 Coming up on DTNS spoiler, we're going to tell you everything that's going to happen in 2022. This is the Daily Tech News Show for Friday, December 31st, and for the last time 2021. In Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. I'm Roger Scheng, the show's producer. It is time for our annual prediction show. We're going to make our best estimates of what we think is going to happen in the tech world in 2022. To join us making these predictions is Shannon Morse. Welcome, Shannon. Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. Nika Monford. Thank you for joining us. Hello. Glad to be back. And Stephanie Humphrey. Thanks for being here. Always a pleasure to be here. Happy New Year, everybody. Almost, Tom. Almost. It's close enough, right? Jumping like that. Just a smidge. I am ready for 2022. I bet you are. Yeah. I think we all are. Well, it's like you would say it can't get any worse, but then you'll jinx. You don't want to get too late. 2019. Yep. I'm right there with you. Let's get into our predictions and break the ice. Sarah is going to start us off. We each have three predictions for 2022. And as is tradition, we will all try to gather at the end of the year to evaluate how we did just like we did for the 2021 predictions. But Sarah, what is the first of your three? All right. So the first of my three, I feel pretty confident about this one. I am not an Apple Fitness Plus subscriber. And the reason is because I don't have an Apple Watch, but I've been thinking about this a lot. And I love fitness VR, everything. And I, you know, I do plenty of that on the Oculus Quest. I'm sorry, the MetaQuest. And I think that when Apple announces a VR headset, early in 2022, which I believe it will do, even though we're not expected to see shipments until later in the year, I think that the company is going to make it a big Fitness Plus tie-in. I think that it will be, yeah, I mean, VR, AR, you know, fine, great. But we're going to make you healthier. And here's how we're going to do it. I don't know a lot of people who use Apple's Fitness Plus on a regular basis. I know they're out there. They actually do. Okay. All right. And I love it. Yeah. And a VR tie-in would be great. Yeah. So that, that, that's, that's where I feel like Apple's going with this. Because Apple always wants to, you know, for better or for worse, Apple, you know, always has our best interests in mind. Apple wants you to be as healthy as possible. And here's how Apple is going to help you be healthier. And I think that this is just a perfect marriage of the two things. I'd buy it. Will you, will you actually buy it? Well, at price point, we'll have to see. I, you know, I, it's, it's rumored that, that, that, that heads is going to be, you know, exponentially more expensive than, than what, uh, Oculus is looking at right now. So price is going to be a big factor. Yeah. I, I think the fitness tie-in makes sense. I think that's, I think that's, that's super smart. There might even be sensors in there. But if there's one, let's send me one. And, and, and for anybody who's sort of like, ah, VR headsets and fitness, it's, you know, I am, I'm a big proponent of this, a lot of fun. But there are only so many things that you can do with at least, you know, the quest, which is what I'm using because you can't see the outside world. You know, you can, you can do a variety of exercises, but yoga would be weird, for example, you know, because you kind of got to look at your own body type thing. I feel like Apple, well, I hope Apple is going to tackle some of those things to be able to then sell you on their subscription models. I'd be down for it. All right. We got Nico on board. Shannon. Oh, you know, I'm all Android centric. Yeah. All right. She's like, you guys enjoy it. It's fine. Well, maybe everybody could get on board with this. I know this is a shot in the dark and I don't even know if it's a shot in the dark because I'm not even saying that I want this to happen. But Elon Musk, everybody's familiar with him. He's a, he's quite a character on Twitter and quite a character in the crypto universe. I feel like maybe in 2022, something's going to happen and he will be forced to step down as the CEO of Tesla. Interesting. I have no insider knowledge about this to be clear. I just feel like things are getting weird enough that it could happen. Do you think it's more kind of similar to Jack Dorsey stepping down to focus more on square slash block? Or do you think he's going to be forced to be like, you know, well, that's a good question. Yeah. I mean, it could be as something as simple as him saying, I really just care about going to Mars. So the Tesla stuff, I'm going to, I'm going to let somebody else handle the day to day or it could be something a little bit more dramatic. I guess I'm not sure about that part, but I feel like, I feel like it could happen. I see him getting forced out. I don't see his ego allowing him to just walk away from Tesla at this point. But I think he's done enough that there could be a case to be made to get him out of there from, you know, shareholders or whoever, the federal government or somebody. But yeah, I see him being forced out. He has a lot of heat on him right now in a couple of different spaces. So yeah. Yeah. I'm honestly kind of surprised that it hasn't happened yet, but given like all the things that have put him in headlines for such a long time, I won't make any specific notices there. But I could see it happening. I could definitely see it happening, but not by his choice. Maybe it's a little both, right? Like he gets in hot water with a misstep and then says, you know, I've decided I'm going to focus on Mars. They're not forcing me out. Yeah. And then we'll all come back to the show and say, see, see what we told you. All right. So my third prediction, this one is a little bit. I try, I want to make this as concise as possible, even though I don't think it's a very concise topic, but NFTs. I don't own one NFT. I know a lot of people who participate and, you know, kind of go through that, like it's like that sneaker head thing where it's like the drop is coming at 9pm. Got to get that, like, I don't know which NFT kind of thing. And I just can't keep up with that stuff. But I've heard enough rumblings around town about how enough people also don't understand NFTs that I don't really understand what the second market is. So let's say that they're, what was it? Oh my gosh. I forget the name of the NFT, the Flower Girls. Anybody remember the Flower Girl NFTs? It was like last week, very recently. And it was a big deal in certain circles. And it was, you know, being pushed by lots of people online. Oh, you got to get the Flower Girl NFT. And a few people I knew got some. But I'm like, okay, well, the whole idea is that they will, you know, their value will increase. But where's the second market? I feel like if you didn't participate in that first wave, you don't care. And where are you going to sell these things? So I just, I just kind of, I feel like NFTs might have a little bit of a slump. Ask all of those people who still have beanie babies in their house in the basement right now that said, this is a rare one. And it's going to be worth something in 10 years or 20 years. I think that's, I think we're going to see a similar situation with some of these NFT folks. I'm one of those weirdos that collects things and has like an entire room of collector pieces. But my stuff is like physical retail products that you can physically purchase and have in a household, not digital things. So I can understand from like a collector mindset of like, I collect NFTs to keep them and to share them, like to tell people about my collection. But I'm of the same mind space of like, where is that second market? Like would they be able to sell it afterwards? And I think the whole NFT situation, it was one of my alternate predictions that I passed on. It's one of those things where you get it in the hopes that it becomes something similar back to the dot com era where if you're buying, you know, Google or Microsoft, you hope that, you know, 15 years down the line that you're in it early. So it, you can make, you can make a lot of money from it. But it's one of those things where you just don't know where it's going to go. So you put this money in front, hoping that it gives you a big yield, but you just don't know. And it's so many people getting in it. And it's because, you know, you buy it with crypto and crypto is really hot right now. So I think it's just kind of like a, like a pile of just, yeah, it's like a, it's like a fake gold rush. A pay and fate type thing. Yeah. I mean, and, and I get that. I would buy something even that I couldn't afford if somebody was like, it's going to be two X value a year from now. Like that sounds great. I just don't, I don't know who, who are the people who are going to get on this, this wave later on. And I could be wrong, but that's my prediction. I think where you'll end up being right is that NFTs will be like, like dot com addresses where they'll be like, Oh yeah. I mean, we use them, but they weren't an investment. They're just a tool, you know. Yeah. I think, I think, I think you might, I think you might be on to this one. All right, Stephanie, your turn on the dais. Start with the first of your three. What do you got? I think we are going to see another catastrophic AWS outage. Unfortunately. I don't, I absolutely don't want to be right about this, but considering we've had two in less than a week already. And, and not even just the fact that we've had to, I think it's because Amazon has been so vague and non transparent about what is actually happening and why I just, I don't, I feel like it's coming something, something big is coming where it's going to be a more dire and drastic situation than I can't log on to Twitch right now. You know, I feel like, you know, I like I said, I don't want to be sort of this doomsday person, but I think it's going to take, unfortunately, something drastic and dire to happen before we, you know, really get serious about what safeguards need to be in place and what type of transparency needs to happen when, when this type of thing goes down because, you know, it's like all of your, you know, systems failed, but then the systems that were supposed to catch it failed. And then it's like that, you know, that, that lack of, of, of, of reliable redundancy is, is concerning and troubling to me. And it's just, they're not telling us enough right now. So I feel like, you know, when you don't learn from your mistakes, you're, you're bound to repeat them. Yeah. And I think kind of on that it's one of those things where it could even be some sort of cyber attack. I mean, we've seen how just taking down one region, how it affected some huge platforms for seven hours and seven hours in digital time is, you know, almost a lifetime. So it's one of those things, I think what this last outage showed us is that you can kind of, if you're a bad actor, you can kind of slide in there and, and do some significant damage to a lot of people. 100%. I mean, we've seen attacks like that happen so many times, especially in the past couple of years. I mean, y'all remember the, when the refineries shut down or the oil, oil systems, the pipeline. Yeah. That was crazy as well. So like I, I can imagine that we'll definitely see another AWS outage next year. And yeah, I 100% think it will be worse than the one that we just saw. Yeah. And then it actually was three and not to, there was another, they called it an aftershock on the 10th after the one on the seven. So, you know, it just, yeah, we're, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I like I said, I hope I'm not right, but I don't, I think I will be. I think you're right. If, if between the time we time traveled to December 31st and the time we recorded this, another one happens, Stephanie means even another one on top of that. Exactly. Exactly. Another, another one. As of December 31st. I think, you know, the AWS stuff is, I mean, it obviously cripples companies. And of course consumers, you know, as the end user, like, yeah, well, I can't do anything, you know, with these companies that have to be up and running. And if they use AWS, I can't do my job. I think, I think the whole idea of like the catastrophic part of this is, okay, what, what are we going to see next where something goes down to the point where people die? You know, You talk about the hospitals that might be connected to this system that, you know, every heart monitor in the hospital goes down at the same time or, you know, ventilator or something. So that, that's what I mean by cat, I mean, I didn't want to just say people are going to die. I didn't want to, you know, be that demon gloom person. But, but that's what I mean by catastrophic is the idea that, that we are going to lose lives because of the next one. If we don't kind of get it together. I'm going to choose to be hopeful. And this doesn't mean you will be wrong, but I'm going to, to choose to say Stephanie will be wrong and just like cross my fingers. I hope we're talking about this. You get to be wrong. I think you'll be happy if you're wrong. The one thing I will say is you may, if you are wrong, you may be wrong about AWS, but not wrong about something else. There may be another cloud related outage. I think that's certainly likely. Yeah, I am. All right. What's prediction number two? Well, it's funny. As it turns out, I was clairvoyant about this because it's already happened. I predicted that a couple would get married in the metaverse and it happened a couple of days ago. But I think it speaks to a larger idea of relationships in the metaverse. You know, we already see Tinder talking about the Tinder verse and the CEO of the match group has already built what they call single town. And they're testing it in South Korea right now so they can get together and hook up or whatever. And Planet Theta is a VR dating app. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with dating in the metaverse next year. Maybe we'll see our first metaverse divorce. Next year are people are people are going to start buying digital real estate together because they're already doing that. So now we're buying these homes together in that space. So I think the way we relate to each other is going to change dramatically and not necessarily in a good way. I mean, I think this could be helpful for people who may have social anxieties and different things like that, but it's going to make us even more disconnected than ever, I think. I don't think it's going to help. I mean, as a single person who, you know, has definitely dipped her toe in the dating apps, I mean, the whole thing about dating apps is sort of like, okay, you get pictures, maybe video, certainly some texts, but yeah, you're not somewhere with someone ever until you're physically somewhere with that person, you know, and that may happen, that may never happen. The metaverse, I mean, and I'm trying to, you know, put a nice glossy glow on this, like this could be kind of fun. I'm not sure how much it's going to lead to long lasting relationships that translate to the real world, but, you know, talking about things like, you know, marriage or divorce or, you know, kind of big stuff, the more that that stuff happens in the metaverse and you don't do it in the real verse, yeah, I mean, that kind of scares me. Yeah. And again, I hate that all my predictions are like super Debbie Downer, negative, you know, worst case scenario, but when you extrapolate that to worst case scenario, the first sexual assault in the metaverse, you know, what does that look like? It just, it would be as traumatizing as real life, but, you know, the person, does the person get to get away with it because it's virtual and not real. Well, and it's supposed to be as real as possible, right? So you could never say to somebody, well, it's just the metaverse. Right. It was only virtual. Yeah. That person's trauma is going to be real in their brain forever. So I, you know, since we've already seen that marriage, if these dating apps sort of take off and running next year without really considering all of the ramifications, I think we may see that. Technology review had an article about groping in the horizon. Meta's horizon already. So you're, you're, you know, sadly right on, right on target with that. Yeah. Again, I want to be wrong about that one as well. My third one in, in, in the vein of Sarah's prediction, Apple is finally going to do something that makes us care about VR. I don't know no disrespect, no shade to anybody that actually cares about VR right now, but I don't think enough people care. But I think Apple is going to be the company that does it, maybe not necessarily with the headset, with the headset, but they are rumored to have some glasses coming in 2023. And I think that's going to, we're going to, we're going to make VR happen just like we're going to make fetch happen. Finally, finally fetch. Apple will make fetch happen. It's never going to happen. Never going to happen. Never going to happen. Stop trying to make VR happen. No, I, I'm, I'm with you on this one, Stephanie. I mean, obviously I, I, I'm, I'm a VR enthusiast, but I also think that it's really limited right now. And the more folks who can, can, can get into the VR universe on whatever app that, you know, was most fun for them or where they connect with friends and metaverse, you know, put that aside for a second. You know, a lot of this is like playing games or being productive and maybe having a virtual workspace. I mean, all of that stuff is so in its infancy that I think, you know, Apple, Apple is often not the first company to come to product, but they're the company that convinces everybody that they've figured out the product. Exactly. And I think they will do a better job of it than, than Facebook and Google or meta has done with Oculus so far, just as far as aesthetically, stylistically, you know, and the cool factor. Exactly. Making it something people actually want to put on their heads. I think, I think they're going to do a great job with design on their headset. And Nika, I mean, as a, as an Apple enthusiast, I mean, how excited are you about what seems like it's probably going to happen next year? I'm here for it. I'm, I'm in line. I'm ready to get into it. Yeah. My virtual, my sleeping bag in the metaverse waiting outside. The virtual Apple store. That kind of takes us right into the first of your predictions, I think, doesn't it Nika? Right. So we're going to keep on the Sarah and Stephanie train. I'm calling it the triple A's affordability, availability and adoption of AR VR hardware. I think now we've seen Oculus, we've seen how it has some popularity. It's a small block of people that use it. But now that Apple is getting into it, I think they're going to be more companies who may be kind of in the background, not wanting to show their hand too much because when you're going up against a meta or an Apple, you may not want to show too much. But I think it's really going to be one of those things that really comes into its own in the next year. And I'm thinking specifically on the edge of we're still in a pandemic. I think we're still going to be in the pandemic well into 2022 and beyond. And we've seen, I think, with like the NBA when they had kind of folks in the virtual stands, you know, watching the game and they kind of had their image popping up. I think we're going to start to see the introduction of in-person events through your AR VR hardware, whether it's a headset where there's glasses. I think it's going to start a multi-stream of in-person and virtual events at the same time. You'll probably have a higher upcharge maybe to be on the augmented side than actually in-person. But I think they're going to start to merge the in-person with the virtual. So it's kind of a cohesive type of experience where whether you're at home or whether you're actually in the venue, you're experiencing maybe in, you know, different mediums. That's a great application. Although I hope they don't do that before March 31st because I just bought tickets to new edition today. And I want to see it in person. I don't care. I'm going. Well, but I mean, I think, you know, Nika, I think your point is you see it in person. I mean, nothing can replicate that. But watching it on, I don't know, a television is also fine. But I think it's important to make sure that in-person experience, whether or not you can go. That would be something that would make me buy a VR headset. Having the ability to do that would make me buy. Last year I was going to go see a musical in San Francisco and it got canceled because of the pandemic. And it would be so cool to be able to sit in the audience virtually and still be able to see a show of a musical with all the different casting characters. That would be incredible, especially if I could get some really nice sound with Dolby. Oh my gosh. I would totally pay tickets for tickets for that. And I think people are going to miss out on a lot of money if they don't get on this because there are going to be people who want to be in-person and there are people who since we've been in this pandemic, they're like, look at the audience as well. I like that idea. I love that idea. I actually, now I'm excited. Now I want like, twice as coming. It's happening. And I'm like, oh, we could see both shows go in person one day and then go virtual for the second. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What's number two, Nika? Number two is crypto goes mainstream. I think a lot more countries are going to be accepting of crypto. I think a lot of businesses are going to be accepting. I think who is it? Oda Beckham. I think his entire NFL salary is now in Bitcoin. I think it's going to be one of those things where everyone's talking about it. People are trying to figure out what it is. And I think the learning curve definitely this year may be going into the top of next year. But I think if businesses are smart, which I think they have smart people who want to make money, they're going to start to say, hey, there are a lot of people who have tons of money in their digital wallets. They just need a way to spend it on things that are available. So you know what? Let's go and get some of this money that's out there just sitting and waiting for people to try and figure out how to get it out to buy something, but then keep it in. So I think we are going to see a surgeons of crypto currency being available in a ton of different markets. That's fair. Yeah. I was listening to an economist podcast interview not too long ago. And one of the heads of I think Binance was saying he has gone from apologizing if he asked if somebody took crypto currency to being surprised when they won't. Now this guy is super rich. He's not going to Ralph's and trying to use crypto currency. He's buying fine art or whatever. But it does tend to percolate through from that sort of thing. So I think this one's pretty good. I think you're right. Yeah. I think that's a slam dunk. Yep. And my last one. I think in the age of climate change we're all talking about we're seeing what's happening with the environment around I think EV electric vehicles are going to become the norm. I think they're going to be pushed to the forefront. Pretty much every major car has an EV line coming out. A lot of people have gotten on this 2030 train. I think people are going to be able to more easily have access to an EV before it seemed like an elusive kind of you have to be on a certain you know pay scale to be able to get access to it. And then when you think about it as well people's concerns are how am I going to charge this thing if I'm driving you know 300 miles to go visit someone am I going to be able to get back home on that same charge. So I think we're going to start to see the implementation and the availability of EVs and the supporting hardware that goes along with it. Honestly Nika I am right in the market for this prediction my current lease I have a leased car is up in March and I'm seriously considering an EV but I want to I want to make sure like okay well how far would I go before I have to get back home and it could become a problem. And honestly I mean the options are better than ever. I don't feel as scared as I felt you know five years ago thinking like oh gosh if I get a you know some the model three like I'll you know what if I can't find the charging station you know out on the freeway somewhere I think it's I think we're getting there. Yeah and I think it's going to be more universal because right now for specific brands have to have a certain type of charging station I think we're going to get to the point where it's going to be maybe a federal standard type of charging station or some sort of regulation where if you're going to have this EV you have to have it where it's accessible to be able to be charged with a standardized type of charging kind of thing. Yeah that would be awesome if we had like USBC but for EVs right yeah I think it's going to happen I don't I wonder about next year I think maybe we're looking at 2023 or 2024 for this because I just don't I still don't see and I could be just me not seeing it but I still don't see that mid range that mid price range EV I see Priuses and Volts on the low end and Leafs and I see Tesla and Porsches on the high end I know there are like especially with trucks a lot of EV trucks coming out right now but I still don't see that that one like that Ford Explorer for EVs you know what's that one vehicle and one brand that's going to become that ubiquitous like the Camry of EVs basically I don't I don't see that yet so I think we still might need a little bit more time but definitely as soon as they get that charging station thing worked out and get some sort of standardization around that it's going to blow up all right those are good predictions let's see what Shannon's got start with your first one right nothing about VR on my end yeah I stuck with Android type of predictions the first one is Google will release a where a smartwatch with which we've kind of heard rumors about but my turn on it is that they will build it with their own hardware such as using tensor and or their Titan M2 chipsets for security and privacy in the where West as well as the strength of Google assistant and bringing that kind of AI to a smartwatch as opposed to just an Android or in home smart home devices what do you think happens with the Fitbit acquisition if that sort of thing happens are they just two different markets I am you know I am kind of curious about that because I saw that they acquired Fitbit and I'm wondering if they are going to take like the software side of Fitbit and use that to build into their own smartwatch that's what my thought process would be like I still think they're going to be using like the Fitbit fitness application but just bringing in a lot of those features and a lot of that software a lot of the app technology into their own hardware and does this work with every Android phone or is it just going to be for you just see this for pixel users exclusively because you know Samsung and ATE all the other ones one plus does this work for all of them well one of the nice things that we've seen about Android is as they introduce like new Android operating systems eventually it does come to the other manufacturers and brands as well so maybe not at the front and center I don't think that they will release the same kind of applications to all of the brands and all the different manufacturers of Android phones but I think that eventually it would get downstream to all the other brands but it would start on the pixel line yeah pixel always have a couple more features maybe than the other ones they always do yeah alright what's number two number two is in late 2022 I think we will see Google start to tease their first foldable Android phone but this is not actually going to release until 2023 part of the reason why I think that it would be well we've already known that they have not confirmed a foldable in any sense of the word even though there have been plenty of rumors we also know that they have had a lot of chip shortages especially leading to delays in the most recent pixel lines and I think that that is going to continue into 2022 seeing all those kind of shortages and delays and shipments and in manufacturing I believe that they are working on some kind of foldable implementation but we won't actually start to see them officially tease it until the end of the year and I think that will end up making a foldable like the pixel 8 line or pixel 9 maybe a pixel 7a I don't know we'll see but I think that will actually get a release of a foldable in 2023 pixel f yeah pixel f exactly the pixel f I mean we talk so much about foldable phones and you know so many companies are you know coming out with foldable phones and you get through reviewers who say so great in all of these ways but so not quite ready in all of these ways I you know I want that foldable phone where it just makes sense to have a you know phone slash tablet that's all in one in your pocket yeah and part of this is from my like my own wish list of having a Galaxy Z Fold 3 but having the Google Assistant and Google AI built into it and all of the like beauty that comes with a pixel and like the cameras that are built into the pixel except with the super fun Samsung foldable so I think that would be amazing but we don't have it yet and I'm just really hoping that Google is listening to their audience I still feel like foldable phones are going to make fetch happen again I'm throwing them I'm with you I was like why are we why are we even trying to make this happen that's the one thing I'm not a person that carries around a big phone and engages with my phone in that way so you know clearly I'm not the target market I mean I remember my razor I loved my razor with all of my rights but I don't want a phone like that I don't see I just don't see the use case that is going to make these more than a niche product so we'll see I'll be curious look at this I am clearly in the minority but I'm just like why you're not in the minority at all it's definitely a very target market I'm not much with you because personally I'm thinking foldable is a misnominclature it's more a flip in my mind I'm thinking when I think foldable I'm thinking something more malleable not necessarily maybe something with a hinge but you know actually like fold over and when I see some of these and I'm glad that Samsung calls there is a flip because to me that's really what it is when I think foldable I don't watch this but the show I can't remember what channel it was on but extant with I think Halle Berry and when they had their communication devices they were truly like foldable kind of like see when I think of foldable you know that's where my mind goes not necessarily flip because we've had kind of like the flip you know kind of deal and again I had a razor I love that phone like I said I still have it because I still have two of mine so I in my mind when I think foldable I think more I think less kind of hard like click kind of open and more of like a softer type of more malleable you know type of device but that's just kind of where my mind goes when I think it's foldable that would be so cool I would love that like having a rolling phone oh my gosh I mean TCL did a did a version of one they never actually released it but it was really awesome to see really awesome I hope we do I think we will I have no insider knowledge but I hope it happens so my last prediction of course because I had to do a security and privacy one is log for shell which is the exploit we've been hearing nonstop about for the past week I feel so bad for all my infosec friends this will lead to several data dumps and leaks in 22 from vulnerable servers that attackers were actively targeting before the patches became available and the unfortunate side of this is that we recently learned that you have to patch the patch because the patch also had a vulnerability in it so like it just keeps getting worse and worse so I 100% think that we are going to see some kind of leaks happen either on hacker forums or somebody will stick a piece up online of data that was available on these servers that were potentially vulnerable that were not being protected correctly either we will see plain text information that's posted we'll see unencrypted data we'll see things that are easily decrypted whatever it might be and I think that's going to be a big problem in the next year I'm going to put this in the class of I can say I hope you're wrong it doesn't mean I think you will be wrong I hope I'm wrong too yeah and you know what this will show who had good decentralized security who knew that security doesn't end at the perimeter because this makes people don't know makes it super easy to get inside if it's not patched and it's hard to patch it's a multi layer patch it's costly and time consuming it's a patch so yeah I hate to say it but yeah I think you're probably going to be right about that one alright it's my turn on the block let's hear them Tom by first one we've been talking a lot about NFTs and cryptocurrencies and decentralized things I think decentralized identity projects are going to get some momentum maybe not quite go mainstream but we're going to start to know about them whereas most people don't know about them these are things like MIT solid Tim Berners-Lee's Inrupt which uses solid to say let's take that blockchain idea let's take that decentralized really hard to change not one place but you're in control idea and apply it to identity management there's so much attention on privacy and control of your own personal data now is the time for one of these projects whether it's Inrupt or something else to start to get some traction and get companies to adopt it because it's a chicken and egg problem you need a company to adopt it for it to get that traction and I think we're finally going to see I don't know maybe it'll be a Twitter maybe it'll be a square maybe it'll be something else but somebody get on board and start giving one of these some momentum to get there I think so Jack does love a decentralized process he sure does and now that he doesn't have to worry about Twitter anymore he can he's solely focused on that I think yeah right I think all kidding aside this is actually something that will be very helpful to a lot of people and only a few select companies are able to do so I would guess square would be the company to do it I mean we mean block of course oh yes I'm sorry unless they lose the H&R block I'd have to go back right yes does this get us closer to online voting in my understanding what you're talking about I mean that's a step or two down the road but it might right because one of the issues with online voting is being able to securely make sure like this vote was done once by one person and anonymous like getting both of those but if you get the identity tracking down then that's one more step that makes it easier so yeah maybe you just got to figure out how to dissociate the vote from the identity yeah right so but yeah and I think there'll be a lot of pressure on meta to apply this to them and I don't think they'll give into it that's gonna go great yeah alright my second prediction is that the interoperable smart home system matter is going to go into effect in June that's when it's scheduled it's already been delayed once I'm gonna predict it won't get delayed again that's not really my prediction though I think it will have once it goes into place a measurable boost of adoption they've got Apple Google, Amazon, Samsung LG like they've got a lot of people ZigBees on board behind this and they're all vested in making people aware of it and letting people know hey when you go into shop if you see a light bulb that says matter compliant it'll work you don't have to guess anymore it'll work you got an Amazon you got a Google Home you got a HomePod mini it'll work suddenly as soon as that's shown to be true because I think there's a lot of skepticism of whether it will really work or not and you know there's still a chance it might not work as well as expected but assuming it works and it's shown to be true I think suddenly a lot of people were like oh okay so I don't have to I don't have to figure out a mess anymore I can just buy a light bulb I can buy a light switch great and I think that boosts adoption I mean you still have to run that smart bulb you have to help it be smart through some sort of app or platform but I do I know a lot of folks who I have a smart home upstairs that's real weird you know but it makes sense to me you know and everyone's like oh my gosh how do you even do this and it's very much a daisy chain of all sorts of stuff like certain companies don't work with other companies all that well blah blah blah this is the promise of all of that going away but you know Tom let's say you know let's say it's your mom she buys her first smart bulb is this going to be easy for her yeah it should be it should be like okay you can control it with your phone you've got a phone right and if you don't have a smart phone then we're talking about a whole different classification but my mom has a smart phone so you've got a phone you can control it do you want to have control of multiple items on a platform it could be a hub or it could be an Amazon Echo oh you already have one of those or it could be a HomePod Mini oh you already have one it's just going to make it so much simpler routers will be able to act as hubs in this situation so it's likely that a lot of people will already have the thing they need and so yeah I think I think it will start to pass that test this will be interesting because I don't currently know if things does not exist in my home primarily because of security and privacy so if this helps mitigate some of that I could see slowly but surely integrating some things into my day to day life so this is very interesting very exciting that's one of the most attractive things about thread running on matter is that it runs offline you don't you can still turn your lights on and off with your app over your home network it doesn't ever need to go out on the internet so privacy and security by design now you'll have to make sure where you will have to do an investigation is am I buying from a reputable device maker and all that all that still applies obviously but yeah if they're compliant then yeah you should have all the controls you need which is good Shannon I'm curious how you feel on a security basis about matter what are your thoughts on the smart home and what companies need to do differently than what they're doing now yeah absolutely I mean right now we have a lot of vulnerabilities when it comes to just the user operability for example educating people about how important it is to use two factor authentication on their on their home cameras so that people aren't logging in and watching their kids and stuff like that so if there is a way to set up matter especially with thread implemented so that you know none of that data could be potentially accessed by an attacker online then absolutely I'm all for it I mean right now I have a Google home in my household and I realize that that comes with some vulnerabilities just based on the privacy that matters that come with there not this matter specifically different matter privacy matters so I've set it up with that in mind where I use like completely separate accounts that aren't tied to my email address for example so that way if Google is tracking everything that happens on the home device it's not necessarily matching that up with my email account unless it's looking specifically at ISPs and then I have a bunch of other stuff going on too but that's probably way too much for a regular user so I'm really looking forward to matter I'm really looking forward to educating myself more about matters to see if this is something that I could maybe sell off my old devices and switch over to new devices that do work with this protocol to better protect myself and my family yep and some of your old devices may be matter compliant because they can take ZigBee and upgrade it so you might not even have to get rid of that many of them might have to get rid of a few but yeah alright my last prediction is going to go in the opposite direction I think of Stephanie and Shannon where they made predictions that'll probably be true that we hope maybe aren't true I'm gonna make one that maybe won't be true but I'm gonna hope I'm gonna give it the guy to give the prediction with the hope that it will be true which is the chip shortage will end by the end of 2022 keep hope a lot somebody's gotta be they gotta put it out into the universe and that is the wish good mojo good mojo high-risk high reward prediction you're manifesting you're manifesting it right now high risk potentially a little bit will happen but yeah let me out the mystic let's talk about this Tom I mean why do you feel so bullish on the chip shortage ending the way it could end is that it requires a few other things to happen right it requires that the logistics issues start to get straightened out that we start to to realize the new rhythms of global commerce which probably requires if not the pandemic to end I don't think we're I think that might be asking too much but like we get into a predictable pattern with it where we're like okay we know how to deal with it we can keep it from disrupting things as much if that happens then fabrication plants start to get on a new schedule people maybe stop hoarding people stop hoarding toilet paper at some point they stop hoarding the chips at some point and I think it's possible if everything goes right and that's a big if I get that but if everything goes right on those things then by the end of 2022 Q4 2022 you may be seeing chip makers saying alright we are meeting orders in a normal time frame and we are projecting in our 2023 earnings that we won't be suffering from the shortage the way we have the entire because I think we're going to keep seeing that in the earnings reports for the first two probably three quarters of 2022 you say so buddy you gotta believe you make a very strong case for it but again there are a lot of things that happen in a certain order at a certain time all together that's just if I was a betting person that would be way too many variables for me to think what I would I'd be really curious about is Tom I think you're right that chip shortage in certain sectors is going to be pretty much fine by the end of this time next year not all sectors though what sectors will there be is it still going to be the automotive market that's just like crumbling and people paying so much for used cars that they shouldn't pay for because there just is a dearth of vehicles in general is it build your own PCs what will it still be an issue at this time next year yeah and I think that's the gamble here is that the chip shortage probably will end by the end of 2023 I think we could all probably say oh yeah that seems reasonable whether it will make it by the end of 2022 is certainly pushing it and maybe you'll give me partial credit if chip shortage has ended in several sectors well that's why I'm like explicitly which sector is Tom yeah I know yeah and then I get no credit your partial credit I know how to play this game oh boy but that's it that's what I got so thanks everybody for sharing your predictions with us this is a great fun discussion and pretty enlightening I hope it gave everybody kind of a good view going into 2022 indeed we want to thank our panel Stephanie Humphrey, Nika Monford and Shannon Morris Stephanie we'll start with you where can people keep up with your work? you can find me all around the web at TechLifeStuff you can check out my podcast TheTechJohn at theTechJohn.com and you can check out TiltBethDewTweet.com as well excellent Nika Monford always a pleasure to have you on the show and thanks for your predictions as well where can people keep up with the rest of what you do? on all of the social media outlets I am TechSavvyDiva everywhere you can also check me out at Snobo Westcast that is an apple-centric podcast you can also check us out at snoboestcast.com beautiful Shannon Morris always always a pleasure to have you on the show you are a busy woman so let folks know where they can keep up with what you do always twitter.com slash snubs SNUBS if you want to follow my hot takes over on the twitterverse and you can find me on youtube dot com slash Shannon Morris I actually invited on several different tech YouTubers some of which are friends of DTNS right here including maybe a Mr. Aya's actor he's joining me on my own little prediction show so you can check out a few tech predictions over there over on my YouTube channel we appreciate all three of you for being on the show with us the prediction show is always a lot of fun we also want to thank everybody that helped support the show because we couldn't do it without you you can support our show at any level dailytechnewshow.com slash patreon if you need a little bit more information about that we are live Monday through Friday at 4 or 30 p.m. Eastern 2130 UTC you can always find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live that is it y'all for DTNS 2021 we are off tomorrow for New Year's Day but we'll be back Tuesday in the new year with CES coverage starting January 4th folks 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 with a live show as part of that streamathon join us on New Year's Eve if you haven't missed it at 2330 UTC 1530 Pacific for good year internet find all the details including the full schedule at www.tom.com slash streamathon for the last time this year this week's episodes of dailytechnewshow were created by the following people host producer and writer Tom Merritt host producer and writer Sarah Lane executive producer and Booker Roger Chang producer writer and host Rich Stratholino video producer and twitch producer Joe Coons associate producer Anthony Lemos Spanish language host writer and producer Dan Campos news host writer and producer Jen Cutter science correspondent Dr. Nicky Ackermanns social media producer and moderator Zoe Detherding our mods Beatmaster W. Scottus1, BioCal, Captain Kipper Jack Shit, Steve Guadarrama, Paul Reese Matthew J. Stevens and J.D. Galloway mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen video feed by Sean Wei music and art provided by Martin Bell Dan Looters, Mustafa A, ACAST creative-assed arts and Len Peralta ACAST ads support from Trace Gaynor Patreon support from Stephon Brown contributors for this week's shows included Patrick Norton, Lamar Wilson Rob Dunwood, Scott Johnson and Shannon Morse guests on this week's shows included Norm Fasikas, Steve Ayaterola Stephanie Humphrey and Nika Monford and thanks to all our patrons who make the shows possible this show is part of the Frog Pants Network get more at FrogPants.com I hope you have enjoyed this brover