25 plausible tech/policy predictions for 2011

On Freedom to Tinker, Timothy B Lee offers a list of 25 eminently plausible predictions for tech and policy for 2011. I don't often take predictions seriously, but if I were a gambling person, I'd give even odds on 80 percent of these bearing fruit:

1. DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement. In a related development, pigs will still fail to fly...
5. Some advertising networks and third-party Web services will begin to voluntarily respect the Do Not Track header, which will be supported by all the major browsers. However, sites will have varying interpretations of what the DNT header requires, leading to accusations that some purportedly DNT-respecting sites are not fully DNT-compliant...
9. 2011 will see the outbreak of the first massive botnet/malware that attacks smartphones, most likely iPhone or Android models running older software than the latest and greatest. If Android is the target, it will lead to aggressive finger-pointing, particularly given how many users are presently running Android software that's a year or more behind Google's latest--a trend that will continue in 2011.
10. Mainstream media outlets will continue building custom "apps" to present their content on mobile devices. They'll fall short of expectations and fail to reverse the decline of any magazines or newspapers...
18. Multiple Wikileaks alternatives will pop up, and pundits will start to realize that mass leaks are enabled by technology trends, not just by one freaky Australian dude...
20. Copyright claims will be asserted against players even further removed from underlying infringement than Internet/online Service Providers: domain name system participants, ad and payment networks, and upstream hosts. Some of these claims will win at the district court level, mostly on default judgments, but appeals will still be pending at year's end.

Click through for the rest.

Predictions for 2011

(Image: Pink Floyd - Bliss, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from oddsock's photostream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

#9 is low-hanging fruit. I wouldn’t count on #18, though, as it presupposes that pundits are a sentient life form.
bex

Can I have a go?.

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DeWynken

I sorta like my ‘droid, but it’s chafing my ass something fierce I can’t get mah Froyo. I WANTZ MAH FROYO!
- Anonymous
  
  http://www.cyanogenmod.com/
  
  Most supported phones are up to Gingerbread, or will be soon.
Joe

These are all fairly careful, conservative predictions. One that I don’t believe will pan out is the prediction that there will be a grand settlement between all smart-phone players in the patent wars. I think it’s more likely that we’ll see cross-licensing deals that reduce the number of warring camps, but there will still be someone who thinks either that they can prevail in court or that settling would result in long-term decline while continuing litigation offers hope of a windfall.
- Bureaucromancer
  
  ” I think it’s more likely that we’ll see cross-licensing deals that reduce the number of warring camps, but there will still be someone who thinks either that they can prevail in court or that settling would result in long-term decline while continuing litigation offers hope of a windfall.”
  
  I think not. Their will almost certainly be players who come very close to trying that strategy, but I expect that they will quickly find themselves facing off against multiple unified groups, with the result that they will sign onto the settlements rather than be overwhelmed legally.
invictus

I’d give even odds on 80 percent of these bearing fruit

So you predict there’s a 50% chance of 80% of these 25 predictions coming true?
Anonymous

You can add another, that I will still not be able to get any kind of broadband or cell signal within a mile of my house.
archmagetrexasaurus

I’m not comfortable agreeing with the implicit claim that it is plausible that pigs will fail to fly in 2011. That is, my forecast for swine aviation is optimistic.

(so much more so than my forecast for DRM working that they really aren’t comparable)
- johnphantom
  
  Well we did have swine flu.