scott? I know you're right. Cause there still is a problem for YouTubers and YouTube on their platform, they do not do a good job of saying, hey, you're a contractor here. Here's some options for healthcare. Here's some options for insurance. They don't have to be an insurance provider, but they sure don't even give you options. And I think there's an interesting space for all those thousands of creators to say, hey, now part of Google Alphabet, we offer this, you know, and if you're a creator over certain amount, you get a discount into the play. I don't know why they haven't done that over the years. And I was thinking Alphabet, not Google. I was thinking they verily would do this. And then sure, there's a corporate synergy. Why, you know, why not? Just be like, ah, well, it's not even Google offering it. It's Verily, which is part of the same company. Thing is that felt very realistic in December, 2020 that an additional year of increasing scrutiny on the size and tech backlash and all of that just makes it feel like, yeah, no, that wasn't gonna happen knowing what we know now. I think you hit it right on the head in talking about why Amazon pulled back because of potential antitrust. And I think that Alphabet is thinking the same thing. Healthcare is so big and these companies are so big. It's like, okay, well, for now doing healthcare in addition to having all the other data and we have your health data now, that seems like a way that you're gonna get regulated on that really quickly. Yeah, which is why I'm very upset that my next prediction also was wrong. Antitrust suits against Amazon and Apple by the United States. Oh, federally. We were so close, so close. You could just left off the United States or just said Europe and you would have been good. Yeah, I shouldn't have said U.S. I should have said investigations, not suits maybe because these suits are definitely coming. They just, you know, you should never overestimate the speed at which government works, right? I mean, there were also some other things that happened that certainly diverted attention from antitrust for several months this year. Yeah. The wheels of government just don't turn that fast. Maybe by United States you meant Epic Games. Maybe that's what you meant. Did I say, did it sound like I said United States, Roger? I'm sorry. If you go back and listen, I was saying, my antitrust, you just meant, you know, I don't know what that suits. I meant a lawsuit. I didn't take antitrust. I said, oh, half way or congressional hearings. Yeah. Yes. Well, I am last. There is no doubt about that. But it looks like Rob Dunwood by a half point did the best of all of us. Well, Rob, of course, it was wrong. So smart. I'm taking the silver. Yeah. Congratulations. You win pride. Thank you. I do. And I have a lot of pride in second place. Yes. Who ends up with the bronze then? Is that shared between Sarah and Scott? I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I would be fine sharing the podium with you, Scott. Oh, 100 percent. There's room here for bronze. Yeah. Which, yeah. It's not like you have to pick a national end of the play since. No, it's fine. Second second place is the rough one, because second place is almost winning. We we just. Well, yeah, second place. That person is like, don't gas like me just because you didn't get. Wow. All right. Well, that is our predictions results. One of my favorite traditions of holding our feet to the fire. Like we may we'll make the predictions. We'll do it again, but it's always good to check in and see like, all right, how good were we? Thank you again to the folks participating, starting with Scott Johnson. Let folks know where they can go to find you in the new year. Well, sure. It turns out it's the exact same place they could find me last year. And so super convenient. If you're looking for anything I'm up to, frogpants.com is the place. There's shows. There's art. There's all sorts of stuff and a few new things be trickling in there early in the year. So keep your eyes out. That's frogpants.com. And you can always ping me on Twitter. I'm at Scott Johnson. Patrick Norton, thank you as well. Where can they go? Still record at AVXL.com or I still record AVXL.com or AVXL. If you want to search your favorite pod catcher with Rob Herron, talking about home theater and personal audio. What about you, Rob Dunwood? Where's your 2022 location going to be? I am at Rob Dunwood on all the things. And since we met last year, I started a brand new podcast called the Tech John, which you can reach over at the TechJohn.com and you will hear tech discussed from a different perspective. Excellent. What about you, Lamar? Where'd you land next year? I am everywhere at Lamar Wilson. I am really into vertical short from video. It's been a passion of mine that's working out really well. So from unboxings to more in 2022, so stay tuned. You can find, but you can find me all at lamar.tv actually with two hours. Thank you. Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us on the show. It was fun. I didn't win, but it was still really fun. Congrats to you, Rob. Thanks to everybody who's helped support our show every day. We cannot do it without you. So extra thanks to all of you. If you'd like to support our show at any level and you haven't done so already, dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon is where you can find out more about doing that. Reminder, we are live Monday through Friday at four thirty p.m. Eastern twenty one thirty UTC. You can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. And we're back tomorrow with our predictions for 2022. Who will win? Does anyone guess? No one should have to spend New Year's Eve alone. Every year, Ritual Misery presents the Diamond Club New Year's Eve streamathon, 27 hours of raising money for sick kids through extralife.org. This year, Sarah and myself will be bringing in the new year in the U.K. Join us on New Year's Eve at twenty three thirty fifteen thirty Pacific for good year Internet. Find all the details, including the full schedule at RitualMisery.com slash Streamathon. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.