Category Archives: Forecasts
The Future of the Music Industry in Numbers. Digital Tipping Point in 2014?
“Like a popular rocker who burns out, only to try to stage a comeback a decade later, the sickly music industry will probably never regain its previous vigour. But even modest growth is welcome news for the industry.” Source: The … Continue reading
Posted in Digitization, Forecasts, music, Recorded sound, Tipping points
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Envisioning Television, 1908 and 2013
Today in 1908, Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton published a letter in the journal Nature titled “Distant Electric Vision” in which he envisioned television as it was developed three decades later. He wrote: “Possibly no photoelectric phenomenon at present known will provide what … Continue reading
Posted in Forecasts, Predictions, Television, This day in information
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The Future of Liabraries (Infographic)
“The internet has already had a major impact on how people find and access information, and now the rising popularity of e-books is helping transform Americans’ reading habits. In this changing landscape, public libraries are trying to adjust their services … Continue reading
Posted in Forecasts, Infographics, Libraries, Predictions, Quotes, Stats
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Back to the Future: Re-centralizing storage
IDC: “One of the major themes affecting the HDD forecast is the shift in demand for HDDs in client devices. While PCs will continue to represent the largest market for HDDs in terms of unit shipments, revenue derived from HDDs … Continue reading
Only Connect: One in Five People Worldwide on Social Networks
According to eMarketer, there will be 1.43 billion social network users in 2012, a 19.2% increase over 2011.
Computers and Health Care
“The development of our information processing industry is basically governed by longer term super-cycles… Analyses of what computational environments will facilitate can be mind-boggling. To offer just one example, health care delivery will be revolutionized by 1990, with most large … Continue reading
Posted in Forecasts, Healthcare, Predictions, Quotes
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Pong: First Successful Video Game
Today in 1972, Atari co-founders Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn demonstrated the first stand-alone Pong coin-operated arcade unit into Andy Cappa’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. Pong, a simulated table tennis game, will go on to be the first commercially successful … Continue reading
Posted in Forecasts, This day in information, Video Games
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“There You Have Electronic Television”
Today in 1927, Philo T. Farnsworth, 21, succeeded in transmitting the image of a line through purely electronic means with a device he called an “image dissector.”
The Future According to Google Search Results
From xkcd
Posted in Forecasts, Predictions, Search
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Daniel Bell on Information Explosion
Daniel Bell, who passed away Tuesday (obituaries here and here), first became widely known for his book The End of Ideology. An “ardent appraiser” of our lives in information, he also wrote (in 1980) about the “End of the Alexandrian … Continue reading
Posted in Data growth, Forecasts, Libraries, Social Impact
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The Story of Information 