Last year I didn’t make any detailed predictions for the year (though I did for the decade). For 2013 I will.
(1) Bashar al-Assad will no longer be president of Syria by the end of the year
The best-case scenario (from his point of view) is to be in exile with a few million dollars and a guarantee he won’t be prosecuted. While he deserves to be prosecuted, this option would save a lot of suffering and shorten the war.
The worst case scenario would be for him to be lynched by an angry mob like Gaddafi was.
Somewhere in the middle would be for him to be holed up in an Alawite rump state along the coast, with his government no longer recognised as Syria’s government by the international community.
(2) More computing devices will be shipped with Linux than Windows
This is particularly due to the rise of Android.
(3) The Pirate Party will get elected to the lower house of a national parliament
Germany is the most likely country here. In general, public awareness and support of Pirates will increase worldwide.
im interested in knowing more. about why more machines will have linux installed on them than microsoft. i am someone who doesnt understand computers and programs but i understand the politics of them and why free software/open software are important. i also understand the surveilance that has come with new technology. my tip to pirates would be to organise classes on things like this and to study social movement theory.
your other predictions. 1, i think that no one should dare predict on assad 2, im not sure the german pirates will make it this time i think they would stand a better chance concentrating all effortss on the bavarian regional parliament held a month before the federals. they have a better chance there than in federals and a victory there would give them a boost for federals anyway.
Last year roughly 300 million PC and laptops were sold, most running Windows. About 600 million smartphones and tablets were sold, about half running Android. (Android is Google’s Linux-based operating system.)
Even more important, Android’s market share in the smartphone and tablet market is rising, and the number of units sold is also increasing greatly, whereas the number of PCs and laptops sold is stagnant. This means that in numbers sold, Android will exceed Microsoft soon (if it is not already doing so).
If it is just that people will use Android on phones & tablets, and keep using Windows on the desktop, that’s not an enormous problem for Microsoft. But what if Android keeps getting new features and people start using it for tasks like email, word processing and spreadsheets, and using it as a desktop replacement? And if at the same time most other office-based functions start running on intranet web servers so that users can access them using their tablets? Then Microsoft is potentially in very deep shit indeed.
Makes sense.