My Predictions for 2013

I know we're halfway through the year already, so shut up. Don't tell me that we're halfway through because I already know.

I'd meant to make this a video at the beginning of the year, but things -- like my third hip -- got in the way. So here's a bit of awesome from the past, about the future:

This is Walt Mossberg; shut up.

Every year I like to offer my predictions for what will happen every year. If you check my record, you'll see I've been 100% accurate for 40 years, so pay attention to this list of 10 things that WILL happen within the next 12 months:

1. Apple - CEO Tim Cook will send iPad 4s out to tech journalists in new packaging that says "iPad 5" to see if they're even paying attention anymore, and will be saddened when everyone talks about how much better this new version is. His sadness will fail, however, when there's a massive sales spike. 

2. Microsoft - Steve Ballmer will contemplate flinging himself off a roof a month after the announcement of the Xbox 720 -- the next version of the popular video game console slash media centre -- when a minor update to the Apple TV prompts everyone keeps talking about how they're winning the race for the living room even though 70 million Xbox 360s have been sold and the 720 will beat the Apple TV like King Kong mashing a dandelion. 

3. RIM - RIM will finally release BB10, the next operating system for its Blackberry phones, which the company hopes will change its fortunes. The tech press will call it a failure the next day. Rim will be delisted on July 29, and if you live in the Kitchener-Waterloo area you'll be able to get some really cheap office furniture, and an only slightly used CEO, on August 16.

4. Tornadoes - There will be a tornado in June, which will cause some amount of property damage.

5. Google - Google Glasses will be released to wide acclaim but little usage, since the initial for-developers release will cost $1500. The first 3rd-party accessory will be released shortly after, which will be a Bluetooth-enabled video camera that attaches to your shoes to allow perverts to watch and share their upskirt videos in real time.  

6. Scoble - Robert Scoble will interview Tom Cruise and the two will collapse into a singularity of infinite smugness that will destroy all of Silicon Valley, and will only be stopped when it gets clogged by a glut of hipsters who come to watch it destroy all the complicit sheeple there to take pictures of it.

7. Chrome - Google Chrome will reach version 100 in April, and nobody working on it will be able to name a single feature added after version 21.

8. Drones - Some lucky script-kiddies from Anonymous will manage to hack into a US military drone, causing millions of property damage and killing 5 people before the military shuts them down. In response, the NRA will call for drones to be positioned every 5 miles across the company to prevent other people from having access to drones.

9. Phones - Smartphones will continue to offer more functionality than featurephones, with no change in sight. People will continue to view Windows Phone as being about as useful as a feature phone, also with no change in sight.

10. Driverless cars - California and Nevada have legalized driverless cars, so 2013 will feature a rash of reports to 911 of ghost drivers operating in the US, culminating in at least two different ghost hunting shows doing episodes about them, at the end of which each will say that can't say that these marvels of modern technology aren't really just haunted.

This is the way the year will unfold. Believe it!

This has been Walt Mossberg. Shut up!

This movie trailer has a commercial for the trailer itself at the beginning of the trailer.

I know that teaser trailers are a long-standing tradition, and that trailers for upcoming trailers is now an incredibly stupid thing, but this is a trailer for Dead Man Down, which honest-to-god features a commercial for the trailer, played MOMENTS BEFORE THE TRAILER ITSELF STARTS. In the same video!

This is goddamn madness.

Click here to watch it, if you want.

NEW VIDEO: Mosspuppet's Official Guide to Preparing for the Apocalypse

Worried about the looming Mayan apocalypse? Never fear, I can help you through it!

Filming my next video

Why do people pay attention to Cult of Mac?

So Cultofmac just posted an article with the title of This Simple Concept Fixes Everything That’s Annoying With Notification Center. Nothing wrong with that, right? It's some concept art showing what an iOS fan thinks Apple should do to improve Notification Center's layout. The problem is on Facebook, where they posted the link along with the description "Notification Center will probably look something like this in iOS 7." 

It will probably look like this? Where the crap are you getting this from? Are you high, Cultofmac? How does yet another piece of concept art equal "probably," other than that you're bait the hell out of that link?

Concept art is concept art. Some random person made this design as a thing and now it's of course what Apple will do. They have to, because he made a video!

Good Christ, I wish that site had someone in charge of keeping it sane. 

I with they'd have an indicator at the top of the screen that shows you that you have notifications, like Android has done for years. Seriously, the notification center is such a half-measure, and the lack of one simple persistent graphic means I forgot to check it for days, and then I have this annoying thing where I hit "X" and then "Clear" and then it only clears some of the notifications if I've got more than five in a given application, and it looks like the phone isn't letting me clear them, and is instead telling me to screw off.

But it doesn't matter if it has a "linen" background or a white background; it matters if it's useful.

Shut up.