If you believe that the world will end in 2012, you can stand at the back of the room. If and until global, Mayan calendar destruction happens, I’ll keep reporting on what I know; gadgets and mobile stuff, primarily. Of course, I love cars, the ultimate gadgets, and movies, viewable gadgets (yes, I love James Bond films), so I’ll keep on covering just about everything I like. Personally, I don’t believe the world will end in 2012. It certainly didn’t when we passed the millennium (either of them). Besides, there’s too much cool new stuff we need to do as humans before we before the Universe flushes us with the last moist towelette. With that, I bring you the Predict-O-Tron for 2009. Lets see how well I do before we roll in 2010:

• Palm will introduce a Linux-based touchscreen device at CES. Sure, that’s mostly already known, but my prediction is that it will actually be freaking cool. I’m also going to guess that it won’t be able to run anything which wasn’t compiled for Palm OS 5.x, or at least not well.
• RIM will continue to lose marketshare to the iPhone and won’t see significant growth for the Storm until they release a version of the OS which is specifically designed for touch applications.
• Apple will update the Mac Mini. They might even incorporate AppleTV into it and kill the discreet AppleTV product. The other option is to turn AppleTV into a real DVR.
• Apple will release a 64GB iTouch model and move the entire product line up, keeping prices the same. They may also release a 128GB model, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
• GM will sell Saab back to Sweden and Scania will be returned to the product line badge, right alongside Saab honor and the death of the hideous Saab-badged, GM-made SUV. By 2011, real Saabs will be sold again, and I will buy a new one which will have been made in Sweden.
• Chrysler will die a long, overdue death.
• IBM will buy back the ThinkPad line from Lenovo and start making good ThinkPads again.
• Dell will trim most of its line in a successful effort to become a powerhouse again.
• Microsoft will offer a public beta release of Windows 7 and generally stop marketing Vista after failing to get savvy people to purchase it for 2+ years.
• Microsoft will announce official partnerships with various laptop fabbers to build Windows 7 Approved touchscreen lappies. The plan will generally fail, just like the UMPC, Tablet PCs, and clamshell Windows CE devices before it. (Say hello to Bob, touchscreen Win7 lappy!)
• Nintendo will release a US$99 add-on dongle which will allow the Wii to output up to 1080p video via an HDMI connection, something they had planned on doing all along. If not HDTV, it will be a VGA or DVI or both, which looks really sharp on sets which support that type of input. Think along the lines of Sega’s VGA box for the DreamCast.
• Nokia will finally make the Internet Tablet line an actual phone. At the very least, it will be a data-only arrangement like Amazon’s Kindle or the Peek.
• Google will make all of its applications support Google Gears and offer an update to Chrome which will make it work like a desktop.
• Sony will come to its senses and release a value-priced, non-mobile Playstation Core which will play PSP and PSP2 games at up to 720p and wireless controllers to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. **
• Sega will come to its senses and produce the DreamCast 2 to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. **

And now here are some “doi’s” which you would likely easily guess on your own:

• We will see netbooks from just about every name brand on the planet, including BMW and Sears.
• Apple will continue to take over marketshare in the mobile, desktop, laptop, and PMP spaces.
• Microsoft will continue to lose marketshare to Apple and Firefox.
• Dell will remain the largest single retailer of computers.
• HP will continue to be second in line, but will keep making stupid touchscreen TVs.
• All studios will sign up for Blu-Ray.
• Fox will relent and allow Watchmen to be released, but for 5% of the global profits.
• Toyota will release its Prius plug-in hybrid early to better compete with Ford’s Fusion hybrid.
• Hydrogen powerplants will not make a major splash in any market.

That’s it for 2009, kids! We’ll see how good I am at predicticating. In the past I’ve not been so good.

** Lacking quality skills at prognosticating, these could happen in 2010-11. Not sure. Just a feeling.

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