Our Tech Predictions for 2026 - DTNS 5176

0:07This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, December 31st, 2025. From Studio Animal House, I'm Sarah Lane From Studio 7 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt From Columbus, Ohio, I'm Rob Dunderweg From Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson, it's been a while From the mean streets of Long Island, I'm Ron Richards And I'm the show's producer from Studio Roo I'm Anthony Lemos Oh, Studio Roo, that's the little puppy How's the little puppy? I mean, might as well Puppies first Christmas, puppies first New Year's I mean, why not? All the milestones I love it. Well, we are all gathered together for one last time in 2025 to make our predictions for 2026.

0:52In a year, like we did yesterday, we will check back in a year to see how we did. And also, for the second year in a row, we're going to make things interesting. Panelists, pay attention. We will be collectively assigning a difficulty rating to each prediction. So for example, if someone predicts that Apple will release an iPhone next year, we might want to give a difficulty rating of 0.1. It would be worth almost nothing because, yeah, we know they're going to do that. However, if you predicted that OpenAI will buy Disney, maybe we give you a 10, right? Because that's a less likely scenario. Also, the other thing is every panelist gets to plus one, one other panelist prediction.

1:40Now, last year, only a couple of people took advantage of this, but you would get a point if that prediction is right. So if you hear a prediction, you're like, oh, that's a pretty good one. You can one time play your token. Just the once. Yeah. To concur with that prediction. So keep that in mind. Use it wisely. And then you'll get credit for that when we look at it next year. And can we do that at any time throughout the show or only when it's being discussed? You can. Well, yeah. Anytime until the show is over. By the end of the show, you're like, actually, Sarah's prediction from another show, you know what?

2:14I want to use my plus one because that way you can hear all the other ones. But if you get really excited and you just want to plus one it right from the go, we encourage it. It's more exciting that way. Can you pull it back after it's been deployed and reassign it? No. Okay. So once you've deployed it, it's gone. Yeah. It's like playing chess. Once you touch that piece, you can't. In that case, can more than one person plus one the same prediction? Yeah. Yeah. You only get to play plus one, but as many plus ones can be played on any particular prediction as possible. So there's no benefit to going first.

2:46There's no benefit to jumping in. No, no, no. You can't stake a claim. Well, we may have to revise these rules. We'll see how it goes. Last year, nobody wanted to use them. So I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for people to play it this year. And we will start with Ms. Sarah Lane. You get the honor of kicking off our 2026 prediction. Sarah, what you got? Okay. So the first prediction I have, there were so many AI predictions I could have made. And some of them just feel obvious or I don't really know what I'm talking about. However, because we're getting into that era of AI where everybody in Hollywood is scared and confused about it.

3:31Here's my prediction. A major Hollywood studio will release a movie where the lead actor is AI generated. However, the controversy will be not so much that it's unethical, but that it's boring. I like that. That's pretty good. I mean, I'm sure the controversy will also be that it's unethical. Is the movie boring or the actor boring? It's the idea of the AI actor. it's like, ooh, that's interesting and maybe unethical, but that people will be like, hmm, it's not a real prison. Yeah. And when we say a major Hollywood studio, we're talking about one of the studios that'll put at least 30, 40, 50 million more into a movie or more, or could it be one of these indies?

4:17Well, I mean... Like an A24 count? I think A24 would count. Ryan's Gate, you know, that or above? Yeah. But not like a production studio you've never heard of before. if you're going to a theater somewhere getting some popcorn and some and some you know red hots then uh this this would apply yeah i think they're all afraid to do it i'll be honest anybody willing to put that much money in a movie any of those studios are terrified of the backlash of it so i'm actually it's i kind of agree with your point i feel like the backlash is what's going to give it you know propel it at least at first sure maybe at first you're right but i think there will come a time where if they successfully do it and people go to theaters and they see this thing they're going to go oh okay well that was a thing it's a little i think the music you could make a similar prediction about some of these top 40 songs that are ai generated now that are floating around in the top 40 i think that is a thing that will be interesting as a strange little footnote for a while and then it'll go away because people get bored of it so here's another question uh gemini man started will smith and then an ai version of will smith as his younger self does something like that count?

5:24That was de-aging, right? That was still the actor still doing it. I was talking about someone like Tilly Norwood, right? This would be, yeah, not based on a real person. Got it. It's a complete AI construct that has been prompted into the film. Not just the change in look or anything. Right, right. And lead actor, too. Not support. Yeah. The movie would be, I mean, listen, lead actors, sometimes movies have a few of them, but this would be a major player in a movie, not real AI. What if it's a remake of Gemini Man using an AI construct of Will Smith using Gemini? Of Will Smith the catcher. Yeah.

6:03Yeah, that would be... Yeah, I think that would count, actually. I think that would count at that point. If anything, I think your multiplier should be extremely high. Yeah. This is a bold one. It's not crazy, but if you get it right, you should get points. I'm shooting for the moon. I'm shooting for the moon here on this one. I know these are early days. I think Rob's right. I think it's a high multiplier because I don't think – I think it's the right prediction. I think it's the wrong year. Maybe. Yeah, maybe a little early. No offense, Sarah, but I think it's a little too soon. No offense taken.

6:34To Scott's point, I think everyone's still a little too far. You guys swing big, right? Yeah. I'm the same way because we're at the – we got a day left this year. Well, no, this is the last day of the year. Yeah, yeah. So if there is a major studio – Got a few hours, really. They've already started making the movie, and we would have heard about it by now. So I'm thinking the likelihood of this happening is great. I just don't know the likelihood of it happening in 2026. We think it's a 10 multiplier? Well, the fact that Tilly Norwood exists is – And that's kind of where I started with – Still needs an agent.

7:09I think it shaves a multiplier off because the actor exists, the idea of the actor exists, whether or not they've got the story and all this. higher than a five i feel like this is like i feel like this is like a 7.58 or so because i think to rob's point it could be in production and we just don't know about it yet also rob i wouldn't minimize the speed to market something like that someone could start this on jan one and it could be in theaters by october for sure yeah because it's ai so yeah exactly exactly what if what if a lead actor uh and this is sad to think about dies and use ai to finish the movie have you seen the creepy AI videos of actors walking next to each other?

7:51They're young and older ones. Yeah, sorry. So we go in a 7 or 8? Or 7.5? I mean, are we doing 0.5, guys? Let's do a multiplier. Tom's example was a 0.1, so I thought points were in the mix. Scott, 8? You good with 8? I'm good with 8. 8. Point multiplier. I like that. I like Kamali. I like that a lot. What about your second prediction? Second one. Okay, so you mentioned if I predicted that Apple would release an iPhone, you know, in its regular release schedule, everyone would say, okay, that's stupid. Of course, you're going to be right, and you don't get a lot of points for this. Well, I'll take it a step further and say that the iPhone Fold, which is expected in fall of 2026, is not only going to be a thing.

8:46I'm calling that the Fold just because other people are calling it the Fold. They might call it something else. Yeah, but a foldable iPhone. Foldable iPhone will be a hit. will propel iPhone back to we do everything first, even though Apple obviously doesn't, but they like to say that they do. Ushering in a new era for mobile devices where everybody wants a foldable. Yeah, this might be the year. Let me check some things on my Pixel Fold. Hang on, let me pop open the Motorola Razr here. See, I think what you guys you're doing i appreciate what you're doing but i think what you're doing it may actually help her argument because this is what this is what happens they dork they dork around with other people's stuff and then they come in finally and go hey guess what we have one too um rob's just taking two android phones and well and listen we all know that foldable phones exist uh many of us have played around with them or have them or use them you know all day every day um so this is not it's not a new product category that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying is that it's going to be a hit for it's going to do it's saying that it's going to be the year the year of the foldable which is something that so obviously on my show on android faithful we've been tracking the foldable space for several years now um and given that it's funny because one of my rejected predictions was the foldable market share was going to that i didn't bring to the show but i I was predicting that the foldable market share was going to grow beyond the industry expectation of to 3 % in 2026 to 5 % of the market.

10:31And the numbers of foldables out in the market are just so low and the penetration has been so low, even as many as are out there in the Android world. while i think the apple coming to market with one i don't think it will have the impact that this prediction brings it to because i think that the apple is going to make it exorbitantly expensive because what we've seen with foldables is that they are twice as much as phones tend to be um and given the state of the economy and affordability and all this sort of stuff i think it's going to be a tough tough pill for a lot of people swallow there will be the early adopters and the folks who have to have it because the apple sheep and syndrome and all that sort of stuff that has to happen but much like what we saw you know the same prediction could have been given last year with the iphone what did they call the thin phone in september that was the error which which has been done was right yeah i mean not not widely adopted yeah and i'm i'm just speaking purely from the knowledge of foldables in the android space and stuff like that i do think apple coming into the space will give it more validity but it's it's it's a long hill to climb for it to be a hit.

11:38It is. At the same time, I do think that we, and we've been talking about this, especially, you know, cause I cover a lot of Apple stuff specifically for years. Like, you know, is anything really all that different? You know, if you, if you've got a iPhone 13, maybe you upgrade to the 17, but if you have a 16, like, do you really care? So that that's kind of where I'm going with this. I think that this is going to reinvigorate. Like we have, we have, yes, the price point is going to be astronomical, but people are going to buy it because they want something new. I'm with Sarah. I think this is going to be a hit unlike the Air.

12:14I think this thing will do better than Apple probably even anticipates. I think it's going to sell like crazy. I hadn't heard that the Air had tanked too hard. It sounds like it didn't do well. I mean, they pulled back on production. Exactly. And it had a ripple effect in that other manufacturers on the Android said, pulled back on their production like samsung cut there totally yeah exactly it was a chilling effect here's the thing with the thin phones it's not like phones are already thick you're not hearing people say you know that iphone max pro max is just too thick in my pocket that's not a thing so i feel like the air was really a solution for a problem that no one had whereas the fold because the Samsung folds have done well, relatively well.

13:02Relatively, as I say, to the numbers. They've done okay. People want these things to be iPhones as well. So I think that it's going to do well. The error was just them making the fold without having it fold. They're like, can we make it thin enough so when you fold it, it's not too thick? So difficulty level here, it's kind of i'm thinking one to three one to three i'm just thinking more like five yeah give me some difficulty make an argument for five i mean ron ron doesn't ron doesn't think this is gonna i think it's devil's advocate i'm closer to five i'd say five yeah i like five okay all right i'm closer to five not because of the apple just because of the uh the the product itself the foldable product itself and the and the the sheer numbers rob's bringing down the average with his stare.

13:54I don't like the multiplier because I think that we will definitely hear Min Chi Kuo or someone come out and say that they're going to ramp up production on this thing because it's doing so well. But because of that, I'm going to before, well, I'm still going to hold off, but I'm probably going to give this one my point. I think this point will be right. Yeah, it's filling. I'm holding off. I'm not doing that yet, but I think that this is probably the one that I will. Let's say four. Let's say four. Four more. Fine. Yeah. Going once, going twice. I got an eight and a four. All right, everybody.

14:20That's pretty good. See you in a year. averages to a six, right? Yeah. All right, Rob, what's your first one for 2026? My first pick, and this is my big production that it could be true. It could absolutely not be true, but I believe that blockchain will make a comeback to where people don't just kind of poo-poo it when they hear the name of it. Because although it's so associated with NFTs and crypto and it just never really went anywhere, it is ridiculously good technology. And I think where you're going to see blockchain make its mark in 2026 is for provenance of stuff that we can't tell whether this was really made by a person or whether it was AI or which AI made it first or which person wrote it first.

15:04I think we're going to see blockchain play a big role in provenance of digitally created things in 2026. And then the kicker on this is I think we may even see someone start using NFT. They may start making videos NFT just because it's an easy way to say, here's who made it first. So I think the blockchain is going to come back in a big way next year. I like this one. I think you're probably right. Whether it's this year or not, I think that is coming. It felt like we had a bubble with NFTs that popped. Everybody got annoyed and then things kind of settled. But the core underlying blockchain technology was never the thing at risk or at fault.

15:44And I think it is 100%. It's already being used in lots of ways behind the scenes, but in a more kind of mainstream way like that. That's a really good one. I like that. I was going to say, I agree. I think the technology is sound in the way that you've explained it, Rob. If anything, it doesn't require it. It could help from either a rebrand or some way of explaining it to the normals, how it works or what it is, and divorcing it from the negative feelings around NFTs and all the stuff that are associated with it. because the, and the crypto, like all the negative swirling stuff around that world kind of drags it down.

16:22But the underlying technology for a, a trail of authorship is really sound and can, has lots of applications, whether it's in video or an audio or in all these sort of like digital authorship that really could, you know, could fuel a lot of the stuff that happens moving forward. So yeah, I like it too. This could go, this could happen in a couple of ways. somebody could come out of nowhere and create a blockchain-based provenance situation, which is perfectly likely that by the end of next year is taken up by a lot of people. Or C2PA, which is the current leading, it's the Coalition for Content, Provenance, and Authenticity, could interoperate with blockchain.

17:03A lot of people have been trying to get them to do that. They aren't doing it, but they're not necessarily opposed to it. So if C2PA started using a blockchain, then that would also count as well. I feel like maybe this is a two, if not a one. I was thinking two. Two. Yeah. I mean, I think Rob's on to something. It might be early. That would be why I would give it a multiplier. Not a big swing. All right. How are you feeling, Rob? Two? You take two? All right. let's make it a three should we say three do i hear four do i hear four negotiating yourself let's make it a three let's give it a three all right uh your next one um this one is i think this one is definitely going to happen so it may not get a good multiplier but i believe that threads that is the uh you know metas text-based social media network basically is their clone of twitter I think that it will overtake X next year.

18:10In fact, I think it will overtake X. In like what? Like daily active users type of thing? Everything. I think there will be more users, daily actives. I think all of the major numbers, other than the age of it, will be in its favor by the end of 2026 because they are starting to put ads on this. And once they start putting ads on this, and I know a lot of people are saying, oh, I hate ads and I'll never use it again. History has shown us that ads don't make people stop using stuff. it makes them use it more because now you're going to have the marketers. They're going to want to say, Oh, I want to put ad space on here.

18:41And that's just going to bring more people to the platform. And I think that threads is going to get big in a, you know, it's not that it's not big now. I think it's going to get really big in 2026. I like this one. I've been, I've returned to the world of tech space, social networking on threads of the past couple of months, past couple of weeks. And I've been having a blast. There's so much activity there. And what I love about it is that there's ways to target your content via the topic tag and reach a different audience and have so much more discovery. It's just a lot of fun. I'm having more fun on this than I've had in years on a social network side of it.

19:20So, Rob, I love this one. Yes, I'm the same way. I've been on threads since the beginning. I was in the first hundred thousand as far as signing up for it. But this last year, I've really been having a lot of fun with it. And I did not bring over 20 ,000, 30 ,000 people from Instagram. I just, you know, I have an Instagram account that has about 30 ,000 people on it. I don't even use that account anymore. I distinctly, you know, I made the purposeful decision to not bring that over. And I wanted to build from scratch over on threads. And I really started doing that this year. And there's an outside chance that I'll actually hit 1 ,000 followers, you know, this year.

19:59I know we only got a few hours left, but I'm really, really close. So, you know, I might actually make it to a thousand. That's cool. I use it more than I thought I would. I'm kind of non-enamored with all of the text, short text, microbloggy kind of things that we've all had all these times. I feel like they've lost their luster for me in a big way. At the very least, it feels like Threads is trying to make it fun to use. And I like that. But so this may be the year that they surprised me, and I just find that I like to use it more. But most of them, I just like post and leave. I don't really read these things anymore.

20:37So if I had anything to add to your prediction, it might be that Meta figures out a way to make it actually enjoyable to be on this service, while the others continue to make it, well, mainly X makes it just kind of uncomfortable and not fun to be there. Yeah, I definitely – I think this is a solid prediction. It's a lofty one because X still has a big user base. A lot of people use X. However, just kind of looking at my own friend feed, not the for you stuff, but people that I'm actually following, it's kind of a ghost town on X these days. It doesn't mean that other people haven't signed up, but it's like lots of bots.

21:20Just people that used to be very prolific on X just aren't there anymore. Or if they're lurking, they're not posting, myself included. I mean, I post sometimes, but not like I used to. And Threads does feel like it has momentum, where X feels like it has the opposite. Yeah. I mean, if it's queen of a dying pool, it still counts, right? Like if all the microblogging becomes like, eh, nobody does that anymore, but Threads is the biggest, like this still works. Then it would work, yeah. What's our multiplier? 37. I think 37 is reasonable. We'll start there. Can we go above 10? We can. We can go with whatever we want.

22:06I feel like this is an 8. They've come close. You think it's an 8? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There's been a couple of times where they've said, hey, we're really close to their daily active users. Just because X is so big. I'd call it a five. Yeah? Yeah. I think this is as high as an eight. I'm probably in the four or five range. Yeah. All right. So six. Say six. Bring it down. Bring it down to six. Fine. All right. I'll come down to six. All right. Well, folks, we know that you're having a good time on the holidays, or at least we hope you are. And if you want to hang out with some other folks that are like-minded, you can always do it every day, even when we're not here live.

22:44Join the conversation in our Discord, which you can get by linking your Patreon account at patreon.com slash DTNS.

22:57We come back with a prediction from Ron Richards. Lay it on us, Ron. Yes, I held back from wanting to predict the return of physical keyboard phones like the Univerts Titan here. I held back on that. But no, my first prediction. Because it's already happened. You've got one in your hand. I know. Exactly. It's amazing. Only$400. But no, my first prediction, obviously, I'm coming from a little bit of a very specific niche space in the world of Android. But my first prediction is that in 2026, we will see more walls between Android and iOS fall and interoperability increase between the two platforms.

23:34And this is as evidenced by thanks to our friends over in Europe and all the legislation against Apple fighting the walled garden of iOS and making them open things up. We've already seen Airdrop be broken legitimately. We saw the stunning announcement that Apple and Google are working together by ways to make files transfer between Android phones and Apple phones work even more smoother. Earlier, obviously, all through the past year and a half, we've seen the messaging wars happen and the adoption of RCS and Apple not totally opening up iMessage, but at least allowing RCS onto the messaging platform.

24:14we're just going to see those dominoes continue to fall and the so-called walled garden of iOS continue to fall and the way that the two platforms can interact become even smoother. How much, Rob, how much do you think, or Ron rather, how much do you think this will be pushed or this will happen because of pressure from governments doing their thing with regulation? Oh, it's entirely it, do you think? It's 98.9 % driven by the effect of the EU. So yeah, it is almost directly from government regulation. In other words, try to get ahead of that. Yeah, exactly. Or either to get ahead of it or in accordance with.

25:00Yeah, one or the other, right. But you're not saying every one of these things is going to have to have a law. Like the data portability that you were just talking about. They just did that. Yeah, exactly. Do you have any walls you want to call out as possible that might come down? That's a good question. I hadn't thought about that. I mean, you don't have to put them in your prediction per se. You could just say, for example. Airdrop was the one that we never thought. I mean, honestly. Yeah, that came out of nowhere. One of my favorite days of 2026 was the day, 2025 was the day that the airdrop happened because that was just the, I don't know if you all saw it, but in my feed was just everybody going, oh my God, what?

25:43What? And then people doing it. It works. It actually works. It just came out of nowhere. Exactly. I don't know how you're going to do better than AirDrop, but given that I'm not a regular iOS user, I don't know what other little... The contact one I would like to see. Contacts would be a good one. Cut and paste is one somebody suggested. Which is really just an extension of AirDrop anyway, right? Right. The cut and paste airless stuff is just part of that. Yeah, I really like this pick. And it is because European economic area is kind of forcing the hand a little bit. Not a little bit, a lot of it.

26:20And extremely, you know, a big part of it is because of laws that are, you know, that are already on the books are coming. But I also believe that we've just kind of gotten to the point to where Android has actually gotten really good. It's not like you, if you give the iPhone a 10, it's not like you're giving Android a 7. It's like, you know, from Ron and I's perspective, Android is 10. iOS is probably something less than that. But for most, you know, for most iPhone users, it's not a big drop off to go to use Android. So you're getting to where from Apple standpoint, it no longer makes sense for us to have this walled garden because there was a time when people would buy an iPhone because other people that they knew had iPhones and it made life easier.

27:00that's kind of going away. You're not seeing too many people saying, I'm going to leave Android to go to iPhone because I don't have a blue bubble any longer. That is kind of days of the past. So I really do like this. I think you're right. Yeah, that'd be great. I just wanted to get closer to the way we did with PC. Same sort of thing happened, right? Mac started saying, all right, fine, we'll let you. We'll all network. And then they were like, all right, fine, we'll share printers. They're old now, but these are similar steps. and it's just usually a sign of Apple going, all right, we can't just keep controlling everything.

27:34They want to, and I get it. I get why they do. This is a big part of their business, but I'm all for this. I embrace it. As an iOS user, just be a little more open. That'd be great. Just work. Yeah, work. Work would be great. I can't tell if this is a one or a five. I know, right? Because it's like, yes, they obviously are doing this, which is the argument for it to be a one or maybe even less. But also it's like, but which one would they do next? Like, would we see a lot more of these? So I don't know. What do y 'all think? I'm going to go three. Yeah. I'll give it a three, three, three unanimous choice.

28:13All right. Yeah. I was going to say one, but sure. So we could do one instead. Let's do three. I'll take the multiplier. What's your next prediction? All right. The next prediction is coming out, coming directly out of the recent announcement and release of the OnePlus 15 Android phone where they touted a 7 ,000 milliamp battery where they bragged that it will last a full two days on a single charge, which leads to my prediction that two days of battery use between charges will become the norm in smartphones. in that the advancements and innovation in battery technology and smartphone technology will finally cross that Rubicon where in the standard smartphone, candy bar, long, thin phone, not too thick.

29:05We're not talking like the big Ocotel or kind of chonky, weirdo, rugged phones, but like in a standard phone, they will be able to squeeze out a bigger battery, 7 ,000 milliamp or higher battery to give you a two-day on a single charge usage. And that will become what the consumers expect out of a regular flagship-ish top, you know, towards the higher end side of the smartphone space. Do you think that shipping restriction in the U.S. and EU gets changed to make this happen? Or are there just other workarounds that make it happen? No, I think there are other workarounds. I think it's just through the, whether it's the carbons.

29:45Multiple cells. Yeah, the carbon freezing Star Wars. The Han Solo. But all the different – the way they've been – what they've been able to do by advancing beyond just a big hunk of lithium ion and having different chambers and all that sort of stuff within the phone to be able to maximize the battery capacity and to be able to get a bigger physical battery into a smaller space will lead to the consumer expectation of a two-day – two days on a charge. I'm all for it. I think that I think this is yeah I was just gonna say this is if I could vote for this I would vote for it. I'm doing pretty like I do pretty good on my pro my 16 pro I haven't upgraded yet.

30:30And I and I do get pretty good into the second day, but it's not a full two active days. These do seem to get better and better. So, you know, relative. Yeah, right. Right. If I'm streaming music all day with nothing plugged in, I'm asking for trouble. If I'm doing normal things, just checking stuff here and there, I might get two days now on the biggest one. But I'm all about, like, what a baseline two days. I get two days easily on my iPhone, but I also don't really use it in the house because I've got, you know, my desktops. Yeah. Baseline two days would be amazing. Actually, for any device.

31:04This is something that I want, but I struggle with the norm. Because if it's the norm, that means this is going to hit mid-range phones, and I don't know that it will in 2026. I think this will hit the high – it'll hit the flagships next year on Android, clearly. That's definitely the thing where Android phones – Did you mean flagships or all phones, Ron? Oh, I just said the norm, so that's open. It's all the question of whether or not the manufacturers can do it and where they prioritize it. Rob, you have a good point. how long it takes to hit the mid-range and whether or not, at least for me, whether the Pixel 11a has a two-day battery charge or not will be a good indicator of that.

31:49And I don't think it will because they're trying to keep that at a lesser expense, which means you're not going to have the newest technology in it. So I think you're right. I just think you're early. Might be another one of those, yeah. Yeah, I like the prediction, but I don't like it for 2026 because if it's going to be the norm, It has to hit the mid-range. And I don't see that happening for at least another year after 2026. And it's traditionally a slow thing anyway, waiting for battery tech to explode. So it's like, well, maybe not explode. Yeah. Yeah. Whoops. Brings you back a little bit.

32:22Yeah. Well, the good news is we started looking back at predictions from five years ago in the results show. So you might be right in five years, even if you're not right next year. But how much do we think he's going to be right in 2026? Multiplier. Two. Three. I'd give it a three. I'd give it a five. Five? Five? I'd give it a five. Four? The difference is four. I like five. All right. 4.5 it is. All right. Let us get to Scott Johnson's predictions for 2026. And I have an inkling I'm going to like your first one. Well, it's funny because a lot of people probably think I'm coming to the table with a bunch of gamey stuff.

33:02And I thought, you know what? I'm going to flip that. I'm going to flip that around. Yeah, like pheasants or deer, really? Elk? Instead, I'm going to talk about passkeys as my first prediction. I think passkeys will finally kill passwords for normies this coming year. It will be the year where even if you don't understand it, it will be presented to you by the services you use in such a way that you will adopt it. And then you will be blown away about how easy it is and how many less steps you have to take to do anything anymore when you log into something. And I think it will finally take over and be a less ambiguous and be kind of everywhere and not just for enthusiasts like us who try all the latest stuff.

33:42Ron Richards, hater of passkey. What do you say? I was literally just talking about this to my dad like two days ago. And Scott, I love the aspiration, but I still categorize passkeys in the cold day in hell before the public adopts them. I think one of the biggest tragedies. Great on the aspiration. I think one of the biggest tragedies in tech of the decade is how the big tech world, whether it's Google, Apple, whoever you want to blame for us, has fumbled the education of the average user in the value prop for Pasky's and how they've alienated them to why these are good things to use. to the point where, and the trust in big companies has eroded to a point where people do not want to be told what the next big thing is.

34:35And everyone knows passwords and just leave me alone. So Scott, I love you, but I'm not jumping onto this. I think you're actually making a pretty good argument. They've failed pretty miserably. It's embarrassing. Everybody involved with passkey implementation has failed miserably and embarrassingly trying to get people educated on what's going on. And I'll even admit, this is the year I finally said, yeah, I'm going to start using pass keys on stuff in 2025. And I still didn't fully get it. I'm like friends with Tom and could ask him anytime. And then even he would say stuff and I'd go, I still don't really know what pass...

35:10I guess it just sort of works. So I go to... I tried it with Google first. I'm like, I use Google for a lot of stuff. Let's just do this. And it was so simple. I still don't know exactly what happened. I just know that now when I log in, all I got to do is on my notebook, my fingerprint, or on anything else, FaceTime or something, or face recognition, and bam, I'm in. And don't have to go look for a code. Don't have to do 2FA. Don't have to do anything. So the simplicity has rung true. I sort of understand the whole, you know, this is a device security versus, you know, something out on the cloud security, and it's a combination of these things.

35:47They're still terrible at explaining it, and you make a very good point. So I think there's going to be a high risk on this one for sure. but I think somebody's going to crack that egg and I don't think it'll be one of the big tech companies it's going to come somehow somewhere else I don't know where something else some popular browser maybe it'll be chrome will say they'll somehow they'll make this simple and then once people realize how easy it is despite all that mistrust which I agree with I think we've all used the platforms that are like hey uh would you like to turn on passkey support and you're like okay let's give this a shot oh that's all oh that was easy in some ways it's too easy right freaks you out yeah i mean just the other day google for whatever reason um i didn't have it turned on with one of my gmail accounts and i was like huh yeah i mean it took 30 seconds if that and now that's all i need to do although i don't have the vitriol that ron has i agree with ron for this very reason you say for normal people and i have to remind myself regularly what normal people are.

36:52Normal people aren't folks who listen to this show. Those folks are enlightened and know a little bit more about computers and technology than just regular folks. Normal people for me is my brother, is my dad who is in front of a computer for four hours more plus a day, have no clue what a passkey is. So until the website says you must use passkey, I don't think this is it has a shot because people they are resistant to change if you don't know what a pass key is and you're just saying would you like to use a pass key no let me log in and get the best buy site and let me go shop for the stuff I want to shop for that's what normal people still do I don't think that we're to the point that where websites the big sites outside of Microsoft and Google and maybe Apple are forcing people to do stuff that means that maybe that starts next year, but I don't think it'll be so, you know, I don't think it'll be so out there that we can say that we're going to kill passwords because every site that forces you, they will absolutely still allow you to use a password, which is one of the problems with passkeys.

37:54It's like, if you want to get the security, you got to get rid of the passwords. And that ain't happened in no time soon. It will be out of this decade before passwords go away like that. It's a critical mass thing. So if we want Google, Apple, Microsoft, and major banks, Let's say those are our baselines of the institutions who have the wherewithal to maybe force this through or to make it default. That will only happen with the right kind of mass adoption or critical mass. And I don't know what that number is. And you might be right. That could be forever off or never off. But there are still people who don't know how to do 2FA.

38:30And there are still places that don't take 2FA. So I realize it's a steep hill. I just think something's got to click. And where it'll click, I don't know. We're going to have to have a difficulty multiplier on this one for sure, Tom. There's no getting around it. I mean, I think the resistance to PASCII is all accurate until suddenly sites start implementing it the way Rob wants it to be implemented, which is, would you like to log in faster? Click here. Don't use the word PASCII. Don't give people a choice. Just say, would you like the benefit? Because the sites that do that, they work. And suddenly people are like, oh, yeah, I want to do that.

39:05And then, yeah, you'll eventually get rid of the passwords on the back end. What do we think of a multiplier here? At least six. Yeah. Because it might happen, but it might not happen next year. I'd even give it – I'd say six or seven myself. Would you? Would you, Scott? To your own prediction. To my own prediction, yeah. Because I realized we've got to hide the degree of difficulty. Ron's over there, 30. It's 100. It's the 100 multiplier. I think it's a solid six. Sarah brings a voice of reason. Thank you, Sarah. I like it. She always does. All right. All right. Six is good. What about your next prediction?

39:40Well, this kind of goes a little bit along with what Ron said about, or no, was it Rob? Oh, no, Rob, sorry. Rob, you were talking about threads and threads taken off for you and for others. And this deals a little bit with that. I believe that we are looking down the barrel of maybe 2026 being the year of, if not the death of the algorithmic feed, the for you feed, but the moving it to a less prominent place again. and back to prioritizing chronological, human-created, human-curated feeds to grow usership, to have community again. I think there is a hunger to go back to something where community mattered, and it wasn't just a thing you just spouted out something outrageous and hope you got a bunch of clicks, which is what it has all turned into now.

40:29What it used to be was a way to have like-minded people get together and follow. I like this guy. Follow them. They interact with me. I interact with them. The push to make us all move over to the For You page, sometimes forcibly, has been, I think, bad news overall. And I think people desire the friends-only modes to come back to these services. There's a reason people are adopting Discord as a very popular place to go. People miss forums. They're tired of the just public yelling, and they would rather go back to something where they can have, I don't know, a good time maybe. so I think the I won't call it the outright death of algorithm feeds or for you pages but I do think those are going to get more of a backseat as users either start to peel off or at least demand more of that on the aggregate it's obviously not going to be every single person some people love the shouting match that is the current social media thing but that's what I think I think the pendulum is going to swing towards smaller intentional community you know like you'd get with Reddit or Discord or something like that instead of this giant, loud, nothing box?

41:34I like this prediction. I actually love it. I don't think it's possible in our universe, but I really like it. Let me tell you why I don't think it's possible because you're saying major social platforms. Major social platforms, their first point of order is to maximize shareholder value. That's what they do. And they know that, yes, Our people are telling us that they like the curated feeds less. They want to follow who they want to follow, and that's what they want to see. We also know that when we give them the ability to do that, they spend significantly less time on our platform, which means that we can't serve them as many ads, which means that we can't make as much money.

42:18So I think if anything, if this were to be true, it wouldn't be because Facebook does it or Instagram does it or TikTok does it. It will be because those companies behind those platforms, they build something else that will just give you the ability to have that friends and family feel. Maybe, you know, it's locked down to 200 users or something like that. We'll go back to the old PATH application to where you really only have 50 people to, you know, to follow. But the B-Reel is like that. And B-Reels is interesting because of that, right? That's the one aspect of it that makes it interesting, these limited groups.

42:52But you're right. That's not a giant money-making thing. My whole prediction depends on user bleed. All right. So it means that people are going to be, they'll show that they're sick of this by not logging in anymore and reducing that company's ability to attract the levels they need to stay profitable or as make as much money as they do. And, and that's how that'll happen. Just like anything, we're the ones that hold the power. We're the product. If we just were smart enough to leave for a day, that would be enough to make them go. They have the willpower to do what they want. Instead, we're kind of suckers for this predatory thing that this business this is.

43:29So I realize that it's... I mean, you say suckers, but it's like, this is what people like. That's why it works. No, I know. We say we don't like it. But the fact is, like Rob said, when they put the algorithm, we're like, ooh, this is better. This is more fun. I'm enjoying this more. I remember when Instagram first rolled out its algorithm. It was, what, 2016? And I was like, this is... You hated it. Horsepucky. Yeah, I was like, I just can't believe that, you know, and now it's just the way it goes. But for that reason, I miss a lot of stuff. Yes, I am served up things that are of interest to me.

44:03And that happens on X as well. I mean, X didn't have the, you know, for you and then the following tabs, if you're using the web version, which it now does, because people wanted it. People wanted that back. They wanted the option. And so companies know that people want that option. But I also find myself – I'll get stuck in the For You tab because people that I'm following show up in my For You tab because it's stuff that I'm interested in. So I get sucked in where I'm like, wait, who's this? Oh, I'm on the wrong tab. So it does work. Oh, it works. Yeah. And it's interesting because it's like, Sarah, this made me think of sitting at my desk at Revision 3 15, 20 years ago, scrolling through Twitter to the point where I remembered where I left off.

44:48I'm like, okay, I've read everything. Yes, right. I mean, there's a time where that could happen. And that time has been such so far long gone. And I even think that if we moved away from the algorithm, that still couldn't happen because we follow so many people. And I will say the algorithm does help me discover new people, new content creators, different things. I mean, honestly, what has happened now because of the algorithm, I use Instagram in a completely different way. Instagram is less about the feed and less about stories. And it's more about who in my curated group of friends are DMing me stuff that they found from their algorithm into my DMs.

45:26That's the majority of time I'm spending in Instagram, right? Which is a whole different paradigm. I'm not making a case for the algorithm, but I just don't think it, I think to Rob's point, I think the advertising targeting based off of interest that the algorithm provides, there's no coming back from that. Now, Scott, you made two different predictions. You made the death of the algorithm prediction, but you also made the swing towards smaller intentional communities. And I think one could be true without the other. So do you want to - Yeah, that's a good point. Because that's already kind of happening, right?

45:59Like you're already starting to see these things crop up. You're seeing Discord explode. You're seeing like at least signs of needing something more than these services maybe used to provide. And maybe Twitter, the Twitter style thing maybe never did, but Facebook certainly did a little bit more. It was more geared to groups and pages. And now that stuff, they don't even prioritize it. Like meta barely, I barely hear much about pages anymore over there and building community over there. Really, it's more about, can I sell stuff on Marketplace? Can I see this algorithm made of 400 really bad AI generated images that my grandparents believe in?

46:34And then, you know, like it's just a mess over there. And I'm not saying that, because Tom, you said something interesting. people want what they want and they do but these companies their job is to make you addicted to the feed and make in other words stay there not addiction in the traditional medical sense but they want you staying there and you won't stay there if it's not a thing you don't want if it's a thing you don't want yeah that is predatory and i hate it that's every business though is like oh you want coca-cola here i will make more coca-cola but it isn't hey If you don't like olive oil soda, then I won't make olive oil.

47:10Hook this hose up to your face and I'm going to force Coke down your throat as best I can. This isn't forcing. It's choice. But the goal is, listen, I want to make this clear. The goal is they want you to never leave. So if that's the goal, they will do whatever they can to do it. Every business wants you to never leave. Do you think Discord wants you to leave? Do you think McDonald's wants you to leave? Discord doesn't want you to leave. Well, no, but Discord is nothing without your community. Do you think your local pizza place wants you to stop ordering from it? No, they want you to keep ordering as many times as possible.

47:45No, that's a fair point. I'm not trying to say they're being necessary. Maybe predatory is the wrong term. But it's like... I think the problem is they're really good at it, and we don't like that they're that good. And we're like, we want to quit, but we can't. I don't like that we're all doing... We're doing free work for massive corporations. and well that's a bigger that's a bigger yeah but to me it's all the same to me it's all the same bucket it's the same control thing i mean going back to rob's point about threads i mean like i will get lost in my feed and threads because it just it's hard going i have this and i have to remind myself oh no wait i gotta get work done this hour close this tab i won't go to linkedin because linkedin that linkedin feed is like i can't stop scrolling partially out of a perverse amusement of watching people uh pontificate about how great their lives are and their careers are and i find it very amusing um but like it's it's there's something addicting about that scroll and you're right but we all scott i think we all need the self-discipline to close the tab or close the app i'd like to alter my prediction because i actually think you're right i okay i misstated it here's how i'll say it i'll say it quick because i know we're running running short on time the the tendency for people to get tired of this rat race they're in this this this hamster wheel they're on and find more meaningful stuff via community-based services or even those services that will increase whether these companies give a crap or not or do anything i don't think that's true and this is hard to quantify so at the end of next year we're not going to be able to go now how many people exactly look for more community i realize that's hard but that's my that's my twist on it these are great issues that we're bringing up.

49:24We don't have time on the prediction show to solve social media, but I like this. What are we going to give the multiplier for the tendency for people to get tired of the rat race of social media and find more meaningful stuff via community-based services will increase and the pendulum will swing towards intentional communities. There you go. That'll work. We're already there. I may have just stated what's happening. I don't know. It's no prediction, really. Maybe. Sarah? Then you get a.1. All right. 1.1? I'm just kidding. I don't know. Give it a 2. 2. I was going to say 2. I can live with 2. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, though.

50:09This community is like school, Mighty Networks, Circle, all of these private communities that people are putting up. They don't have billions of people in them, but they may have hundreds or thousands. People long for that. I belong to a few myself. Freaking group chats, I think, are taking over. Yeah, for sure. All right. I'm going to make the first of my two really fast for you to evaluate. We are going to get, this is not a prediction, we are going to get 5G advance rollouts start in the next year. So you'll see that in the news referred to as 5G advance or 5.5G. But my prediction is somebody, some carrier out there is going to market their 5G advance service as 6G, even though it is not 6G.

50:54That will happen next year. I mean, that's what happened with 5G, right? It happened with 4G and it happened with 5G. I'm just saying it'll happen next year with 6G. Obviously, it's going to happen. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, I think so. That's a solid prediction. So you're giving me a what? That's a one. That's a one. One. I'll give you a one. That will happen in 2026. All right. My next one is a little more out on the limb, especially because I've been saying that 2026 is going to be the year of smart glasses and mixed reality and all of that. My prediction is by the end of 2026, consumers will be able to buy multiple smart glasses with real built-in visual displays, not just audio or camera only models.

51:44This will be a viable thing they do, right? Not like, yeah, you can technically buy multiples now, but this will be like oh yeah when i go into best buy or when i'm on amazon i'll be like which one do i want the meta or the google or the this other one like that's going to be a vibrant marketplace by the end of the year and i'll be calling 2027 the year of much better mixed reality headsets that's not part of the prediction though but uh vibrant uh smart glasses market by the end of 2026 vibrant i mean i i if you'd if you'd made if we'd had this conversation three or four months ago i I would have challenged you, but after what I saw coming out of Mountain View last week, I got to agree with you.

52:25I think that what's coming out of Meta and what's coming out of Google with Android XR, I think this is extremely viable for next year. Beyond just Meta and Google. We're just, what, a week away from, not even, from CES where there's going to be a lot of this stuff. Whether all of those products and promises come to market in 2026 remains to be seen. But I think this is a solid prediction. People are getting used to this. The form factor of VR headsets has always been a challenge. The form factor of mixed reality glasses that are lighter and make more sense and you can walk around and not be mocked.

53:08It's new, but it's the promise that we all kind of wanted. yeah i think you're right um i i always i always think that this stuff is not ready for prime time but lately they're slim they take really good photos they have a lot of smart stuff in mind about how to let people know whether you're filming them or not they don't look so obvious yeah yeah they just look like a nice ray-bans at this point look like some wayfarers or something like that or just regular oakley's i mean yeah they actually look good and you're gonna get Gentle Monster. You're going to get Warby Parker, I think, is going to be a big accelerant of this sort of stuff.

53:44I think about that. I think you're right. I don't think there's a whole lot of multiplier needed here. We don't even have to say next year for this one. We can literally say next week. That's why I was like, it's going to be a vibrant marketplace. Everybody's going to be talking about them. We're going to have more than just Meta and Google, because otherwise, you're right. It would be just... So that's the distinction. It's going to be a vibrant marketplace, but you're not making a prediction on the on the uh adoption no yeah no i want to say that i want to say that's a good point uh they will be widely adopted all right so you're saying that but you know that the next year it's gonna be commonplace to see people on the subway with these on and and using them you know as as much as any other device yeah to let's say uh iphone iphone 4 era usage right where where they're common not every single person has it right the way they do now yeah all right yeah and i think moving into the holidays next year you're going to see these things be on a lot of people's gift from them they want themselves so so yeah i think these things get mainstreamed in 2026 i think you're i think you're dead on what's my multiplier then it's going to be low i'll i'll give you i'll go 1.5 too i just i think this is going to happen if we think it's going to happen the multiplier is low, right?

55:06I mean, I would say it's a one if you're talking about the marketplace. It's a two if you're talking about adoption. I'm talking about... I'm glad you made me do that. I want to add adoption, make it a little more interesting. I like it. Yeah? Sarah? I'm going to do two. Two. All right. Two it is. Well, if I get both right, I'll get three at least and come in fourth. Okay. Thank you, guys. That was really fun. We had really good discussions about these predictions. I do want to throw my point. I want to throw my add-on point. Yeah, yeah. That's what I was going to get to next so yeah i didn't do that yeah i know now that we know them all what are we going to do i'm actually going to give my add-on to rob's threads prediction rob's threads prediction gets a sarah pull up uh add-on all right yeah very good yeah i was waiting to see what everybody else said and you all had wonderful predictions but that's the one i want i'm gonna give it oh scott i'm gonna throw mine on rob's blockchain so rob's getting another one i like I'm going to throw mine onto Tom's smart glasses.

56:07All right. You're not going to get a lot of points for that, but thank you. It's all right, though. Yeah, I appreciate that. Rob, what about you? Sarah's iPhone full prediction. Ah, okay. Yeah, that's a good point to get her, too. Yes, producer Amos. I'm going to go ahead and throw the producer's token down on the pass keys. Oh. Okay. I tell you what. I am getting tired of these login cookies expiring, and I don't think they're going to say you have to do it. I think they're going to have your logins expire much quicker to where you're just constantly having to do the password, and eventually you're just going to naturally want to do the passkey because it's so much quicker.

56:44You're completely okay to disagree with Ron and I. Everybody can be wrong. Well, there you go. I'm putting my bet on Scott's passkey. I'm going to throw down on Sarah's Hollywood release. That's where I'm going to put mine. We're going to see some kind of generated actor in something major by the end of the year. All right. It'll just be down to how irritated does it make us feel, and then we'll see. Well, I am not at all irritated that y 'all joined us today. Let's start with you, Scott Johnson. Where can people find more of what you do in the coming new year? Well, it's a big year. In June, I'm bringing back a 10-year tradition.

57:24We did it from 07 to 2017, and we've decided in 2026 to do one more Nerdtacular, which is a giant fan event. Tom Merritt is almost always there. In fact, I think you've always been there. So Tom Merritt will be there. Unless something crazy happens, he'll be there. Lots of live shows, lots of stage stuff. Just a great place for speaking of community to gather in flesh and blood and hang out in Salt Lake City in 2026. If you go to frogpants.com slash nerdtacular, you will find all the details and the tickets go up in about five days. So watch for that. And I hope to see a bunch of you there. Ron Richards, Android faithful and more.

58:01Where can people follow your work? Yeah, go to androidfaithful.com. We're going into our third year of Android faithful. It's very exciting. Yeah, we had Florence Island joined the team full time this year. The website is kicking. The podcast is doing great. We love it. Everything you need to know about Android is there. um also uh if you're into pinball scorebit.io uh the awesome new the new version of our app is out in the world we're lighting up arcades across the country uh if you're into pinball definitely check out scorebit um and you can follow me i'm at ronxo on threads as i mentioned earlier very active there on the threads um and having a fun time doing it so check it out fantastic uh rob and i are set to head to ces sarah's going to be anchoring uh back at home during ces so we got big live coverage coming up uh anything else rob that you want to throw out there um i am moving into video in a big way next year to the point to where it's upsetting podcasters like podcasting is for audio only i know um except for when it's for video as well so yeah i am just i'm making a move into video so you're going to see some some video firsts from rob dunwood come out next year Nice.

59:11That should have been a prediction with no difficulty in multiplier. I think maybe I'll do more video. I'll join that one. Well, patrons, it has been a very, very fun 2025. We couldn't have done it without you. Thank you all so much for supporting us all day, every day. We do the show for you. So thank you for being along for the ride. And yes, as we mentioned at the beginning of the show, This is our last show for 2025. In fact, it might even be 2026 wherever you are right now. We return after the New Year's holiday with a CES preview. That'll be Friday, January 2nd, 2026. You can see all the details at dailytechnewshow.com slash live.

59:56Until then, you know what they say. See you next year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year. Woo-hoo-hoo. the dtns family of podcasts helping each other understand diamond club hopes you have enjoyed this program