Predictions Wish List 2016

Now that you have drowned in predictions about … < fill in your favourite subject and colour the pictures > for 2016, it’s time to not only read through them and see whether you can agree — which you don’t need to as the truth is already here — it’s time to turn your Yes I Can See That / No I Don’t Think So into something of the more outspoken kind, not being outspoken but outwritten. As follows (mine, hence, yours if you’re smart…):

  • Blockchain (-like) methodologies and technologies delivering an app that shakes up the accountancy industry so thouroughly that the Big$/4 halve in size and influence (even further).
  • A breakthrough in the translation of Information to Value and vice versa, by means of being able to have the value of information one processes, on the books. Not necessarily in monetary terms, but somehow, comparable.
  • Some form of APT management/containment methodology.
  • A unified implementation/interoperability / API / management framework for IoT. Open, all-encompassing, like the OSI stack.
  • A breakthrough in the sobering up over the quod non of normative value of SOx/TLD/Basel-OpsRisk and all standards (ISO and others).
  • Similar, a sobering up (but deepening and intensifying for the solutions part) over cyberhere, cyberthere, cybereverywhere.

OK, going out into 2016 (not just yet!) with:
DSCN8004
[On a winter’s day … how many wished for unification of this city, mere decades back?]

Prediction16

Yawn. Or not. The following will get real serious in 2016. Like,

Well, for the list with everything and their dog:

  • Some Exits: Green Egg, ‘Cyber’everything, disruption/uberization, privacy, and, certainly and very much hopefully, “Like us on Facebook” … and very, very certainly hipsters let alone their ‘beards’ (quod non).
  • Entrat to replace the latter, hopefully, some actual non- or anti-bureaucratic frameworks of mind.
  • Also out, to be replaced by … [as yet unknown]: Vlogging or what have we, in socmed space, with 100k-1M+/++ followers as being he thing to aim for. As it becomes clearer and clearer in 2016 that only the 10M+/++ leaders (??) can make a dime from it, or barely a living. Who are the big winners, in all of this? User data / experience farmers?
  • Risk Management 3.0 will grow to be the Next Thing in managementspeak. If you’d need any proof, go read back the ton of posts on your perennial Truth site.
  • Also, we might get a last blip from SMAC(T) as a trend summary.
  • All of the points made by The (some) Man. Obviously. And some of this as well though this may all show to be overblown.
  • Still a wave of interest in Rise of the Robots. Combined with AI through and through, like in this. With support at an angle, from this.
  • A further blend of cloudsourcing and deperimetrisation putting your infra and all of your data naked and out there in the cold.
  • Oh almost forgot: A lot more on APTs, 3D printing (when will we finally get 4D printing …!?), MehhDrone stuff, blockchain, IoT, et al.
  • But we may hope, the latter two get much more innovative applications; one the one hand with simpler explications, on the other, truly innovating e.g., into the DAO realm.
  • Ah, DAOs; let’s first see more of this in 2016.
  • Offering a simple list copy from HBR:
    • Algorithmic personality detection: Yes
    • Bots: Yes
    • Glitches: Mwah; we indeed will see scores of them, ever bigger and more impactful (also b/c complexity explosions of the mixed e and physical worlds), but they’re somewhat of the mehhh category for the purpose of Here.
    • Backdoors: See APTs et al; much more of them yes but again, mehhh
    • Blockchain: As mentioned
    • Drone lanes: Hmmm, interesting…
    • Quantum Computing: Probably hung in there from previous (many) years’ lists; mine, too. May, might, but for the same token may not
    • Augmented knowledge: Definitely. Hopefully, in a good way. But maybe even hopefully, steered towards safe use, after a hopefully indicative but small-enough dystopian-style mishap ..?
  • CloudIAMming. IAM, renewed, for federated use in ‘the’ cloud. Yes, this will have a whole new lease of life, as a management field, and a consultancy field as well.
  • This just in: Forgot to mention VR as a thing in 2016. Definitely.
  • I may want to do an update halfway through the year…
  • Oh, and of course our motto for 2016: A CEO with you, is still a CEO.
    #gosubstitute[ _X, _Y | fool, a tool ]

After which there’s only:
DSCN7943
[Purposefully unsharp. Berlin, some years ago.]

One-sided mirror

Hopefully just in time for your last-minute (huh?) holiday season shopping: This masterpiece; excellent for edukaizjionel purposes and general divertissement, including Be-ing Warned…

Because, it spans so much of interest; from humble (?) ‘computer’ components all the way up till Topsight.
Read, learn and weep over humankind’s future.

Now then, for a short departure:
DSCN7994
[Unk Berlin]

Everyone’s using Layars

Just started re-reading the 1991 (..!) Gelernter classic Mirror Worlds. Nomen est omen, author-itywise.
Then it struck me: Mobiles weren’t invented back then; can you imagine ..?? And Home Improvement was the hit of the year. Some Tim Berners-Lee guy first proposed HTML. Even PCs version 1.0 were still not ubiquitous.
And then this Gelernter published this masterpiece about virtual worlds. Not some random tech prediction, but insightful, visionary stuff.

But the reason I give you this, is: In 2009, Layar started. Where has that gone ..!?

When you know what I’m talking about, you see the link with the above. And might wonder as well. Yeah, one can DuckDuckGo them, but that’s not the point, which is: Where’s the exponential unicorn disruptor daily jubilant news about them, whilst they have grown in prominence ever since ’90 ..? Why not ..?

Oh well, I’ll leave you with:
DSC_0163
[Once, friggin’ SotA at Noto]

IoThreat level rising

Oh the waxing and waning of the security (or not) that we understand and can see. In, traditional, actual security versus stupid’s attacks with AK-47s.
Oh the failure to see that the vulnerability surface grows much quicker, unseen, out of sight; and only partially, backlogging style, being managed somewhat. This surface expansion being in IoT, as the current implementations (in two ways, labelled such or not…!) are spreading much faster than the awareness, let alone proper implementation of, security is.

And oh yes, some are concerned. But their concerns appear to remain Boy Cried Wolfs compared to the clear and present dangers, that may be much smaller, qua chance and/or impact, than IoT risks. As in the physical, the class break aspect seems to be considered and covered reasonably well, by natural countering culture, the same may not be said about B/Society-CM planning for class breaks in the IoT sphere. Maybe already WWIII would be fought with sticks and stones (Einstein’ish).

Oh well. This post will not change the world. But still, be warned, and/or Be Prepared. And:
DSC_0158
[Maybe pray. For luck. Or salvation. Not your common altar piece; Noto]

We need another Blue (h)It

No, no IT;   It. Dean Kamen style.     Nor the It, Amsterdam style 😐
Now that the BttF hoverboard didn’t pan out as planned (qua planning, 21 October 2015) and first clumsy (but PoC?) prototypes having only recently surfaced (huh) and the halfway product of self-balancing two-wheel hoverboards are quite fancy but far from mainstream yet,
We do need something of the It hype and fuzz that surrounded the development / grand splash intro of the original Segway. Maybe, probably, in a completely different direction but something similar possibly pervasive.
And have all the excitement of the buzz; and maybe this time around, actual watershed roll-out; and as a far-fetched wish, something that may e.g., help the environment big time. The latter, may be the ideal for the world.

Oh, and now that we’re at it (sic); I did notice that in bygone days (like, a couple of years ago) before Disruption and its #fail aspects (Netflix yes, Uber no), all the talk was about Blue Ocean strategies. By incumbents. Not being jobless (re)growth. Et cetera. Is there a good comparison on all the aspects one can list for the one, for the other, and in comparison ..? Could both approaches be married or not, and what do we learn from that fact (or not)?

To leave you with:
DSCN8589
[Where the colourful life is; Zuid-As (contradictio)]

Common meltdown

Ah, indeed a meltdown is approaching; maybe not even of the common kind of just something breaking down in ‘IT’ — the inverted s… hits the fan scenario — but a larger-scale one. Being the lack of budget / approval for IT staff to do continuous education of all sorts. [As in here, in Dutch.]
Which will inevitably lead to ever larger of the small- to midsize collapses mentioned, possibly one triggering the other till past the critical point where the chain reaction feedback loop switches from negative to positive.

By which time it will be too late, much too late, to hyperventilatingly engage in counteractions. Both against the root cause problems in IT, as in the edjucayzional category within those. Because, au fond, so many of IT’s ails were and are, increasingly, driven by lack of (continued) education. Causing problems in the user’s specs (at the highest levels) and subsequently, 2nd Law of thermodynamics, spawning all of the subsequent complexity developing into unmanageability, and error stacking that breeds like viruses.

Even more poignantly in InfoSec corners. You know, the outposts of IT — yes, yes, I know that the I is of so much greater import than the T but get real, instead of 20% InfoSec is 85-95% T still, these days ..! — where the real commandos and fancy-dancy ‘Delta teams’/SEALs operate.

Can we all please get our act together ..? If we don’t turn this supertanker around quickly, we don’t even need to bother about global warming because we’ll have no industrialised world to worry about…

Après nous la deluge …
DSC_0196
[Mosquito hunt; Edinburg]

Software Defined Everything, not your monkey’s business

Lately, we have been reading a lot about Software Defined Everything (haven’t you …?), in particular sw-def networking. As the flexible way to the future.
Now, it turns out that humans may have had an edge over monkeys (and apes) by, for quite some time already, having had just that bit more software-defined Brain work than the competition. Though research is out also (since about half a year+) that apes using tools, have entered the Stone Age with that, for some 4300 years at least already. Now I will not refer here to the mix-up that your boss is, in this all.

But I will note that the Software Defined Everything, in similar vein is where the Singularity starts to take over, as the System evolves away from the human brain limitation to adapt to its environment. Yes, that’s a bit of thought stretch but you’ll manage. Still…

DSC_0174
[At least the apes among you might figure out the Three-Body Problem at the table …; Nicolaci, Noto]

The Season of Innovation

Anyone has stats on when, during the year, most actual innovations are dreamt up, or brought to light ..?

Just wondered, pondered, looking outside into a greyish dawn, and thought: Where are this year’s Innovations that make late fall / winter time more amicable ..?
Just because seasons are only a quarter of the year ;-| doesn’t sound like a good explanation; whereas any year, or innovation’s adoption wave, is a one-time thing only, seasons tend to re-appear quite regularly over and over again through the ages. So any real innovation might stick even better. [Will now halt this silly argument.]
Then again, can we pinpoint the exact moment an innovation is conceived, even when delivery may take some time (possibly, spanning a year) ..? Can we spot seasonal patterns ..? One could imagine that Nature’s recurrence and bloom, impacts the mind in similar ways. *waves.

So, if any of you Big Data lovers out there would have a nice graph, I’d welcome it. Plus:
DSCN4507
[Yes, that’s Spring, in Antwerp. Other corners are, in no particular order, Summer, Fall, and Winter]

Stealing others’ Innovation flag

On how one (organisation) can be truly innovative, but another gets all the credit — later on when History gets written down.
I mean, have you checked the innovation of Tesla ..? Which consisted, apart from the green(?)fields start of operations, with a simple copy of an iconic car. Indeed, not the S type, but the Lotus Elise. Yes, yes, I know, not many parts are the same but that misses the point..! What Tesla vehemently denies, is that buyers don’t give a single … [censored] about said parts, they buy a design. And well, on that point … is there a better summary than ‘carbon (body) copy’ ..?

And the all-electric part ..? Also, had many predecessors.
Apart from which, the actual innovation which as so many ‘Inventions’ of the past twenty centuries was a rediscovery of a lost art, was in the electric — and the grand prize for putting that on the serious market goes to Toyota for their Prius.

Just realise that it has all the characteristics of a true disruption… demonstrated on the outside by its (initial) design, that was of course ‘corrected’ by the photos of Cameron Diaz’ and others’ endorsement.

So… where’s T’s innovation at? The S type that’s too expensive (by far, if you add appropriate options) for most folk ..? It’s not overly innovative in design, nor in … everything else. Looks good, yes, but …
And why would I still not be able to drive to my holiday destination with refills in under 10mins only every 1000km ..?
And, if it were true and distinctive innovation, competitors would have followed big time. But hey haven’t; apparently easily keeping up with smaller-step improvements.

Though, I’m not negative, at least T’s CEO has the gusto to go after moon shots. Praise for that, would one not want many more of the 1% to follow suit so they’d spend their money wisely… And:
DSC_0546
[Bam! in Syracuse the Original]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord