back to article Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

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  1. LucreLout

    Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

    How can such a list not feature Linux on the desktop (tm), which has been "coming next year" for decades?

    1. Mage Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

      Because Windows is getting so bad, and Mac so expensive and Minimalist on ports etc we can't be sure that Linux won't be the last Desktop?

      Excellent Dabsy.

      1. LucreLout

        Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

        we can't be sure that Linux won't be the last Desktop?

        Sure we can. It won't even be the next desktop, never mind the last.

        Linux is incredible given how it came to be, and represents a genuine triumph. It is not, however, any kind of replacement for Windows for unskilled home users or for corporate environments. Users left to secure Linux and keep it up to date on their own would make an even worse job than they did with Windows; Win 10 is at least nearly secure out of the box and it patches itself.

        As technologists we can, and in some cases do, use Linux on a desktop properly and without significant problems. That doesn't apply to wider society and it simply never will.

        The home PC is fading, being replaced with one tablet or another, that either updates itself or simply never gets patched. The short shelf life of these devices will enact the larger portion of OS upgrades than will actively updating it. A shrinking market isn't about to convert over to a different OS to save a hundred bucks when the one they have patches itself.

        Linux on the desktop is already dead; it just doesn't know it yet. That should not be confused for meaning "Linux is dead" which it self evidently isn't and won't happen any time soon, if ever.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          I don't know what you;re smoking, Lucrelout, but my experience says entirely different - getting close to double figures of essentially IT-illiterate folk that I've helped get started with Linux, and thus far the number of support calls I;ve had can be counted on the fingers of one hand with fingers to spare. Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance (I couldn't get round to do teh install for them that day - so they decided to give it a go themselves), and like it so much they;re going to install (may already have installed) it on their other two PCs.

          It's Windows gives yer average user grief, not Linux.

          1. Naselus

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            "It's Windows gives yer average user grief, not Linux."

            Most of the users I've suggested Linux to have given up before they've managed to pick a distro. It usually goes like this:

            User: I hate windows! It took forever to start up today because it was updating!

            Me: Why not try Linux?

            User: I googled 'download Linux' and all I got was a massive page with lots of paragraphs about 'choosing the right distro'. Why didn't it just download the installer for me?

            Me: Ah. Um, basically, 'Linux' isn't just one thing. You see, without going into the politics of how open source development works, the middle bit of the OS is called the Linux Kernel, but lots of people then build their -

            User: OH GOD NO I HATE THIS STUPID COMPLEX CRAP WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE SPEAK ENGLISH I'M STICKING WITH WINDOWS AT LEAST THAT WORKS.

            Now imagine trying to take them through the idea of how to pick between GNOME vs KDE. This is someone who doesn't think of an OS as a collection of components. They think the GUI is the OS. They are not really interested in what a bootloader is, or whether they ought to be pro- or anti-systemd.

            People complain that Microsoft have too many versions of Windows to pick from and it's too confusing when they release 5 different flavours of Windows 10. They do not want to wade through 50 different linux distros before they even know which one to download. That sucks, but it's the truth and it's a major reason why, no matter how user-friendly Linux becomes, it's never going to come close to matching Windows on the Desktop. The consumer-facing places where Linux does well (routers, mobile phones) are the places it comes pre-installed. The other places it does well are where IT professionals are making the decision.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              Only a small number of academics and communists EVER needed a desktop PC. The masses needed iphones which previously didn't exist.

              If someone asks for tech support, smash up their computer and dump it out a window. They'll be happier for it.

            2. Rol

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              Surely the only reason more feathers have not been flying in the MS world is down to nearly every PC slurped off the shelf has MS pre-installed.

              If Linux was delivered in the exact same way to the consumer then no issues would exists, but ah, MS has no intention of letting the consumer PC market off the leash, as it stipulates in very large letters that PC shifters will be executed for offering anything that isn't MS.

              And just like Esme's experience, the IT woes of my friends ended the very day i threw my hands in the air and installed Linux on their machines. Sometimes a big thanks comes back, but mainly, the phone not ringing off the hook with computer problems is all the thanks I need.

              1. Sil

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                Not sure it's true.

                Dell and other manufacturers have/are offering computers with Linux installed and it didn't take the world by storm.

                Big enterprises can give disk images to manufacturers that will happily preinstall them on new desktop/laptop computers too.

                Also I may be wrong, but it seems to me many pros, especially the younger generation, are also happy having a Mac as a unix workstation without needing Linux.

                1. phil 27

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  Thats mostly because they cost more than ordering it with windows and blatting the hard disk on day 0 of ownership. Or as I do, taking it out and putting it in a storage cupboard so if it has hardware poorly sick issues I can RMA it knowing they can't wriggle out of fixing it.

                  And this fine bit of marketing has enabled people like you to carry on doing microsofts marketing for them.

            3. Graham Dawson Silver badge

              @naselus Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              I suggest perhaps trying a different approach. Start by suggesting a distro by name, talk through the high-level advantages. Don't start blasting them with jargon. If they aren't capable of making informed decisions then you have to help them, and that means you have to narrow their choices and present them with options that you think might actually benefit.

              Or you could keep being a stuck-up, pretentious nerd who likes to show off how much they think they know by flinging jargon and superfluous trivia around. They'd react exactly the same way if you started blathering on about the history of the Windows NT kernel, GDI and the necessity of using powershell in certain situations.

              1. Rol

                Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                I find the best way is to give those new to Linux, as close an approximation to what they're used to.

                In practice that invariably means Linux Mint with a Mate interface.

                I then load in all the free software to replace item for item what they used to run and sit and hold their hand for an hour or so, while they get acclimatised.

                Those who have a high degree of proficiency with, let's say, Photoshop, will quickly gain an equal proficiency in GIMP, and those who have nothing but a casual acquaintance with PS will similarly learn how to crop and do those basic exercises in no greater a time.

                Only someone who is heavily invested in MS will refuse to accept the sense that is Linux and bleat constantly that an error ridden, expensive, invasive OS is better than free, solid and dependable.

                1. IsJustabloke
                  Facepalm

                  Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "Photoshop, will quickly gain an equal proficiency in GIMP"

                  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... breathe... ha ah aha hahhahahhahahahahahha

                  Yeah cos those two products are totally comparable

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    "Yeah cos those two products are totally comparable"

                    At the level at which most people use them, GIMP and PS are pretty much equivalent. To do certain things that a lot of people want to do, it's easy to write out a set of instructions for either. The difference is that for the average PS user there is probably a keen amateur photographer wanting to show his expertise to someone else, for GIMP not so much.

                    If you know enough and do enough with PS to be aware of the shortcomings of GIMP, you are part of a small minority.

                  2. Rol

                    Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    If you could travel back in time to the point you first used Photoshop and then set a stopwatch to record every fumble and lucky strike you made on your way to getting proficient with it, I'd argue that all those hours then put into learning how to use GIMP would have you at least as proficient.

                    It is a different interface, because it has to be, otherwise Adobe's lawyers would be smashing the door down.

                    I suppose the best analogy would be starting to learn a foreign language and then throwing a hissy fit because all the words are different to the ones you are used to and after ten minutes you give up.

                    Totally overlooking the fact it took you decades to reach your current proficiency in your mother tongue.

                    GIMP is no more complicated than Photoshop, and a price comparison rates GIMP as infinitely better than PS.

                  3. This post has been deleted by its author

              2. GrumpenKraut
                Angel

                Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                > Or you could keep being a stuck-up, pretentious nerd who likes to show off how much they think they know by flinging jargon and superfluous trivia around.

                You say that as if it was a bad thing.

                1. KeithR

                  Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "You say that as if it was a bad thing."

                  Well it's not - if you're the kind of computer user who wants his OS to be a hobby in its own right.

                  Some (many? Most?) of us just want a stable platform that will run the software we rely on...

              3. karlnapf

                Re: @naselus Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                POWERSHELL!? Na, thats devil's crap here in the holy halls of IT,too.

            4. Quortney Fortensplibe
              Trollface

              I Liked Their Earlier Albums, Before They Became Really Commercial

              For all their professed longing for the advent of The Year of Linux on the Desktop, I reckon most penguinistas secretly live in fear of such a thing coming to pass.

              It's a bit like the 'Kewl Kids' at school who will like a band up until the point they become successful, at which point they will decry them as "sell-outs" and drop them like a shot –before going onto the next suitably obscure and therefore street-cred-worthy 'beat combo'.

              You can already see this phenomenon with the folks who, disgusted with Linux's share of the desktop market topping a dizzying 1%, have fled to one of the BSDs, in order to keep their geek credentials untainted by such rampant commercialism.

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: I Liked Their Earlier Albums, Before They Became Really Commercial

                "the folks who, disgusted with Linux's share of the desktop market topping a dizzying 1%, have fled to one of the BSDs"

                No, there's another reason for doing that.

                1. Loud Speaker

                  Re: I Liked Their Earlier Albums, Before They Became Really Commercial

                  OK, so you and me were using BSD before Bill Gates could spell Computer. You have to make allowances for spoiled brats.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Happy

                Re: I Liked Their Earlier Albums, Before They Became Really Commercial

                @Quortney Fortensplibe - not me. I for one would like to see a lot more penguin-powered desktops (although I would also like to see a more varied desktop ecosystem - for greater security), but then I am not a maven of any description, except perhaps in the digestive-biscuit-eating stakes.

                Computers are things to get stuff done or entertain me. If they do that, I like them. if they give me lots of grief, I dont; like them. So I use Linux Mint and am a very happy non-expert bunny!

                Seems odd to me that Windowsites feel the need to denigrate those who like Linux or tell the good side of using it. If you like using WIndows, good for you! Happy for you! Doesn;t change that everyone I've introduced to Linux has been happy with it for the same reasons that I am - easier to use and a lot less grief than Windows.

            5. GrumpenKraut

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              > User: OH GOD NO I HATE THIS STUPID COMPLEX CRAP...

              This is the kind of people who don't like choice. Tell them to install distro A and desktop B and not to worry their little heads that there might be C, D, or even E.

            6. rh587

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "Me: Ah. Um, basically, 'Linux' isn't just one thing. You see, without going into the politics of how open source development works, the middle bit of the OS is called the Linux Kernel, but lots of people then build their -"

              Why would you say that?

              Simple response is "Oh, yeah, there are different versions, like there's Windows Home/Premium/Enterprise. Some people even compile their own version for specific jobs. You just need Mint - that's Linux for Windows users".

              Don't give them a choice.

              1. KeithR

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                So the Linux zealots on here reckon that the best Linux LotD solution is something that's pretty much as close as they can possibly get to a cosmetic and ease-of-use rip-off of Windows..?

                Oh, the irony.

                Ah well - they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  @KeithR - get outta here! (chuckle) Windows has been playing catch-up with Linux in terms of ease of use for years - and this last few years has been going retrograde. When Penguinistas set up a Linux box to be Windows-like, I'd put a fiver on it that it's almost always either so it looks and feels like Windows XP, or, less commonly, Windows 7 - simply for the familiarity, so that the new user doesn;t have to learn too much and can just get on with using their PC.

                  The WinXP GUI was pretty good - that's why so many people are annoyed at MS for having buggered around with the UI so much (and why both KDE and Gnome lost users when they decided to change their paradigms, too). But as has been pointed out elsewhere, the UI is not the OS. Whilst Linux isn't perfect, it's waaay better in everday use than Windows, IMHO - and an increasing number of newcomers to Linux appear to be agreeing a none have wanted to revert.

                  This is getting fun - Windows folk supposedly expert falling like ninepins on the logic stakes to the likes of me (decidedly not an expert), 'cause they're trying to defend the practically indefensible. Next!

                2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "So the Linux zealots on here reckon that the best Linux LotD solution is something that's pretty much as close as they can possibly get to a cosmetic and ease-of-use rip-off of Windows..?"

                  Let's look at that one on two levels.

                  Firstly, the actual suggestion was that in order to ease the transition from the familiar to the unfamiliar use a familiar interface. Applying an unfamiliar interface upsets users. Microsoft have discovered that - it would have been better for their users if they'd worked it out from first principles.

                  Secondly, if you go back & look what was about at the time Windows 95 came out you'd realise that it didn't spring ready-made from the forehead of Bill Gates. There were a lot of GUIs about back then. There was a good deal of cross-fertilisation.

                  The main application menu system until ribbons came along was based on CUA (Common User Access), mostly, IIRC, from IBM, a set of design principles intended to make things easier for users by providing consistency between applications.

                  A screen bottom bar with pop-up menus was already in use in interfaces such as CDE.

                  Some of the interface aspects came from HP's New Wave, an overlay on Win 3.

                  Yes, W95 put all these together very well and hit a sweet spot (apart from the error of putting the close button next to the maximise where it was too easy to hit it by mistake) but on the whole it was a synthesis of stuff a lot of other people had developed. So it's not surprising that for the desktop a lot of other designers have followed similar approaches, improving on it here & there with the like of multiple workspaces. But don't think you're looking at slavish imitation of a single original idea because you're not; you're looking at a convergence on what works best.

                  1. Richard Plinston

                    Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    > look what was about at the time Windows 95 came out ... There were a lot of GUIs about back then.

                    There were other GUIs* about when Windows 1 was _announced_, let alone released. In fact it was announced when Bill Gates saw DRI's GEM being demonstrated at COMDEX. Then they started writing it.

                    * Star, PERQ, Lisa, GEM, ...

            7. This post has been deleted by its author

            8. John Sanders
              Linux

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              I will explain it in terms even you can understand:

              If you have an old computer use: Linux Mint XFCE edition.

              If you have a computer less than 4 years old use Linux Mint.

              If Linux Mint does not work in your computer or you do not like it, stick to Windows and quit complaining.

              There, simples. See, no distro juggling or desktop choosing, etc.

              One decides to go for distro crap when already has some experience/interest in Linux.

            9. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              @ Naselus

              I don't think it's Linux that's the root of your users' problems.

            10. Anonymous Coward
              Happy

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              @Naselus - And that just demonstrates where you're going wrong. I give people a Linux Format coverdisk with Linux Mint on it. It installs into Mint with a sensible desktop. It just works (TM). The user is happy, I'm happy, all is sweetness and light.

              Sure, I mention to them that there are options available for different desktops, but I don't make them jump through the hoops of choosing between options they don't understand right from the off. If you're going about things the way you describe, then sure, you're increasing the chances of a nagtive reaction - but given that you bods that report this kind of experience are, unlike me, IT professionals, why would you do that?

              I've said it before - much as I respect the experience of my fellow commentards here, some of you just seem to be going about things entirely the wrong way and dooming yourselves and/or others to unecessary problems when it comes to Linux. MS avoids the multiple choices of Windows versions (or did, until recently) by simply forcing the wretched thing to be pre-installed into PCs so we all had to pay the MS tax. Well, had those boxes had Linux installed instead, THAT would have bene the norm. So if you;re not about to point a newbie at umpty versions of Windows, why would you then go and do just that with Linux? illogical!

              I remind my esteemed commentard colleagues to KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

              1. KeithR

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "The user is happy, I'm happy, all is sweetness and light."

                RIGHT up to the point when - not knowing ny better - they try to install their first favourite Windows programme: because - after all - "Mint LOOKS like Windows, and you [insert name of Linux zealot] said it was 'just like' Windows..."

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  @KeithR - I'll say this simply soi that you can understand it. (a) If I have anything to do with them trying Linux, I explain to them that they run Linux software on a Linux system, and they do so using the software manager - they do NOT try to download stuff from the net. (b) I also tell them BEFORE they go Linux that if there is some piece of Windows software that they absolutely must or want to continue using, to let me know first and I will see if it can be done , then they can make their mind up whether to go Linux or not (c) you;re assuming stupidity on my part - which is stupid of you (d) you;re assuming stupidity on the part of teh people I help get going with Linux - which is arrogant of you.

                  Would YOU just leave people you;d helped to get going with Linux in the lurch? I certainly wouldn't, but if you would, then you're ... - but hopefully you get the picture now. Now quit the trolling, please, you're making yourself look even dafter, and I don't like to see people self-harm

            11. The Dude

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "They think the GUI is the OS"

              No they don't. They think the web browser is the OS.

            12. Richard Plinston

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              > People complain that Microsoft have too many versions of Windows to pick from and it's too confusing when they release 5 different flavours of Windows 10. They do not want to wade through 50 different linux distros before they even know which one to download.

              Exactly. Just like everyone should just buy a silver Ford Mondeo and not bother with wading through car magazines or visiting dealers trying to work out whether they want a people mover or a sports car. That is just too confusing, they don't want to wade through 50 test drives, and then there are all the options and colour choices.

              1. Terry 6 Silver badge

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                Exactly that, with car buying. Not many study the form book to choose a car. They have a budget and maybe a size and a few options ( like four doors and satnav) in mind. Then they either buy the make that they expect to buy, or ( from a car dealer) the one that the salesman talks them into getting.

                A bit like going in to PCWorld or John Lewis and buying what ever PC is available for £375. Unless of course they go looking for an iPad instead. Either of which is precisely what ordinary users do

                1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "the one that the salesman talks them into getting"

                  the one that gives the salesman the biggest bonus

                  FTFY

                  1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

                    Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    "- "the one that the salesman talks them into getting"

                    - the one that gives the salesman the biggest bonus "

                    Redundant.

            13. Innocent-Bystander*

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              I think you should have given them something more specific, like download link to the latest Mint. It looks and acts more or less like Windows and installs without a hitch in less than 20 minutes in most cases

              I agree that most people would react in horror if they had to find a distribution first.

            14. Loud Speaker

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              Imagine someone hates their Ford model T. You suggest they buy a modern car, maybe a Volkswagen or Opel, or something else that pollutes nicely.

              Oh, my GOD - there are choices, and some of them are NOT EVEN BLACK. Oh, Shit! I'm so fucked! Maybe I'll go back to walking. It works for the Amish.

              1. DainB Bronze badge

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                There's choice between VW Golf - which is doing reasonable job - and slightly cheaper Opel Astra as a kit car, which could be doing reasonable job after you put it together. Most people just need to get into their car and go.

          2. LucreLout

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

            Technology illiterate people wouldn't even be able to select a distribution, never mind install one. They'd not have a clue where to find drivers, or how to configure the OS once they'd got it loaded. Patching? Won't happen. Securing? Won't get done.

            I know you want LotD to be true, I know you do. But wishful thinking isn't going to make it happen.

            It's Windows gives yer average user grief

            It doesn't though, does it. It installs itself if it isn't already installed when they get the computer home, it makes a reasonable fist of securing itself, and it even updates itself. It's pretty bloody far from perfect, but for a home user, there is no substitute. Windows Phone has a greater market penetration than LotD will ever achieve, and that's a rounding error at best.

            You're confusing you pushing Mint onto people you know for it having gained traction in the market. My friend could have named all her children Mildred, but it doesn't mean the name is making a come back.

            1. Chika

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              >Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

              Technology illiterate people wouldn't even be able to select a distribution, never mind install one. They'd not have a clue where to find drivers, or how to configure the OS once they'd got it loaded. Patching? Won't happen. Securing? Won't get done.

              Mint, like many mainstream distros, attempts to minimise all this by automating updates and detecting drivers, much as Windows does. Usually they do a good job as well unless the PC being used has something particularly exotic or obscure, but then the same thing applies to Windows too.

              I know you want LotD to be true, I know you do. But wishful thinking isn't going to make it happen.

              > It's Windows gives yer average user grief

              It doesn't though, does it. It installs itself if it isn't already installed when they get the computer home, it makes a reasonable fist of securing itself, and it even updates itself. It's pretty bloody far from perfect, but for a home user, there is no substitute. Windows Phone has a greater market penetration than LotD will ever achieve, and that's a rounding error at best.

              I've been in the support business for a while and I can categorically state that the problem is ALWAYS between the chair and the keyboard regardless of the OS when dealing with older users. Once they are used to whatever it is they are using they're fine.

              You're confusing you pushing Mint onto people you know for it having gained traction in the market. My friend could have named all her children Mildred, but it doesn't mean the name is making a come back.

              Now there I've got more sympathy for your argument, especially as I tend to take umbrage with those that insist that Linux == Mint. And I've taken plenty of umbrage.

            2. Teiwaz

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "Technology illiterate people wouldn't even be able to select a distribution, never mind install one. They'd not have a clue where to find drivers, or how to configure the OS once they'd got it loaded. Patching? Won't happen. Securing? Won't get done."

              Not necessarily, technology illiterate people have just as complex minds as the technology oriented, quite capable of jumping over the complexity as a shortcut through. They'll shrug and pick a distro they like the sound of/logo of or recognised hearing the name of.

              Installation is also fairly straight forward, most distros default to sharing a machine with windows, rather than egoistically wiping like a windows install/reinstall/reset does.

              Where to find drivers? In most cases they won't even have to look. Most Linux distros do a very good job of setting up the drivers for the hardware, provided it's not some esoteric piece of kit or fresh off the new product line the Linux kernel should run it just fine.

              Linux is never going to be a mass market OS in desktop form, almost ubiquitous in offices and homes, it's a general purpose OS. The mass market user is better served with something like ChromeOs, which is the kiddie pool to GNU/Linux.

              The whole 'year of linux on the desktop' was a a challenge to focus developers on the desktop usability for the mass market, not as a sale target.

              1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

                Re: Linux distros etc

                "Not necessarily, technology illiterate people have just as complex minds as the technology oriented, quite capable of jumping over the complexity as a shortcut through. They'll shrug and pick a distro they like the sound of/logo of or recognised hearing the name of."

                No they will not. It's not that their minds are not complex enough. They do not want to use their minds (and time) on subjects like that. Period. They don't care because they don't want to care, and you can't make them. They are not aware of the fact that they are using computers all the time (aka phones, tablets, consumer electronics, cars, etc) - and even if they were aware of that they still would not care.

            3. Chemist

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "They'd not have a clue where to find drivers,"

              May I break it to you gently - I've not had to look for drivers using Linux for years The distros come with a vast array of drivers and install the relevant ones.

              1. KeithR

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "May I break it to you gently - I've not had to look for drivers using Linux for years The distros come with a vast array of drivers and install the relevant ones."

                Which is great - IF YOU KNOW THAT AND KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. Which by definition means you're not the people we're talking about.

                1. Chemist

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "Which is great - IF YOU KNOW THAT AND KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. Which by definition means you're not the people we're talking about."

                  I hate to point it out to you that that is exactly the point - you don't have to know - why should you !

            4. Anonymous Coward
              Happy

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              @Lucrelout - No, I'm simply telling you of my experience. When I was helping people with Windows boxen,I used to get many calls for support with various issues. With Linux boxen - very very few. Granted, that;s old Windows vs newer Linux, now, but even so. And some of the anti-Linux arguments given here and elsewhere are, frankly silly, because they;re contrasting pre-installed Windows given to people vs getting same people to download and install Linux. It'd be no better, I contend, if it were Linux pre-installed vs Windows downloaded - and probably actually worse (no reboots with Linux, and a good Linux distro install is now slick. I cannot comment on Windows installs as I havent done one for a few years now, and bow to the experience of those who have).

              And I have not pushed Mint on anybody, for your info. I simply responded to a call for help from folk having problems with their Windows PC, thinking they needed to buy a new one, and already aware of issues regarding Windows 10 before they asked me for help. I really don;t care if this is 'the year of teh Linux desktop' or not - I just know that I'm hearing more rumblings against MS from the non-techies out there than ever before, and a greater willingness to look at alternatives - and when they DO look at alternatives, they seem to be happier. (this includes a work colleague that decided to go Apple, incidentally, mainly because she'd decided t do without a desktop PC. Fair enough!)

              Up until Windows 10 came along, had someone really wanted me to install some version of Windows on a PC for them, I would have happily done so - but I absolutely will not help anyone install Windows 10 because I could not in good conscience do so. But I'm not going to criticise someone for using it if that's what floats their boat. I might wonder about their sanity, but hey, we're all mad here, no? :-}

            5. wayne 8

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "find drivers" "configure OS" - Have you any personal experience with Linux Mint in the last five years?

              1. Chemist

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "Have you any personal experience with Linux Mint in the last five years?"

                Or indeed other distros - in my case SUSE/OpenSUSE since , oh, ~1998

            6. Pookietoo

              Re: They'd not have a clue where to find drivers

              You must be thinking of Windows - any Linux I've installed over the past few years hasn't required finding drivers - they were all included and ready to run.

            7. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              You must surely be a Microsoft troll. I have been running Linux for 10 years now and it has given me

              no more grief than Windows did. In fact Linux has come to my rescue more than once when Windows

              trashed the filesystem. The worst thing about Linux is the fact that the word processor(s) and spreadsheets cannot emulate the Microsoft offerings 100%. However, part of that problem can be laid firmly down to the fact that Microsoft didn't want to play nicely with anyone else due to its predatory nature and therefore the open source guys had to backward engineer any proprietary code/specs.

              Windows treats people like idiots, Linux treats people as if they had some intelligence. An idiot is just as likely to get in to trouble when Windows fails them (which it will at some point) as they are with Linux.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "Windows treats people like idiots, Linux treats people as if they had some intelligence. An idiot is just as likely to get in to trouble when Windows fails them (which it will at some point) as they are with Linux."

                Because--Guess What?--90% of computers users ARE idiots. They expect solutions as easy as turning the key in the door or the car. Microsoft has to cater to the idiot whose first complaint basically amounts to "Da Intanetz iz brokez" and thinks the computer is turned on and off from the monitor (hey, that's how the TV works), a keyboard hangs on a wall, and a mouse eats cheese.

          3. IsJustabloke
            Facepalm

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            "I don't know what you;re smoking, Lucrelout, but my experience says entirely different - getting close to double figures..."

            So nine people eh? yep that's me sold!

          4. GrumpenKraut

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            > It's Windows gives yer average user grief, not Linux.

            They do something that is much worse and often overlooked: people get used to unstable bloated dysfunctional crapware and assume that this is NORMAL.

            1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              Well, technically, from the viewpoint of statistics it IS normal. (Bit like Leibnitz' 'best of all worlds', really. Far from perfect - but that's all there is. Sorry for the inconvenience...)

          5. John 110

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            @ Esme "Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance"

            Here, I'm in my 60's and I've got LXLE on my hacked Acer chromebook (scariest bit was stuffing tinfoil into a tiny socket on the mainboard so I could reflash the BIOS)!! That's just ageist, that is!!! Young people today...(wanders off muttering.....)

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              @John 110 (grins) not really - close to my own 60th! I should have said 'a non-computery couple in their 60s'. Apologies, mea culpa :-) Have an upvote from me!

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "Here, I'm in my 60's... Young people today"

              So you're a youngster.

          6. Wensleydale Cheese
            Happy

            Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

            "Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance..."

            LOL!

            Many over-60s went through the hell of fighting with DOS config files and Windows 3/3.1.

            Don't underestimate the technical skills of that generation.

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

              "Many over-60s went through the hell of fighting with DOS config files and Windows 3/3.1."

              Come to that, just who were those who were the first to take up those 8-bit jobbies and put them to real use back in the '70s and how old are we now? Big clue - it wasn't our kids with the Beebs and Spectra; they came along later.

            2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

              Re: Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

              "Many over-60s went through the hell of fighting with DOS config files and Windows 3/3.1.

              Don't underestimate the technical skills of that generation."

              ^Exactly! Getting an XT-compatible box to accept that you had swapped one of the two 5.25" 360kB floppy drives for an 3.5" 720kB drive and put in a 20MB HDD could take some time.

              Reminded me of a line from 'Titus': "Once you've driven your drunk dad to mom's parole hearing - what else is there?"

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          "Users left to secure Linux and keep it up to date on their own would make an even worse job than they did with Windows"

          You may have seen somebody running Linux updates and thought that because they didn't have to wait half an hour for downloads and reboot three time that it had failed. You were wrong.

          1. LucreLout

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            You may have seen somebody running Linux updates and thought that because they didn't have to wait half an hour for downloads and reboot three time that it had failed.

            Erm, no, not exactly. I have Linux running in VMs (Kali, and Ubuntu) at home that I use for various tasks, and I'm quite comfortable with that. If you think that translates into a technology illiterate person being able to use it, then you're delusional. At best they'd end up running everything as root, with a lot of stuff they don't need left starting up, and the chances of their keeping it all up to date would be even lower than with Windows.

            Patching on Win 10, because its so *cough* granular and frequent, rarely requires a reboot and never takes long to start up. I've been running it for months now and on 7 year old i3 hardware with spinning rust, it *never* takes more than a minute to restart. On a modern computer it would be a lot faster.

            The reason users have long start up times is because of all the crap they install. That doesn't change when you change the OS.

            1. Mark 110

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              I tried switching to Linux (Mint) again the other day but had to give up after a few hours. Some basic stuff that Windows just does was an utter ball ache. Not worth the effort.

              Its not Linuxes fault its just that the software / drivers aren't available and often if they are available aren't packaged in a nice friendly way. I used to be a bit techie (Cisco networking mostly) but really can't be arsed any more - your average never been techie user is never going to be arsed unless Linux is all packaged up nice and friendly like Android.

              Current issues to be fixed for me to switch:

              - nice easy way of getting the auto screen rotate for my Lenovo Yoga working

              - nice easy to install media server that will run in the background for streaming sound and video off the hard drive

              - a Linux version of the Garmin Connect software I use very often (yes I know it might work in a Windows emulator but thats beside the point and whether it will run as a nice little background service that just does what I need it do whenever I am in the room is another matter)

              - MS Office - yes I know the alternatives. Not interested. Its bad enough working out where they have hidden stuff in the Office interface sometimes without having to learn a new one. And last time I tried to do a trivial thing with a PivotTable in one of the other spreadsheet programs it just wasn't capable (this was about 10 years ago though). And yes I know I can run the Office webapps in the browser - might be a passable solution if the other stuff can be fixed.

              I would like to switch. Linux seems to be a better OS. I just can't get off the ground without getting annoyed about the compromises I have to make.

              1. GrumpenKraut

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                > ...unless Linux is all packaged up nice and friendly like Android.

                Gasp! I really do not think Linux is right for you.

                > MS Office - yes I know the alternatives. Not interested.

                So stay with it!

              2. Rol

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                Even Luddites, had to agree, that learning how these new fangled machines worked, would help to better destroy them, rather than ignorantly scratching at the paintwork for hours.

              3. Timo

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                >> - nice easy to install media server that will run in the background for streaming sound and video off the hard drive

                Go get Plex. It comes as an installable package for Mint, and it streams wonderfully to just about any device. I've got it on a laptop serving up files to various Roku boxes through the house.

                Best way to get into Linux may be to download Mint and load it onto a spare laptop that you can use to surf the web and get acclimated, then you may discover how much or how little you need Windows.

                I do understand the switching anxiety, but then there are many other apps out there that are available on Linux that work, that require a lot of hassling to get them working in a Windows environment.

                1. Mark 110

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  Ta - will give it a go. Just the screen rotate to sort now.

              4. Captain DaFt

                Hey, I can play "Linux Sux" too!**

                "I tried switching to Linux (Mint) again the other day but had to give up after a few hours."

                I too, have suffered heart break from Mint.

                When I switched to Mint from my old distro*, it was the first distro I'd used in years that violated my old benchmark of "15 minutes from iso to web surfing".

                Pesty thing took nearly half an hour! Intolerable, I tells ya!

                Then it had the unmitigated gall not to have SeaMonkey in its repository... Took me another whopping 5 minutes to get it installed from Mozilla's website and set up with all my favorite add-ons.

                It was HELL!!, I tell ya!

                By the time I had it set up to my liking, I'd wasted nearly an hour of my life that I'll never see again!

                >sputter - fume<

                Why I could have simply booted Windows for the first time, and had hours of free time to do what I wanted while it endlessly updated and rebooted, preparing my computer for a Win 10 upgrade that I'd've had to try to roll back to something useful.

                >More outrage noises<

                Why if it weren't for the fact it works perfectly on my computer, I'd trash it in a second!

                *A hardened version of Racy Pup. Maintainer retired, and last year its repository was finally deprecated. No more updates, getting insecure, so I had to take it "to a farm in the country".

                **Post may contain slight traces of snark. Use carefully.

                1. Alistair
                  Pint

                  Re: Hey, I can play "Linux Sux" too!**

                  @ Captain Daft:

                  For 30 seconds there I was thinking you came over to the darkGentoo side.

              5. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "And last time I tried to do a trivial thing with a PivotTable in one of the other spreadsheet programs it just wasn't capable "

                There are so many easy to use, free database programs nowadays that if you are using a spreadsheet and doing pivot tables you are almost certainly doing it wrong. And yes, I do include the free versions of SQL Server, which are easy to use and capable, as well as MySQL and PostgreSQL.

              6. heyrick Silver badge

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "Some basic stuff that Windows just does was an utter ball ache."

                I tried Ubuntu on an older P4 box. It started nicely, it looked quite good. That Unity shit was shit but I'd expect I'd get over the lack of a "here are your programs" menu and figure out how it does stuff.

                The killer though was sound. The PC, an HP Compaq of some sort, has some sort of special audio chip inside. Standard Windows could beep, and a simple driver download makes it all work nicely. Linux, on the other hand, appears to have detected the hardware correctly (after downloading a system information tool as the bloody distro comes with loads of things but no UI tool capable of telling you what hardware is attached (the one that was there basically said "this is a computer" and offered no specifics). Problem was, no sound. Not a muffled meep. Nothing. Smiley face with the audio test tool, but no sound. No button for help. And with the iPad in one hand and the machine's keyboard in the other I searched for what might be going wrong. Result? A lot of gibberish that didn't make sense, plenty of arcane things in the command line (some of which didn't work), an expectation that it's a doddle to edit files using vi, and ultimately nothing to say whether this is a simple configuration issue or the driver just doesn't work with my hardware.

                Back to Windows. As many have said, it is far from perfect, but getting sound in XP took me about two minutes. Later versions probably have the driver already built in. I swapped the CD-ROM for a spare DVD-R drive so can now watch movies on the machine. That's what I want to do, not beat my head off the wall.

                This may be that this is a very simple thing to fix, that's more than can be said for the process of trying to get useful information on how to do so.

            2. GrumpenKraut

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              A "technology illiterate person" will never be able/willing to do nontrivial things with a computer.

              Any attempt to change that will end in tears. You try, you cry.

              1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "A "technology illiterate person" will never be able/willing to do nontrivial things with a computer."

                I'd even go further than that. IME it's always the 'not willing' bit, and it starts at the trivial things. But then, that's the mindset that keeps them illiterate technology wise.

                @Grumpenkraut: given your handle, you know "Ich kann nicht wohnt in der Ich-will-nicht-Straße", don't you?

                1. GrumpenKraut

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  > ... it's always the 'not willing' bit, ...

                  Yes, with very few exceptions.

                  > ... "Ich kann nicht wohnt ..."

                  Exactly!

                2. Andy Davies

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  Excuse me! - could you direct me to the non-win-v-linux comments please?

            3. Teiwaz

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "At best they'd end up running everything as root, with a lot of stuff they don't need left starting up, and the chances of their keeping it all up to date would be even lower than with Windows."

              There was rather a lot of 'run as root' confusion back when Lindows was a thing from new users, some of them seemed to want to gksudo everything(or whatever was the tool at the time, might have been a precursor to gksudo). If you've used the Ubuntu installer, youll notice root isn't even assigned with a password on the installer, it sets sudo access up for you.

              I've met a couple of Ubuntu users who didn't even know what 'sudo' meant, or 'apt' as they'd never used the terminal, content to let the update dialog pop up every so often and ask for their password to update the system.

              As for installing crap, that is a universal constant (at least you can argue they are being curious and trying something new), last time I used windows though, (XP) almost everything installed seemed to load something into the system tray and want to add itself to autostart. Things may have changed on Windows, but linux has never had quite the same issue.

            4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "At best they'd end up running everything as root"

              Ubuntu and its derivatives require a certain amount of config fiddling (?confiddling) to run as root. I don't thing your postulated IT-illiterates would get there unaided.

            5. Alistair
              Windows

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              "The reason users have long start up times is because of all the crap they install. That doesn't change when you change the OS.

              Actually LL, *that DOES* change. The crapware, malware, toolbars, browser addons and junk, at least for the moment, due to attitudes like yours, just doesn't exist in the linux context. Certainly - its *far* easier on my 9 year old's linux system to keep him from killing the system.

              Three quarters of the $h17 I have to rip out of mangled windows installations is stuff the end user downloaded and installed trying to get to ... free porn .... free music ... free movies ... bull$h17 driver updates from spamsites etc. 99% of the virus infections I've cleaned up in the last 4 years have been due to "driver update" sites injecting god knows what else into their javascript launched ASP.

        3. Stoneshop
          Linux

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          A shrinking market isn't about to convert over to a different OS to save a hundred bucks when the one they have patches itself.

          Whether or not they'll save a hundred Euros tends to count less than not having to unbork (especially when having to pay someone else to do so) that "auto-upgrading" OS. Tends to get old the third or fourth time.

          And auto-update is what Linux does substantially better and faster (both having updates available, and performing them) than Windows, whose speed makes glaciers look positively frisky.

        4. GrumpenKraut

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          > The home PC is fading, ...

          I do all my work on my PC. Give me a shiny phone or tablet any time if you want to watch it being thrown out of the window.

          I do not know a single person doing serious programming on a system without keyboard, do you?

          1. John Sanders
            Holmes

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            Family members and friends choosing the laptop over the tablets or the mobile to watch youtube videos, browse Farcebook and use webmail gave me a good impression on how much of a FAD the tablet thing was.

            Not to mention kids trying to do any kind of homework.

            As per me, I only use the phablet for two-three purposes, the rare voice calls, browsing/reading on the train, and playing the odd game when bored and not having a computer close.

            1. David Nash Silver badge

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              Homework. This. It seems to be universally expected that kids can "research" online and produce printed documents. I dare say schools will accept alternatives but this is why people do still use PCs rather than tablets.

          2. LucreLout

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            @GrumpenKaraut

            I do all my work on my PC. Give me a shiny phone or tablet any time if you want to watch it being thrown out of the window.

            I do not know a single person doing serious programming on a system without keyboard, do you?

            I too do all my work on a PC. And no, I don't know a single person doing serious programming on a system without a keyboard either.... but then, 99% ish of home users aren't doing serious programming; They aren't even building Android fart apps, they're just browsing the web.

        5. Code For Broke

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          @LucreLout: you didn't happen to write your message from an Android or ChromeOS device, did you?

          I'd tollerate an argument that desktop at large is dead. But the remainder of your argument is just plain ignorant.

          1. LucreLout
            Boffin

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            @Code For Broke

            I'd tollerate an argument that desktop at large is dead. But the remainder of your argument is just plain ignorant.

            That you can't follow the argument doesn't mean that it is the argument that is ignorant. Try a mirror.

        6. Chemist

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          "As technologists we can, and in some cases do, use Linux on a desktop properly and without significant problems."

          As scientists and academics we do use Linux on a desktop properly and without significant problems - and have done for years !

          1. Chemist

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            I note that MS shills are really very slow on the uptake

        7. Fihart

          Re:Updates

          Quite the reverse on patches. One of the things that most impressed when trying Linux was how quickly and painlessly it updated. Certainly, compared with Windows where the only option sometimes is to switch off disruptive and lengthy automatic updates.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Re:Updates

            Yesterday I was the local University where someone was about to demonstrate QGIS. He had a W10 laptop. Switched on to wake it up & it started the spinning thing. So he rebooted & again went into the spinning bit, eventually rebooted & started properly. Presumably it had latched onto the local wireless network and found some updates. What's the point of trying to do something like run a demo on a platform like that. As it happens I run QGIS on this Debian laptop which, if I wanted to do so, would be able to run updates in the background without interfering with the foreground, would certainly not tie it up unasked at startup time and wouldn't force a reboot as part of the process.

        8. Stevie

          4 LucreLout.

          "The home PC is fading, being replaced with one tablet or another, that either updates itself or simply never gets patched."

          Not in any home in which the creation of stuff is the reason for having the device in the first place it ain't. TYhe form factor too small, the "cloud or nothing" storage/interchange untrustworthy and the software toylike at best and a joke at worst.

          Apropriately, ths is my second attempt to post this from my iPad. Using the soft keyboard induced my repetitive stress issues, I fat-fingered a key and the entire page vanished at "untrustworthy". I had to deploy a third-party bluetooth keyboard to get the job done reliably. awkward and a waste of time.

          Everybody howls about IE. I'm the only bugger howling about how naff Safari on iPad is.

        9. DainB Bronze badge

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          Have an upvote. Anyone non-IT professional who uses Linux desktop does not really need any desktop at all, they will be happy if their device boot directly to Firefox and automatically logins to facebook.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            "Anyone non-IT professional who uses Linux desktop does not really need any desktop at all, they will be happy if their device boot directly to Firefox and automatically logins to facebook."

            Shows your grasp of the topic !

          2. Chemist

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            "Anyone non-IT professional who uses Linux desktop does not really need any desktop at all"

            What an extraordinary claim. Almost all the people I know personally who use Linux desktops are NOT IT professionals but are scientists & academics. The reasons are complex but the simplest is that a lot of scientific software was written for UNIX and has been ported to Linux. The subsequent ports have been improved, extended and adapted to newer hardware. The other major reason is the availability of compilers/interpreters for a range of languages as a lot of scientific software is written/adapted by scientists for peer consumption.

            If you doubt the existence of commercial software of a highly complex nature for Linux can I suggest :

            http://www.schrodinger.com/Maestro/gallery

            http://www.schrodinger.com/supportedplatforms/

            http://www.schrodinger.com/products/

            It's even (mostly) available for Windows these days

            1. DainB Bronze badge

              Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

              Thanks, you just proved my point that noone in the real world needs Linux on desktop.

              1. Chemist

                Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                "Thanks, you just proved my point that noone in the real world needs Linux on desktop."

                Your view of the real world obviously is at odds with mine.

                Apart from the scientific angle I use Linux for everything I do. RAW photo development/editing, video editing, PIC programming (MPLAB works perfectly in WINE) and now there is a Linux version anyway, and all the usual stuff - except I don't use cr*p like Facebook (sob !) but e-mail, browsing, Google Earth, LibreOffice, VirtualBox and lots of other stuff.

                In fact I can't understand your problem - why would you want everyone to use Windows ?? What's it to you ?

                1. DainB Bronze badge

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "In fact I can't understand your problem - why would you want everyone to use Windows ?? What's it to you ?"

                  You can't understand the very simple fact - is that Linux Desktop is a collection of incompatible libraries, wildly and poorly designed applications that do not follow any UI concepts and do not work with each other (take universal copy-paste between all apps as a most vivid example of that).

                  There's no Linux vs Windows. If Windows disappeared today Linux Desktop will still remain to be exactly the same crap as it was for last 20 years until someone with brains, experience and lots of money completely redesigns pretty much everything.

                  1. Chemist

                    Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    "You can't understand the very simple fact - is that Linux Desktop is a collection of incompatible libraries, wildly and poorly designed applications that do not follow any UI concepts and do not work with each other"

                    As I've used Linux since 1996 I don't need anyone to give me a lesson. I use it all the time for everything both professional and personally - I don't find the problems you seem to think exist - all the applications I use cut & paste fine together - partly because I use the same desktop environment and partly because I make sure I use the best applications for my purposes. I had to seriously try to think of an example that didn't work - and all I could think of was an old vector editor I used until a few years ago when I started using Inkscape.

                    Do you really imagine having worked all my life in a high-powered scientific environment I'd be wasting my time fiddling with something not fit for purpose. I'm perfectly happy using Linux, so are many other people so basically mind your own.

                    I repeat - why would you want everyone to use Windows ?? What's it to you ?"

                  2. Richard Plinston

                    Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    > and do not work with each other (take universal copy-paste between all apps as a most vivid example of that).

                    Why do you think that copy and paste does not work between applications ? There are even clipboard tools that allow selection of the last few clips (klipper, glipper, etc).

                    The last time I heard of that shortfall it was Windows Phone 7.

                    It seems that was "a most vivid example" of your ignorance about Linux.

                2. DainB Bronze badge

                  Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                  "Apart from the scientific angle I use Linux for everything I do. RAW photo development/editing, video editing, ...."

                  Yep, that's all list of apps that do not have anything to do with Linux at all and can be run on Windows just as good. Thank you for proving my point that no one really needs it to be Linux.

                  1. Chemist

                    Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

                    " Thank you for proving my point that no one really needs it to be Linux."

                    Apart from a few specialist programs that might well be true - it's just that some of us find it a far superior environment. After all I have to go to the 'trouble' of building my own desktops aand servers and hunting out laptops that are OS free and then installing LInux and it's all still worth it for me.

                    Most people don't need Windows in that to quote LucreLout below "but then, 99% ish of home users aren't doing serious programming; They aren't even building Android fart apps, they're just browsing the web."

                    (Not my figures and I don't happen to agree either.)

                    I repeat - why would you want everyone to use Windows ?? What's it to you ?"

        10. Loud Speaker

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          Linux is doing fine on desktops already. Windwoes not so much.

          Linux is the preferred desktop for most of my family who are not Mac users. My barely literate sister-in-law says she cannot use Windows and has had me put Ubuntu with Gnome Classic on her laptop for over 5 years.

          Several colleagues have Windows on their laptops, but are no longer able to use them, and have got their old Win7 desktop out of the cupboard to get stuff done.

          The only people I know who play games use a Wii of their Android phone.

          1. DainB Bronze badge

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            "Linux is doing fine on desktops already. Windwoes not so much."

            Send me the list of stuff you're own. In the real world Linux shares of desktop OS actually shrunk in 2015, despite some extraordinary claims that "everyone I know" is switching from Windows 10 to Mint. Must be you don't know that many people, eh ?

        11. Jelder

          Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

          My current big bugbear with Linux (on Ubuntu at the moment) is that something that should be easily doable through the GUI is generally done on CLI.

          I know there are good reasons for using a CLI. But manually copying an esoteric command character by character from a help forum to do something simple is stupid. Unless you are a frequent user, the CLI is much slower, harder to use and less precise.

          Compare a windows user support page with a similar level question for Linux, and for the average user the windows one will be easier to follow. Even stupidly simple things like creating a permanent file share generally require memorising or looking up commands - while in a GUI I know it's to do with drives, I can look there and find a menu item to do it - I don't need to memorise anything.

          Linux will not go mainstream until it is easy to use for people that don't use it often, and are not interested in learning how to use a CLI at all.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            "Linux will not go mainstream until it is easy to use for people that don't use it often, and are not interested in learning how to use a CLI at all."

            Suggest you try a distro where everything can be done by GUI like OpenSUSE - use a Live-USB or Live-DVD to try it without modifying your present system

          2. Richard Plinston

            Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

            > Even stupidly simple things like creating a permanent file share generally require memorising or looking up commands

            Samba comes with SWAT, the GUI for configuring such things, and has done for many years. Just look in the menu system.

            There are other GUIs that will configure Samba, such as GAdmin or Webmin, which also configure many other servers and systems, and can do so remotely if required.

      2. LordShinnyhead

        Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

        Sure. I'm in the industry and I know hardly anyone who can be arsed with Linux

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

      I was going to write about 10 technologies but I got bored after writing the first five.

      1. Charles Manning

        re: I got bored...

        depressed more like.....

        I grew up in the 60s and 70s when people had a very up-beat view of the future. Flying cars before 2000 and all that.

        And here we are 16 years AFTER 2000 and we're supposed to get excited because our toaster will tweet the washing machine via IoT.

        This failure to deliver makes the F35 programme look like a huge success.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Linux on the desktop

      WorksForMe

      1. kryptylomese

        Re: Linux on the desktop

        Already here and everyone in my family have been using it for years and I am not getting any support issues from them.

        Try it for yourself - just download an easy distro e.g. Ubuntu or Fedora.

        Or carry on using Microsoft's shite and wonder why your employment prospects are reducing because you can only go so far as a "desktop" guy and companies have switched to Linux servers.

        1. Chika

          Re: Linux on the desktop

          Already here and everyone in my family have been using it for years and I am not getting any support issues from them.

          None? None at all? I've been using Linux for many years now and I can honestly say that it has not been a completely bug-free life. No operating system ever is.

          Try it for yourself - just download an easy distro e.g. Ubuntu or Fedora.

          Umbongo maybe. Fedora... well I won't stop you but it is known to be a bleeding edge distro.

          Or carry on using Microsoft's shite and wonder why your employment prospects are reducing because you can only go so far as a "desktop" guy and companies have switched to Linux servers.

          That's a bit short sighted, methinks. Whatever you may find is your preference, at present the market is filled with users of all types. I should know considering that I'm searching right now!

          The biggest problem is that the world is full of mis-information and FUD, Linux, Microsoft or Apple included.

        2. Dexter

          Re: Linux on the desktop

          I tried Linux on the desktop for a while.

          Then I discovered all the things which almost worked, but not quite.

          Like printing photos.

          Syncing music to an iPod.

          Editing Word documents.

          and on and on and on.

          Got a Mac and things 'just worked'. All the good thing about Linux (Unix under the hood with all the usual command line tools), without the shitty UI and half-broken tools that never quite do what you want.

          Linux is great for servers. Use it all the time for that. With a command line interface.

          Linux as a desktop is always almost there, but not quite ready yet.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. John Bailey

      Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

      Because only insecure windows fanboys care what OS other people use..

    5. Wade Burchette

      Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

      Linux will become mainstream when, and only when, businesses start to switch to it en masse. When the businesses start to use it, more programs will be made for it. And the businesses will start to train their employees on how to use it. After that, when the employees go to look for a computer, they will want one like the one they were trained on at work.

      Large businesses are where it is at. Lose them, and they lose the war. The majority of home users will just buy what they are used to at their jobs, and Microsoft knows that. The problem is, with Windows 10, Microsoft is angering many businesses.

      Will it be enough anger to switch to Linux? I don't know. I am very confident that if the anger over Win10 is not enough to push businesses away, then the stupid inept leadership at Microsoft will do something else to make people angry. If I burgle your home and you don't call the police, then that just gives more confidence to do it again to you. SatNad is smart but not wise. He will keep making people angry at Microsoft over different issues and eventually the dam will break. This is not inevitable. SatNad could become wise by listening to people more experienced in the real world than he or he could be fired, sacked, canned, or let go. The thing about predictions is that they are hard, especially about the future.

    6. LucreLout
      FAIL

      Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

      Ok, so I've done a bit of up to date research on this...

      8 different downloads for mint, with both 32bit and 64bit architectures for each. Users frequently have no clue of their processor architecture so its already odds on that this is going to go wrong, but lets assume they get this right.

      And we hit our first snag. According to mint:

      "Proprietary drivers such as the ATI or nVidia drivers are easy to install but not installed by default."

      Video driver failed to load, sound driver failed to load. I'm sure someone suggested this wouldn't happen, but on an 8 year old Dell Studio, it very much has happened.

      Updates no faster than win 10 and given I just downloaded the latest image theres stacks of updates to apply. Actually, this is taking significantly longer than Win 10 because at the time of writing it is still running.

      Language packs are missing and defaulted to US.

      This is a very long way away from being as slick to install and configure as Win 10. I know that will upset the fanbois, but that will mostly be because deep down they know it to be true.

      At this point I'm not even going to look further for the purposes of this post, because we're already way beyond what a typical home user can be expected to do. LotD isn't coming this year, and that is just a verifiable fact.

      1. Richard Plinston

        Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

        > "Proprietary drivers such as the ATI or nVidia drivers are easy to install but not installed by default."

        That doesn't mean that you won't get a driver for an ATI or nVidia card, you will get the open source one. Either they don't have the rights to include the proprietary one or they don't want to because it isn't open source.

        > Language packs are missing and defaulted to US.

        When I recently installed Mint it knew where I was and set the appropriate locale. What did you do wrong ?

  2. muddysteve

    Life's too short...

    to wash sleeping bags.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    6. Windows 10

  4. Known Hero
    Thumb Up

    4G is like a politician’s promise: they tell you that you’ve got what you haven’t, and for proof they show you someone else has it instead.

    This is the BEST description I have ever heard!

    Thank you

    1. jason 7

      Yeah 3G was supposed to be the data tech to save us all and wasn't.

      4G was then the data tech to save us all and wasn't.

      Forgive me if I pay little heed or excitement to the obvious future 5G revolution.

      The word 'Monorail' springs to mind for some reason.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        There is a working monorail where I live since 1901.

        That aside: spot on!

      2. heyrick Silver badge

        4G was then the data tech to save us all and wasn't.

        Here in rural France, 3G is fairly widespread. I think it comical that I can stand in a muddy field in a place so far from everything that the stars are bright and light pollution is a faint haze around the horizon...and get faster internet to my phone than I can through the wired ADSL. 4G is available in nearby towns, even ones with a population of a mere 3,000 people. It was quite staggering to download a source code archive running to around 300MiB in under a minute. While in the car park of a small supermarket.

        The problem isn't that 4G is bad. The problem is that the telcos in your country pissed away so much money on the spectrum bandwidth that they don't have any cash left for building the infrastructure to actually make it work.

  5. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Trollface

    Year of Linux?

    Sorry - couldn't resist.

    Gah! Beaten to it by LucreLout. It wasn't there when I looked, honest Guv.

    1. Andy Non Silver badge

      Re: Year of Linux?

      While I doubt Linux will suddenly become more mainstream, I was pleasantly surprised in Tesco's magazine section the other day to notice there were two different Linux magazines and only one Windows magazine. Curiously the Windows magazine cover was emblazoned with "50 settings you need to change to make Windows 10 secure". Hmmm.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Year of Linux?

        I'm surprised there was a windows magazine at all.

        Linux people might be interested in reading about their OS, but windows users tend to just launch the application they need to use, and get on with it. The OS is of no interest and should stay out of the way.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Year of Linux?

          @werdsmith - so why, until fairly recently, was teh computing section of WH Smiths awash with Windows-centric magazines, leavened with only teh occasional Linux or Apple one? (looks forward to the explanation...) :-)

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: Year of Linux?

            Not any WHSmiths I've been in in the last 5 years. Xbox mags maybe.

            Enjoy that?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Year of Linux?

              @werdsmith - Yep - you managed to just about side-step your own logical trap. Well done!

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Year of Linux?

        "50 settings you need to change to make Windows 10 secure"

        And that's just this issue. Collect them all, 50 more settings in each issue till the end of the year.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Re: Year of Linux?

        Yes, it's Linux that still needs magazines. You need to know what's the cool, fashion distro for this season now it's Mint, not long ago was Ubuntu, nobody knows what you'll wear, errr, install next Summer. Don't install the wrong one, or they will look at you as if you have an hairstyle from the '80s. You can still be safe if you use some awkward compile-yourself-distro, it will look as if you're an hippy from the '70s, but those was the Unix years so those who fear anything changes from then feel good.

        Then because you can't start to use your computer you need something written on a piece of paper to understand why X doesn't start, and find the cryptic command line that gets rids of the wrong proprietary drivers installed (and somehow sort of pinned in some obscure file in a directory far, far away) and install the non prooprietary ones that support one third of the card features and speed, but at least let you access a GUI.

        Once you got there, you will still be reading magazines to understand how to replace your single applications you were used to be productive with, with at least three Linux ones because no one has the right set of features (and at least one has an unusable GUI) - and the laptop in the lavatory heats your lower parts too much making the magazine a better option.

        1. GrumpenKraut

          Re: Year of Linux?

          > ... cryptic command line ...

          Sure that this "computer thing" is your field of expertise?

          Sounds like like a programmer complaining there is both a unary and a binary +.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Year of Linux?

            People like you should have missed the joke alert icon. But let's be serious.

            Do you believe the average computer user is comfortable with a command line? One issue with Linux fans is they believe every man and every woman on the planet can't see the time to stare at a black windows with some text on it - and dream to be the best sysadmin in the world - by typing two-three letters command with names invented by someone with a strange senses of humor - c'mon, you really need to name something like AWK from the programmers' names?

            I'm comfortable with low-level hardware, software and protocol details (I do write drivers...) - I do not expect most sysadmins to be comfortable with them. I'm comfortable with assembly - but I do not expect even most programmers to be comfortable with it. Nor I do expect most users are comfortable even with high-level programming languages. For most of them a computer is just another tool, and they expect it to be easy to use.

            My aim, as a programmer, is to make that expectation true. Sure, I can deliver them some cryptic command line tool to perform the same task typing a lot o hyphens, strange acronyms and so on, but probably my software would have the same market share Linux on desktop has, even if it is far cheaper than OSX - the latter at least delivers what users expect - ease of use.

            But yes, of course it's just users fault, they shoud do everything from a command line, shouldn't they? Because they are just filthy infidels who shouldn't be allowed to touch a keyboard, right? Only the priests of the penguin know the Truth, right?

            1. Teiwaz
              Meh

              Re: Year of Linux?

              @LDS Did you miss the joke icon on this post?

              It has exactly the same smell of old issues and current FUD as the post that did (which was long winded for a joke - I'd have left it after the first paragraph).

              I've met Ubuntu Linux users who were unaware of basic terminal skills or even terminology (i.e. 'apt') so clearly never used the terminal, never tempted to use it and got along fine.

              I used Ubuntu for a week once without going near the terminal (although I was itching to run apt-get update almost the entire time like a smoker trying to quit itches for a cigarette - I'm probably a 'terminal' terminal addict).

              I have mixed feelings about making Linux easier to use, going by OS-X and ChromeOS, this generally also includes making the moderate tasks harder by the lock down. It'd be nice if there were one distro that nailed it as regards the casual users needs, but for the free distros there is not a lot of return on that and not as much central drive to do it that the likes of Microsoft and apple can exert over their developers/designers. Much of the market this would be aimed at use what's put in front of them so unless you can deliver hardware with your software already on it to them it's wasted effort.

              Android is pretty popular as a non-windows, non-apple OS, Google declare they have no desktop pretensions for it, but others do (remixOS, Android x86), others. ChromeOS is pretty capable for what it does. I don't consider them truly Linux (as in Gnu/Linux) but they are both capable for the casual users needs. Most linux distros focus on the server/desktop or other ethos or target

              Canonical are about the only Linux distro trying to get it's OS direct with hardware currently with a BQ tablet launching sometime April and several developer preview phones out last year, but even they are aiming for niche and not really setting mass market as a goal.

            2. GrumpenKraut

              Re: Year of Linux?

              > Do you believe the average computer user is comfortable with a command line?

              No, of course not. But anybody calling her/himself computer literate should be able to do basic things on the command line. And less basic things if instructions are available.

              Have met a person who claimed to "know Linux" but never heard of cd or ls, had no concept of directory, file, executable, process, (whatever enters your mind)... . This is not "Linux illiterate", it's computer illiterate.

              For some perspective: I have no wish people would migrate to Linux in droves, but rather that more people would have a clue what the fuck they are doing at all.

        2. Teiwaz
          FAIL

          Re: Year of Linux?

          "Yes, it's Linux that still needs magazines. You need to know what's the cool, fashion distro for this season now it's Mint, not long ago was Ubuntu, nobody knows what you'll wear, errr, install next Summer. Don't install the wrong one, or they will look at you as if you have an hairstyle from the '80s."

          Well, I've not bought a linux magazine since I got broadband, and I've not changed my distro in a while either (or my hairstyle). If magazines still help the refugees from the Windows (you know why they call it that now, 'casue they can see right inside your pc) that's great.

          If you're referring to the fashion conscious, you must be thinking of apple customers, not Linux users, as they run the gamut from purists, idealists to realists (and a plethora of other 'ists').

          In fact any fashion conscious linux user has long since bought a Macbook Air (or whatever they call those placemats these days), almost bears out Sam Vimes 'Boots' theory of social inequality, except you can get boots re-heeled but you can't upgrade an apple product.

        3. Rol

          Re: Year of Linux?

          When you turn a computer on, you are then dropped unceremoniously onto a learning curve.

          The ideal is to find yourself at a place on that curve were everything you want to do is at or below that point, or no less than a simple cognitive step up.

          Windows has been around for a long time, and whether purposefully or unwittingly, we have been moving up that curve, usually in small baby step increments.

          The trouble with Linux, for many Windows aficionados, is that the learning curve they have been merrily scrambling up all those years is as much a hindrance than of benefit and finding yourself relegated to noobie at the bottom of a seemingly unscalable cliff face is more than their ego can suffer.

          It is all down to mindset, think learning a foreign language, not jumping into a different car expecting all the controls to be in exactly the same place.

          And hence we have people with absolutely no idea about Linux wanting to jump straight in at the top of the learning curve to perform operations that took them years to achieve in a Windows environment, and complaining bitterly that the OS is a mess as their brain, larger than a planet, has been stifled by "unintelligible" geek waffle.

          You might as well complain that German isn't a proper language, for the simple reason you failed it at O level.

          All that aside, as a simple user, Linux is very, very easy to get started with, it's just those who are expecting to automatically transfer their incredible Windows skills into a Linux environment who are going to be utterly disappointed.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Year of Linux?

          LDS - you're another self-harmer - you don;t need to use the command-line to use Linux. We've covered this already, maybe you're a slow learner? next!

          1. Charles 9

            Re: Year of Linux?

            Well then, where are all the games? No serious gamer would use a Linux desktop because the games aren't there, especially headliners like Fallout 4 (and Bethesda has already come out and said no chance for a native Linux port). Way too many games are Windows-only and WINE-unfriendly, so it's basically Windows or bust.

            1. John H Woods Silver badge

              Re: Year of Linux?

              "Well then, where are all the games? No serious gamer would use a Linux desktop" -- Charles 9

              No serious gamer would use a machine from PC world costing a few hundred quid either --- they're likely to be spending that (at least) on their graphics card(s). If that's out of your budget and you're still a serious gamer you are looking at self-build or buying from a specialist. Whilst I agree (and personally regret) that it's almost Windows or bust for headline games, these are not the kind of users that are being discussed here.

      4. GrumpenKraut

        Re: Year of Linux?

        > "50 settings you need to change to make Windows 10 secure".

        So Windows is getting more user friendly it seems. Remember those books like "The 500 best Windows secrets...". No? Lucky fucker.

        P.S.: next week in the same magazine: "Where you can find the 50 settings now."

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FaceWatch...

    No, but ForeheadWatch - You would be able to keep an eye on the time when talking to the office bore without them knowing...

    1. Adam 1

      Re: FaceWatch...

      eyeWatch?

    2. Quortney Fortensplibe
      Trollface

      Re: FaceWatch...

      Far too practical.

      Spray the plastic to look like brass, glue a few pointless goggles on it and label it the "Lord Zeppelin Magnificent Ocular Chrono-Tron©" –and you can flog them by the box full down your local Steampunk gathering place.

      1. AndrewInIreland

        Re: FaceWatch...

        "your local Steampunk gathering place"

        The Welfare Office?

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: FaceWatch...

          I quite like the idea of combining implanted electrode stimulation of behaviour with Twitter and AngryBirds. For that kind of augmented reality social networking experience that really delivers.

    3. Teiwaz

      Re: FaceWatch...

      "No, but ForeheadWatch - You would be able to keep an eye on the time when talking to the office bore without them knowing..."

      - Not if your were the one wearing it (unless the office bore wears reflective glasses).

      **'If our forefathers had foreplay,

      did they user their foreheads or the forehands?'

      **Just popped into my 'forehead' anybody any idea where the reference is from?

      1. Nixinkome

        Re: FaceWatch...

        @Teiwaz

        "Fore" is the warning shouted on golf courses to signal potentially incoming balls.

  7. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Augmented reality

    I'm sure one of the Here apps on my Lumia phone (winphone 8.1 not 10) does (claims to) AR.

    If I remember, when you held it up in front of you and swung around, then handy(?) labels appeared over the images telling you things such as there was a Mcdonalds in the building in front of you with the red frontage and the yellow arch shapes on the windows

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re: Augmented reality

      If you have coverage, can afford the data plan and can read rather that recognise obvious landmarks.

      AR is pants.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Augmented reality

        The Google Night Sky app is a nice use of AR, helping people take an interest in the sky at night. It will highlight constellations and planets etc.

  8. Yugguy

    1. IoT will go mainstream

    I don't know ANYONE who really gives a toss about smarting their house up. I know I don't.

    2. Wearable tech will find a purpose

    Wearable tech alread has purposes, and has for many years, for instance I've had a Garmin GPS running watch for a good 10 years. GPS/mapping, downloadable to a PC.

    3. Mobile phone companies will roll out 5G

    Finish 4G first perhaps???

    4. Virtual reality hits critical mass

    Maybe in the cinema/commercial entertainment environment. NOT in the average home though.

    5. IT jobs get sexy.

    No, never, ever, ever. Noone will EVER get laid with the line "Hey baby, I'm a data miner."

    1. BasicChimpTheory

      Did you read the article, Yugguy?

      1. Yugguy

        Did I read the article????

        Yes, and I am pretty much agreeing with it. Other people I expect will read it and perhaps disagree with one or more points.

        They may then post their thoughts on the technologies, as I did.

        I believe this is called commenting.

    2. LucreLout

      5. IT jobs get sexy.

      No, never, ever, ever. Noone will EVER get laid with the line "Hey baby, I'm a data miner."

      The only time I've ever been able to tell girls in a club or at a party what I really did for a living was the dot com boom. For the briefest of moments, being a developer was 'sexy' and it did get me laid regularly.

      I quickly went back to telling people I was a typesetter, and my granny (rip) went back to telling the people in her old folks home I was a male stripper, because she thought it was more respectable than working for a bank.

      1. jason 7

        I call myself a 'Digital Lifestyle Rejuvenator'.

        Yeah I fix laptops and get your wedding/baby/selfie photos back.

        1. MonkeyCee

          heh

          I like "marriage guidance counselor" for when someone (usually the chap) has lost the weddingchildbirth pictures/video, or the address book for the christmas card list.

          My guidance is usually that if you had an argument about digitising it, then make damn sure you have regular backups.

      2. Mark 110

        Telling girls I'm an IT Consultant doesn't seem to stop me getting laid. Not entirely sure its the thing thing that clinches the deal though.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "Wearable tech alread has purposes, and has for many years, for instance I've had a Garmin GPS running watch for a good 10 years. GPS/mapping, downloadable to a PC."

      What was your point?

    4. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      @Yugguy

      1. IoT will go mainstream

      I don't know ANYONE who really gives a toss about smarting their house up. I know I don't.

      It really depends on what you mean by smarting their house up, for example:

      I'm quite happy having fitted a light above my front door with a sensor that automatically turns the light on when it's dark and motion is sensed - both the darkness threshold and sensitivity can be adjusted slightly which was a nice touch. In many ways this is "smarting my house up", what it lacks is any form of network connection (I don't give a rat's arse about an Internet connection, just connectivity of some form).

      What I'd quite like is an automatic curtain opening and closing system. Smart enough so bedroom curtains are either only opened manually or at a specific (later) time in the day if they're not open already, but otherwise to open curtains based on sunrise and a configured fallback time of day. This level of smart is pretty much hopeless for locally managed devices (e.g. physical access with buttons and dials - you can image just how disgustingly awkward these would be to configure) , however being able to manage all of the devices using an intuituive interface would be useful. Again, I don't give a rat's arse about this being "Internet" enabled, local network controlled is just fine thanks...

      1. Yugguy

        Re: @Yugguy

        Agreed - by "smart" I mean connected. I too am a fan of closed systems. You can't hack them.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: cracks

          A house where the heating can be switched on remotely is a fine idea. I can get the house warmed up 30 minutes before I arrive home, or I can arrive home and put the heating on and wait 30 minutes for it to warm up. If you don't have a regular schedule then this will work because it's an improvement on the timed thermostat that pre-heats a house for somebody who does have a regular schedule.

          Houses where the lights and other appliances go on and off in a programmed and varying sequence when nobody is home also exist, this is an anti-burglary measure.

          The smartwatch anecdote was pretty poor too.

          Didn't read any further.

          1. Quortney Fortensplibe
            Headmaster

            Re: cracks

            "...I can get the house warmed up 30 minutes before I arrive home, or I can arrive home and put the heating on and wait 30 minutes for it to warm up..."

            Or, you can just wear a jersey in the winter and save yourself several hundreds of <insert currency of choice> in heating costs.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: cracks

              Or, you can just wear a jersey in the winter and save yourself several hundreds of <insert currency of choice> in heating costs.

              I knew someone would try that one.

              Well, I don't have a nest thermo or anything like that. I have timed thermostats like everyone else.

              They are set to come on 30 minutes before I get home, but if I don't come home on time and go out or am delayed then they waste x amount of <insert currency of your choice> in heating costs.

          2. Darryl

            Re: cracks

            "Houses where the lights and other appliances go on and off in a programmed and varying sequence when nobody is home also exist, this is an anti-burglary measure."

            Yes, they're called timers and you can pick them up at the local hardware store. Don't have to plug them into the internet, don't need to install a phone app. Don't have to worry about some kid in Taiwan hacking into them and quadrupling your electricity use while you're out of town.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: cracks

              I don't recall suggesting that they are plugged into the internet.

              They use a smart box to randomise the sequence though, and make it look real as if someone is moving through the house.

              Not really that difficult.

              1. Stoneshop

                Re: cracks

                They use a smart box to randomise the sequence though, and make it look real as if someone is moving through the house.

                This can be achieved simply by keeping a cat and installing a couple of PIR sensors with small lights attached. More random than any security device can aspire to be.

                1. Chemist

                  Re: cracks

                  "This can be achieved simply by keeping a cat ......"

                  Although you are likely to get long periods of total inactivity interspersed with short burst of frenetic activity ( esp. if you have mice)

                  1. Stoneshop

                    Re: cracks

                    That's why I wrote " More random than any security device can aspire to be."

                    Though it might be somewhat impractical if you want to use this for an RNG that needs to be in some kind of portable device.

        2. Stoneshop
          FAIL

          Re: @Yugguy

          I too am a fan of closed systems. You can't hack them.

          Either you meant to write that you can hack them, which is amply demonstrated every single day, or you wrote 'airgapped' in an excruciatingly weird way.

      2. DanceMan

        Re: What I'd quite like is an automatic curtain opening and closing system.

        Me too, wanted this for decades.

      3. Wensleydale Cheese

        LAN connectivity useful, internet not so much

        I don't give a rat's arse about this being "Internet" enabled, local network controlled is just fine thanks...

        Exactly. I can see the point of getting at, say, my central heating via a LAN, but really don't need it connected to t'internet.

        Having had a kitchen which was a long trek from the living room, a remote controlled hob and oven together with monitoring cameras would be infinitely more useful than an internet connected fridge, and nothing more than a LAN connection would be required.

        1. Stoneshop

          Re: LAN connectivity useful, internet not so much

          Having had a kitchen which was a long trek from the living room,

          Checking whether the breadmaker was done, in the kitchen 40m away*, was performed using a truly ancient HP digicam driven by a bit of shellscripting wrapped around a very minimalistic set of camera drivers**. This setup managed one photo per 45 seconds: one for taking the picture, 43 for transferring it to the host (serial at 9600 baud) and one again for deleting the image on the camera. Putting the most recent 200 pics on a local webpage allowed us to view the progress from the living room

          * this was in a former office building.

          ** definitely not written by HP, otherwise they'd be a quarter of a gigabyte for half the functionality.

  9. Franco

    IT is sexy. Just ask IT Recruitment Consultants, who will spout off a huge list of meaningless and made up statistics to prove it.

    Just as I typed that I remembered they are now all called "Talent Acquisition Specialists" which may well be my new favourite definition of turd polishing.

    1. Jay 2

      Nah, they're still IT Pimps to me! Who usually have no idea of what they're talking about...

      1. Franco

        Usually? Have you met an exception that does know what they are talking about, cos I certainly haven't!

        Met more than a few very attractive ones as well, IME the amount of eyelash fluttering I receive is inversely proportional to job appeal though.

    2. Stoneshop
      Thumb Up

      Recruitment consultants

      About half of the ones I have dealt with were rather attractive; one (who apparently was a part-time fashion model) was downright sexy.

      The jobs itself invariably weren't.

  10. Ian 56

    4G

    I get 4G for £10 a month (sim only), on a rolling 1 month contract. All you need is a compatible phone. It would be less if I accepted a lower bandwidth allowance.

    As for coverage it probably helps living in a civilised part of the country.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: 4G

      As for coverage it probably helps living in a civilised part of the country.

      Civilised parts of the country have more interesting things for you to to do than play with 4G phones.

    2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: 4G

      Yeah a Moto G 3rd Gen and a GifGaff PAYG SIM and I pick up 4G fine. When in the rural wilds of Lincolnshire. Farmers, eh?

    3. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: 4G

      I can't be the only person who has their phone set to "prefer 2G" the majority of the time can I?

      Most of the time I'm in or near a building with wifi, and my phone isn't slurping down battery, what's not to like?

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: 4G

        >Civilised parts of the country have more interesting things for you to to do than play with 4G phones

        Er, the point of having a faster connection is that you spend *less* time waiting for your phone to display the information you need, not more.

        >I can't be the only person who has their phone set to "prefer 2G" the majority of the time can I?

        If you have a Sony with 'Stamina Mode', or a newer Android version on any phone, the phone will effectively be in 2G mode whenever the screen is turned off - i.e you'll only receive calls and SMS. It's great.

    4. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: 4G

      Readers may be pleased to learn that yesterday I upgraded my SIM to support 4G. I thoroughly enjoyed my 4G experience, all 2 minutes of it, before it fell back to 3G. I have not seen "4G" next to the signal bars ever since.

      1. Loud Speaker

        Re: 4G

        You probably live in an area with poor reception, like the UK. Here in Nigeria, we get 4G all the time (when we get a signal at all).

  11. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    5G????

    Got a standard for it yet?

    nope...?

    Sorry. Failure.

    As for IT Jobs getting Sexy

    Can I have something of what they are smoking. IT Jobs have never been sexy and IMHO never will.

    Roll on retirement and being able to do something really sexy. Not quite sure what that is though. Answers on a postcard to Mr Dabbs please.

  12. Slef

    "Despite my many enquiries, no phone company is willing to provide me with a 4G upgrade without raising my monthly bill from "affordable" to "insanity" in a single jump."

    Funny that he was so unsuccessful when he contacted the phone companies. I contacted Vodafone when I bought a new 4g phone and reduced my monthly payments by £11 a month, my data allowance was increased to 6Gb and I also got a spotify subscription that would normally cost £10 pcm.

    Lazy journalism methinks

    1. Sooty

      Same here, I have an old android phone that supports it, as does my current iPhone. I get 4g for free, it doesn't cost anymore over the normal 3g/gsm data access.

      I don't exactly live in a big city, or any city, and getting a 4g signal isn't hard. I even have unlimited data and it's not an expensive contract (£16pcm)

      1. jason 7

        I think some of you are just struggling with the 'comedy subtext' that 4G isn't all its cracked up to be.

        That's the point he is trying to make.

        You don't have to take everything he writes as 100% true/accurate/gospel.

        Strewth....Aspergers is a bitch.

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Lazy journalism methinks

      I am lazy and I am a journalist, so you are right on both counts. However, you used the word "methinks", which immediately devalues anything you might say. Avoid this word in future.

      1. BasicChimpTheory

        Re: Lazy journalism methinks

        "Methinks" rather than "Aspergers"?

        Regardless, would upvote FaceWatch if I could. Genius.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lazy journalism methinks

        methinks not, Dabbsy! Then again, I've never claimed to be a proper IT bod like wot most of you lot are! ;-}

      3. dajames

        Re: Lazy journalism methinks

        ... you used the word "methinks", which immediately devalues anything you might say ...

        You might like to know that in a recent survey (that I've just made up on the spur of the moment) "methinks" was voted the 87th most popular word in the category "words that should get out more". I think it's important that we should show our support for these disadvantaged items of vocabulary and help to get them back on their feet and on the road toward full rehabilitation.

        I know I'll be using it a lot more in 2016 ...

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          From Hamlet

          Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

          Polonius: By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.

          Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.

          Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.

          Hamlet: Or like a whale?

          Polonius: Very like a whale.

          'Methinks' is just a different way of writing 'IMO'. There similarity of cloud shapes to other objects is clearly subjective, not objective. Also, Polonius is coming across as a bit of a sycophant.

          1. Blue Pumpkin

            Re: From Hamlet

            Yes but methinks he was dead right about 'cloud computing' ....

            Amazon Weasel Services ..

            Google Whale ..

            Oracle Camel ...

          2. Alistair Dabbs

            Re: From Hamlet

            The passage you quote demonstrates how Hamlet is losing his paranoid marbles at this point. "Methinks" is a different way of writing "I think" while under the wholly false impression that it makes one sound clever. Clearly youthinks otherwise. What do theythinks?

            1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
              Windows

              Re: From Hamlet

              The passage you quote demonstrates how Hamlet is losing his paranoid marbles at this point

              Methinks that interpretation is lacking critical mass in the "sufficiently supported by evidence" department. Hamlet does not need to sound clever and is clearly using standard english practiced by Princes and Kings of Denmark (and their running dog lackeys) worldwide. He is just performing a simple unit test on the Obedient Advisor and reaching a clear 11 on the sycophanticity scale.

          3. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

            Re: From Hamlet

            Oh Dave... 10/10 for bringing out the classics.

            -100000 for bringing clouds into this sunny thread...

      4. MonkeyCee

        Re: Lazy journalism methinks

        Isn't "lazy journalist" a redundant description?

  13. jason 7

    Please not VR...again...

    VR is the tech equivalent of 3D cinema. It gets dusted off every 20 years when ideas run out and a quick blip on the financials is needed.

    I guess we'll see it come around again in 2035. And yes, you'll still look a dick using it.

    1. Boothy

      Re: Please not VR...again...

      The difference this time round is that many people will have a device at home capable of supporting VR. (PC, PS4), or via the cheaper options, such as Google Cardboard and rivals, that use an existing smart phone.

      Previous attempts at VR were too costly, only available in locations like arcades, tech shows etc. and of poor quality.

      I'm not saying this will be the year of VR, but I think this will be the year for early adopters, and as the market grows, which I'm certain it will, more VR developers will jump on board with more interesting applications.

      By 2017, economies of scale will mean the 2nd generation VR devices will be cheaper and more capable, and so will more from early adoption, to more mainstream.

      3D was a gimmick, VR is actually immersive, when done right.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Please not VR...again...

        "3D was a gimmick, VR is actually immersive, when done right."

        Maybe. But you'll still look like a dick using it.

      2. Charles 9

        Re: Please not VR...again...

        But there's still the matter of Simulation Sickness, and that's not going to go away for the same reason seasickness won't go away: because it's biologically-triggered. The very thing that we want to see in VR is the same thing that makes us sick: part and parcel, and the closer to realistic we get, the worse the problem will become.

  14. Timmy B

    4G - Not so bad here

    I get 4G both at work and at home on both EE and Three. EE at work giving me a rather splendid 96meg. My house is right on the edge of a town way down in Zummerzet so that's not too bad at all.

    I'd like to like VR but it makes me ill.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 4G - Not so bad here

      Yeah getting 4G at home and work is awesome. But id like to see it work inbetween.

      I cant take advantage at work...the boss is a dick...and I cant make use at home...my little lad likes to hide my phone.

      So really only the commute is where it makes sense...where currently just getting phone signal is unlikely.

      1. Timmy B

        Re: 4G - Not so bad here

        "Yeah getting 4G at home and work is awesome. But id like to see it work inbetween."

        I have it kind of easy in that respect as I work from home part of the time and my commute never takes more than 10 mins even when I don't.

        I do spend a lot of my time in the woods and wilds (I teach outdoor living skills) and there is often no signal at all.

    2. Timmy B

      Re: 4G - Not so bad here

      Why the down votey? A bit mean of you....

      1. GrumpenKraut

        Re: 4G - Not so bad here

        Someone might be envious.

        [edit: mentioning downvotes round here tends to get you more of them. Oh, wait...]

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 4G - Not so bad here

          @ GrumpenKraut

          You did ask..... ;-)

          1. GrumpenKraut

            Re: 4G - Not so bad here

            Yarp.

      2. Nixinkome
        Meh

        Re: 4G - Not so bad here

        No down votey at the time of writing, Timmy.

        P.S. If B stands for Bear, I'm sorry about Ted:

        http://explosm.net/show/episode/47/ted-bear

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: 4G - Not so bad here

          And there was I was under the impression that effective 4G was as expensive as a geegee

        2. Timmy B
          Pint

          Re: 4G - Not so bad here

          Good Old Ted (sigh). I learned so much from him. He will be missed.

          Pint - for obvious reasons...

  15. Ol'Peculier
    Pint

    I disagree about the central heating IoT - the ability to turn it on if you're going to be home early or stop it turning on if you are going to be late is something that is practical and a money saver. And easler to program than the boxes fitted to most boilers*

    * That's reminded me, the next time I'm having a beer with my landlord I'm going to ask if we can go halves in fitting one.

    1. SkippyBing

      Agreed, i probably don't go straight home from work about the third of the time on an unpredictable basis, so being able to stop the house from pointlessly heating itself up until I'm actually going to be there is saving me a nice chunk of my gas bill. It may even pay for itself in the first year of use.

      1. Boothy

        Same for me. Unpredictable finish times.

        Some (all?) of the IoT type heating systems, can be tied to one or more mobile devices (as well as local movement detection etc).

        If no one is near, or currently approaching home, heating stays off. If it detects you heading towards home, it works out your ETA, and from past data, knows how long it takes to get the house up to temp, and so switches the heating on at the optimal point.

        Likewise, if you leave the house and forget to turn the heating off, it can do it for you.

        I kind of like that, the system would likely pay for itself within a year or two with the fuel savings.

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

          Properly insulate your home, have radiator stats in all rooms and a modern efficient boiler, with a sensibly set up overall day/night timer and you can leave it running all day with negligible increased cost.

          1. SkippyBing

            @Will Godfrey

            So if I spend the money to properly insulate my home, have radiator stats in all rooms and a new boiler, and then figure out how to sensibly set up a timer to accommodate my random-ish schedule I can leave it running all day with negligible increased costs. Or, I could buy a smart thermostat and have decreased running cost. Hmmm, it's hard to know what to go for...

        2. Stoneshop
          Boffin

          Location

          If no one is near, or currently approaching home, heating stays off. If it detects you heading towards home, it works out your ETA, and from past data, knows how long it takes to get the house up to temp, and so switches the heating on at the optimal point.

          Likewise, if you leave the house and forget to turn the heating off, it can do it for you.

          Which means you have a phone that runs an app that blabs your location.

          I don't have one of those; both the first, and ipso facto, the second condition are not fulfilled. It can send an SMS, and a RasPi will then determine if it needs to act on it (no-one at home, house at $low_temp) or not, by signalling the thermostat to select a higher, preset temperature.

  16. Rol

    Sex and violence

    If your product ticks one of those boxes then expect sales to go exponential.

    So for VR i think part of the answer is interactive porn, where no longer are you at the mercy of whoever is holding the camera, as you can pan around the scene and focus on the angles that get you hotter and botherederer. That and finally removing your troops out of the firing line by letting them kick ass from a comfortable AC barracks.

    Lets hope these two "advances" don't get confusingly intertwined in some nightmare snuff scene where Mr Garrison gets his wish to fuck 'em all to death.

    Then again, watching daesh going out in a spectacular bang would be compulsive viewing.

    1. jason 7

      Re: Sex and violence

      Wrong.

      Why? You wont notice when your mum or wife walks into the room while you lay writhing with your phone stuck to your head and also numerous Kleenex.

      "Cup of tea dear? ...Ohhhh your Father will be disappointed...and look at all that distemper on the sofa!"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sex and violence

        I suspect you missed something in recent years.

        We now live in the age of wanking live on the internet.

        There are plenty of people that dont care who walks (or wanks?) in.

        VR porn could work. Though we need to get porn upto 1080p as standard first. Then 60fps...

        1. jason 7

          Re: Sex and violence

          You still have your field of vision with a webcam.

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Sex and violence

      Then again, watching daesh going out in a spectacular bang would be compulsive viewing.

      You can find hilarious videos shot by spotters, choppers or whatever on the Interwebs today, actually. Still in 2D though.

      OTOH, I am still looking for the camera view of the AC-130 that repeatedly bombed an MSF hospital for funs and giggles. Some atrocities are not released early.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "how many arseholes"

    How many arseholes I have WHAT during the course of the day? Then again, given it's SftW, I'm not sure if I want to know...

    BTW. I fully agree with you regarding IoT, Dabbsy.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    6.

    This will be the year teledildonics finally goes mainstream. You'll be able to poke people on Tinder, or whatever.

  19. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Android on the desktop

    I've just read a review suggesting that 2016 could be the year of Android on the desktop. The fact that the installer hadn't been translated from Chinese didn't seem to count as an impediment.

  20. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Don't give Dabbsy too much slack

    I love his writing. But if we let him get away with the 4G gag he's just going to get lazy. Which wouldn't do at all. BTW I get mine from Tesco at no greater charge than my old 3G and it's brilliant,

    OTOH I must admit, while my Tesco (O2) 4G usually works well for me, if I go a mile or two south of home there are places where I might as well try two cans and a length of string - forget 3G even. So Dabbsy's basic point is valid. Before they f**k about with 5G maybe they should be able to get a signal that covers all of North London.

    1. hardboiledphil

      Re: Promises, promises

      I got a free upgrade to 4G on 3 network and at home in the evening I've seen 40mbit speeds up and down - amazing speed!

      2 miles away in one of the financial districts I struggle to get 1mbit and in the new office location I don't even get a signal at all, so it's pretty pointless most of the time.

      You put 100,000 people/phones in a 2km square area and it just doesn't have the throughput it needs on the backend, doesn't matter if it's 3G, 4G or 5G, the higher number just makes you more annoyed it's not working as marketed. Holiday day trips to lightly populated Med' islands show how decent even 3G is when it's not over subscribed.

      Oh and on the IoT... I love the quote I read on t'internet - "my boiler won't turn off because it can't see the internet". I would laugh hard at that except the landlord controls the heating for the flats from his phone....

      1. Chris G

        Re: Promises, promises

        I live on one of the 'lightly populated' Med' islands and I can tell you when there are thousands of you taking and sending selfies of yourselves vomiting outside a club at 4am in the morning, my 3G is crap.

        When hoardes of journos get told by their editors each year to make predictions for the coming year, that very act seems to guarantee that the predictions will never happen.

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Promises, promises

        Holiday day trips to lightly populated Med' islands show how decent even 3G is when it's not over subscribed.

        Might be great on the beach but step off the beaten track (i.e. onto the track that just locals use) and you'll be back down to Edge or they'll claim to give you 3G but they only have the bandwidth for GPRS. There's money in them roaming fees.

  21. dajames

    FaceWatch

    Hmm ... I can't quite work out whether that's "Dabbsy of Borg" or "Mean Machine Dabbsy" ... but if it's the latter I think the dial has slipped.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: FaceWatch

      Upvoted for the Mean Machine reference.

      "Gonna go up to 3 on ya. Oh, it's dropped down to 2G... Edge... GPRS... tin cans with string... stories swapped over a campfire... etc"

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IoT

    During the late 80s/early 90s there was a big push for "home automation". I was on a serious committee which met once a month to eat expensive lunches and think serious thoughts about protocols and interference and whether the signalling could be delivered over the mains without causing the lights on the house next door to turn on and off. It was good fun while it lasted, and then it sank without trace.

    However,something has happened in 25 years that is different. The banks have run out of other ways of stealing our money and have been trying to pump air into tech bubbles. Peak Apple seems to have happened, Peak Twitter has happened. There has to be something new that Wall Street can lever to get the mugs to part with money. Therefore the IoT may be the next tech bubble. Remember, it is not about delivering products that people want; it is about paying yourself an enormous salary to persuade mugs to part with money, followed by presenting them with the 4.7pt "Value of investments may go down as well as up".

    Unless tulips get very, very exciting again or new spices are discovered in the South Seas, I wouldn't put it past IoT to be the Next Big Thing.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: IoT

      I've seen home automation done right, in some very expensive homes. Window blinds in a bedroom, linked to a control panel by the bed, that sort of thing.

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: IoT

        Was it AMX or Crestron - I worked with both in some pretty swanky places during the mid 1990s.

  23. maimonides

    Don't know about others, but wearable (s2 classic) works perfectly for people who spend time in meetings and spends ages on the phone. Quickly and more discreetly reading whatsapp, sms, short emails and being able to hangup quickly makes all the difference.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "people who spend time in meetings and spends ages on the phone. Quickly and more discreetly reading whatsapp, sms, short emails and being able to hangup quickly makes all the difference."

      I wonder if you can get 4G on the B-Ark.

  24. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

    IoT

    I think a lot of the predictions about IoT rest upon how we define IoT.

    Christmas Day I was at a friend's house preparing to enjoy the festive dinner when I realised I had forgotten to program my DVR for later that day. That's a Virgin Media TiVo with a network connection so I whipped out my mobile and programmed it up via that.

    Was that IoT or something else?

    Would it have suddenly become IoT if I had turned my heating up or down instead? Turned lights on or off, or had remotely unlocked the front door and disabled the burglar alarm because a friend had arrived there and wanted to drop a present off, had used the door camera to check they hadn't brought some pals round to ransack the house?

  25. Stoneshop
    Trollface

    IoT

    apps that let me turn on the central heating when I’m not at home

    ITYM 'let anyone turn on, or off,'

  26. P.B. Lecavalier
    Thumb Up

    Dead on!

    IoT: When it survives a cost-benefit analysis, we may reconsider. Wait. We can simplify that to a mere benefit analysis.

    5G: That's exactly what I was wondering. So do we really have 4G now? Really?? It's like IPv6. It's been out for a while. A really long time. We are still waiting.

    VR: I keep hearing that pr0n will make this a big business. You can hide whatever you were looking at by pressing alt-tab. Not so easy to conceal your dark helmet.

    IT jobs sexy: I don't know of many jobs that are sexy. It's easy to be fooled by the "sexiness" of the end result of something (check out TV dramas on lawyers or physicians), not realizing that there is a lot of effort and a fair share of tedious work to do in order to get there. This applies to any serious job. So if your job is sexy, it must be a very easy one.

  27. Chika
    Trollface

    Whut?

    You mean nobody has mentioned the death of COBOL? It's an annual staple! ;)

    1. Zog_but_not_the_first
      Thumb Up

      Re: Whut?

      "You mean nobody has mentioned the death of COBOL? It's an annual staple! ;)"

      DeadCOBOLannualstaple! My new password. Cheers.

  28. Fiddler on the roof

    4G

    I've had 4G for 18 months as have all the other subscribers to my provider. Lots of people have it and it works in any reasonably built up area including London. Unless this comment was tongue in cheek I think its wrong, it certainly doesn't tally with my experience.

  29. Sil
    Devil

    Not sure where you live, I've been using 4G for more than a year, at a decent price, without any freebies. This Christmas in France there were offers as low as 3,99€ per month for 4G subscription.

    When are you launching a kickstarter campaign for your wearable ?

  30. Dr_N

    Low 4G coverage

    Is this a UK only thing?

    And what's the big need for a 5G/4G phone anyway?

    I've got 4G, but only use it on a USB dongle when customer guest WiFi is too onerous to register/connect to.

    The phone is still only a 3G phone and works fine everywhere. Even for streaming radio in the car.

  31. noj

    "...look around at your colleagues and tell me honestly whether you think they’re hot..."

    The field may never be considered sexy or hot but please don't extend it to the people who are in it.

    Sorry to disappoint, but 3 of my female colleagues are among the hottest women I've ever met. Smart, successful, great to work with and easy on the eye. And before you ask: too late they're all happily married and no, I will not tell you where I work.

  32. Bbbbit
    Gimp

    Windows 10 "out of the box" joy.

    The best thing I found about Windows 10 "out-of-the-box" is the way the File Explorer does not work and requires command prompt and a reboot to get it working in every fresh session. As far as "secure" is concerned I would suggest that just the number of viruses out there targeting Windows compared to those targeting Linux would by default make Windows 10 less secure all other considerations aside. We have all had this argument before have we not?

  33. heyrick Silver badge

    This has never been done before. I can't think why.

    It is obvious. The watch face is on the wrong side. Duh.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    4G

    Just to note that I've had 4G here in Scotland for ages, it works, is faster than 3G, and it was a free upgrade with a dirt-cheap contract from tesco

  35. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "smell of unwashed sleeping bags make them sexier than, say, a racing driver"

    Wouldn't the unwashed sleeping bag would smell less than a driver after a 2 hour GP?

  36. Tom 35

    include an app for switching on the light when I’m not in a room

    They already have several, (non-compatible of course) IoT light bulbs, some you can even pick what colour you want to light up the room you are not in. At least for 120V A19 bulbs.

    Maybe they can link them to netflix so your room colour will match the movie you are watching.

  37. Bibbit

    The only decent depiction of VR

    Is in Videodrome. Do that or bugger off.

    1. Dr_N

      Re: The only decent depiction of VR

      eXistenZ FTW!

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

    Is Facewatch(TM) available on Kickstarter yet?

  39. jelabarre59

    > 5. IT jobs get sexy

    If you mean that to say you get screwed on a daily basis, then yes.

  40. Johan Bastiaansen

    6. 3D printing

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ... [wipes away tears] ... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...!

    1. 404

      Re: 6. 3D printing

      Keep saying that ;)

      <awaiting $600 DYI Prusa i3 steel kit as we speak>

  41. 404

    Furniture is not sexy

    However, furniture observes/hears many things that Sexy IT Person never would.

    That, and my sweet style...

  42. LordShinnyhead

    It's all about 'good enough'..

    Lots of people seems to have jumped on the usual 'bash Windows Linux is great' bandwagon.

    For almost everyone, Windows is GOOD ENOUGH. Linux for most is not good enough because it involves hassle, or even just the concept of hassle for most people.

    Take the iPhone. Although the hardware is gorgeous I think the software is awful. But for the vast majority of people it is GOOD ENOUGH.

    In the case of the article, the technologies are not good enough to be taken up en masse or not good enough to stay. For technologies that are supposed to be dying but defy the test of time, they are good enough to do the job (for now).

    1. GrumpenKraut

      Re: It's all about 'good enough'..

      > Linux for most is not good enough because it involves hassle,...

      As opposed to Windows. Yeah, right.

      Keep on tracking patch K826437637 and X897239823984, but leave T765766 alone unless R7628746 is already there in which case F23476276 is another one to watch for.

      1. KeithR

        Re: It's all about 'good enough'..

        "Keep on tracking patch K826437637 and X897239823984, but leave T765766 alone unless R7628746 is already there in which case F23476276 is another one to watch for."

        Turn off automatic updates - problem solved. I haven't let Windows auto update a machine of mine since Win ME, and I've had literally NO problems with the OS. Ever.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It's all about 'good enough'..

          "Turn off automatic updates - problem solved"

          So you're suggesting that the one thing that might keep naive (most) users on Windows safe should be turned off ?

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what do you imagine they’re thinking about you?

    I would imagine they're envisioning how I'd scream as they peeled my face off with a knife, that's how I think about them, so why would they be different?

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Improved battery tech

    Nothing happened there for 10 years. Yes batteries last a bit longer but the power density is still woefully inadequate for most things.

  45. David Roberts
    Coffee/keyboard

    VR

    Will probably never work for me. At least not in games, movies, or anything else fast moving.

    I can't even watch 3D movies in the Imax because my eyes keep telling me the world is moving but my inner ear disagrees. Stomach as arbiter concludes that I have been poisoned and suggests emergency action.

    Icon for me using a VR headset with my PC. ->

  46. s. pam Silver badge
    Facepalm

    "IoT will go mainstream"

    For those brave enough, have a follow of the Twitter account @InternetOfShit.

    That'll turn anyone into a permanent luddite living in a cave in NW Scotland forever!

  47. TeacherMARK

    Spot on... and all very well put.

  48. OldSoCalCoder

    Another idea for wearable tech

    How about a new smartphone - the iPhone 24? You velcro strap a 24 inch touch screen to your bare ass. Pinch & zoom interface (with a little practice), check. 3d touch? Squeeze out a really solid deuce. Siri takes on a whole new dimension. Men will have to wear skirts for modesty reasons, but that's as fashionable as what they're wearing now to carry around an iPhone 6 Plus. Texting while driving - who's gonna know!

    I haven't worked out how you actually see what you're doing yet but those are minor details.

  49. KeithR

    "Because only insecure windows fanboys care what OS other people use."

    Oh dear - so much cod psychobabble in so few words.

    Transferring some of your own OS defensiveness onto others there, John? I've never met a Windows zealot - here it seems to be impossible to get away from Linux zealots: the article covered FIVE things. And what is pretty much the whole comments section about?

    1. Chemist

      " And what is pretty much the whole comments section about?"

      Erh, that'd be replies to Post 1 !

      http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/2754765

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bowing out of this for now

    It's been fun, but I think I've wittered enough (maybe even a tad more than enough) on here for a while. May you all have fun with whatever OS floats your boat!

  51. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Block Busting BlockBuster

    Oh please. I’ve been writing about VR and its “amazing potential applications” since the early 1990s, with barely an inch of practical progress in all that time.

    Where on Earth have you been hiding all that time, Dabbsy? No matter. Feel the LOVE now. IT is in the AIResources ……. http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/01/23/davos_2016_comment/#c_2756659

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stopped 4reading at the first one

    "so far, no IoT product manufacturer seems remotely interested in doing anything about them"

    https://allseenalliance.org

    https://allseenalliance.org/alliance/members

    #epicfail? Or just jumping on the IoT fashionable hate bandwagon?

    I'm also really pleased with my Sony smartwatch3.,... I guess you just assume apple iwatch is all that matters and everything else is an inferior copy. (Sony have been doing smartwatches for 4 years now)

  53. Potemkine Silver badge
    Alien

    Lower your shields and surrender your ships

    OMG, you've been assimilated!

  54. Shane 4

    Next iphone should have been number 1 on the list. As a joke, because it's Apple!

    Driverless cars at number 2

    Netflix(Australian catalogue) 3 It's not a joke unfortunately

    Smart TV's recording you and sending ads at 4

    Encryption(lack of and government backdoors) at 5 The real number 1

  55. steve 124

    The world's most interesting man...

    "I may as well claim that Register readers are smart and wealthy and likely to spank their way through a dozen partners a year."

    I don't always read Alistair Dabbs articles on the Register...

    But when I do, I like to be compared to 1980s stereotypical nerd as my reward.

    Stay douchey my friends!

  56. cortland

    Regarding that Troll

    I can't imagine why not.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IoT whalesong around for more than 5 years...

    Funny how this thread seems to have turned into a Linux Fanboi rant. (I have Linux and Windows machines on my desk - they have their purposes).

    "This claim about the Internet of Things has appeared on new-year prediction lists for the last five years and I confidently predict that it will continue to do so for another five at least. Maybe ten."

    I've been hearing that for fifteen years or more. Originally from the department for silly futuristic ideas that make the company seem forward looking and keep the share price up. Perhaps oddly, the folk in that department turned out to be quite good engineers if you could get them to work on something that a customer actually wanted.

    Toodle pip.

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