Successful Predictions

The following content covering successful prediction states:

If all past predictions had come true, we would have things like self-cleaning clothes or underwater cities. Some predictions from the past were correct but the inventions, like talking cars and video telephones, didn't turn out to be as popular as once thought.
Two of the most famous novels predicting our future were George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.


Published in 1949 as a warning against the dangers of a totalitarian government, Orwell's book described a future government called "Big Brother" that constantly rewrote history and watched citizens' every move on TV cameras that couldn't be turned off. Huxley's 1932 book envisioned a freer world where everyone takes mood-enhancing drugs and babies are concocted in giant laboratories. Retrieved on August 1, 2008 from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june01/predictions.html#

The prediction from George Orwell’s 1984 (circa 1949) that Big Brother will monitor citizens every move with cameras has come true in part with traffic, store and cell phone cameras recording the daily events and posting the captured data to web sites such as you tube, news media and other video sharing sites. http://www.trafficcam.com/

Additionally, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World circa 1932 wasn’t far off with the prediction of test tube babies which occurred on July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world's first successful test-tube baby was born. The exact prediction did not materialize but the point is that some form of the prediction did. The problem with prediction is forming an abstraction that encompasses a wide variance of possible events. This initial event began a new hope for women who want to have children through the new procedure of in vitro fertilization.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2008/07/24/2008-07-24_30_years_of_testtube_babies.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2008/07/24/2008-07-24_30_years_of_testtube_babies.html
http://history1900s.about.com/od/medicaladvancesissues/a/testtubebaby.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-394894/Worlds-test-tube-baby-pregnant.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVF

Failed Prediction - Microsoft's Bill Gates

Below are some failed prediction from Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates.

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates. He also once comically stated in a Focus magazine interview that "there are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed." Ha! But here’s one of his failed predictions that we actually wish he had gotten right: in 2004 he told the BBC that, "spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time." Three years later spam is alive and well and poised to outlast Web 2. Retrieved on July 28, 2008 from http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/10/top-10-failed-t.html

Each of these prediction stated above were incorrect to say the least which sheds light on the obscurity, difficulty and complexity of predicting future events and trends. How many of us would have predicted the quick generation of CPU’s from the 4004 to the current quad core Pentium CPU. The electronic SPAM has replaced by leaps and bounds the receipt of snail mail junk mail by exponential quantities.

As Juan Enriquez states in As the Future Catches Your, Bill Gate’s Microsoft organization was easier to work with than the exclusive Apple organization. Microsoft’s relied upon other small entities to develop quality products. Such as Visio from the Visio Corporation before acquiring the organization and placing the Microsoft seal of approval upon the product, increasing the price and taking credit for the innovation. Thus the ability to generate visionary software is outside Microsoft’s bounds but not beyond its pocket book once proven.