Geektime Looks Into Its Crystal Ball For 2015

Geektime asked some of the world’s foremost futurists their tech predictions for 2015. You heard it here first.

1. Bitcoin was overrated, and won’t pan out in 2015 either.

 

 

Photo Credit: Targaryen / Creative Commons

Bitcoin slipped more than 70 percent in 2014. Sonny Singh, chief commercial officer at BitPay, has said the digitial asset is beginning to mature into stability. But most forecasters, unsurprisingly, are bearish on Bitcoin.

“I am bearish on Bitcoin,” tech writer Robert Levine, who authored Free Ride: How Technology Companies are Killing the Culture Business, told Geektime. “I think it’s a fascinating technology that points the way toward the payment systems of the future. I just don’t think it IS the payment system of the future. I think the mass audience wants more secure systems.”

2. 3D printers may mature, but they still won’t be widely adopted.

 

 

Photo Credit: Strvct / Creative Commons

Gartner has predicted that a total of 217,350 3D printers will be sold in 2015. 3Dprint.com predicts the number will be closer to 400,000. Hod Lipson, editor of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing told Geektime that this is the year the technology will “mature.”

But Robert Levine suggests a consumer reality check: Manufacturing objects at home may “involve more effort than most people prefer to put in.”

 

3. People will become more concerned about how much data they are sharing. 

 

 

Photo Credit: DARPA / Creative Commons

 

Everyone was up in arms about governments conducting mass surveillance of citizens following Edward Snowden’s leaks regarding NSA data collection in 2013. But corporations are collecting massive amounts of data as well.

According to tech writer Robert Levine, there will be more hacker attacks in 2015 that expose increasing amounts of information, which will make the average user more concerned about how companies are storing their personal data (if the Sony hack and other attacks haven’t frightened them enough already). “This will make Internet users more aware of how much of their personal information is in the hands of companies, and I think this will start a much-needed conversation about how corporations, as opposed to just governments, present privacy issues that we need to think about.”

 

4. Predictive analytics will become scarily smart.

 

 

Photo Credit: Aaron Amat / Shutterstock

 

Conversely, Tim O’Reilly predicts that users will increasingly receive notifications based on data that companies have collected about them. Are you a vegetarian that is into cooking? Your mobile phone may ping you the next time you pass a health food store, or your grocery store could send you a push notification if your smart refrigerator is getting empty.

 

5. Niche social media will explode.

 

 

Photo Credit: Catster

 

Tim O’Reilly, who was a key figure in the Web 2.0 movement following the dot.com bust, also hypothesizes that users will migrate away from mass, large-scale social media like Facebook and Twitter as these become more intertwined with marketing. Instead, they will gravitate towards niche social networks. O’Reilly cites Instagram as one example of these. Others include Goodreads (for book lovers), Catsters (for cat lovers), and Instructables (for do-it-yourselfers).

 

6. The government sector will be a real market for tech.

 

 

No, not the most inspiring website. Photo Credit: USA.gov

 

You’ve heard of EdTech, FinTech, and HealthTech. What’s hot for 2015, according to Tim O’Reilly, is GovTech. Tim O’Reilly told Geektime that “There will be many more startups focused on the government market as entrepreneurs realize the size of that market.” Indeed, a web site called Government Technology, which caters to U.S.-based state and local governments features technology as diverse as “apps that give estimated wait times for border crossing … school buses bring Wi-Fi to impoverished familes,” all the way to cities adopting “cloud-based approaches to disaster recovery.”

In the U.S., the public sector is growing, now accounting for around 20% of jobs – Silicon Valley may soon start pivoting to Washington D.C.