Eric Schmidt predicts for 2014, says mobile has won
Google's executive chairman has gazed into his crystal ball and predicted what will be big in tech next year. Well he should know.
As executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt is a busy man. So when he takes time out from his hectic schedule to predict what will be big in tech in the next year, it's worth listening.
So what does Schmidt reckon will be rocking our tech world in 2014? Smart phones will be ubiquitous, he tells Bloomberg TV. "Everyone is going to have a smart phone," he says. "The trend has been mobile was winning; now it's won."
The fact that "so many people will be connected to what's essentially a supercomputer" will usher in a new generation of apps, Schmidt predicts.
Tablets and phones will continue to outsell PCs, he reckons. It certainly looks like tablets will keep selling shedloads, on these shores anyway.
Talking shop for a second, big data and machine intelligence will "change every business globally" according to Schmidt. This means "the ability to find people, to talk specifically to them, to judge them, to rank what they're doing, to decide what to do with your products" and so on.
Advances in DNA sequencing and the ability to have personal genetics records will mean breakthroughs in cancer treatments and diagnostics, Schmidt says. And they'll be "unfathomably important".
He also 'fesses up that his biggest mistake at Google was "not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon". That's "not a mistake we're going to make again", he says, somewhat ominously. "I guess in our defence," he goes on, "we were busy working on many other things, but we should have been in that area and I take responsibility for that."
Here's Schmidt gazing into his crystal ball in full.
Do you agree? Has mobile won? What can we expect from the next 12 months in tech? And what are you hoping for? Let me know in the comments, or over on our Facebook page.