Here are some of my predictions as to what is going to surprise people and make a big splash-- let's tune in in 360+ days and check:
Air Superiority: In the battle of hydrogen vs. electric vs. gasoline, air powered vehicles will start to make inroads. Compression is at the heart of the internal combustion engine. Air compressors are very old technology: ask anyone who uses a nail gun. For the price of $200 or less you can get yourself a decent air compressor. Go to the gas station and while suckers are paying $1 per litre, you can run that air compressor for as long as you want for $1 in total. Air powered cars and motorcycles will start to debut in Europe then grudgingly in North America. The best part of air powered: zero emissions and if the compressor is powered from a hydro, wind or solar source it's totally zero emission.
Asia Will Produce The Killer App: There are too many good programmers who have cut their teeth on North American and European projects. Some of them will get together and have an Indian-only get together and buzz together something awesome and something made for their 2 billion neighbours. My vote is on a tool that combines the Mechanical Turk, Adsense and GetAFreelancer: while $5/day sucks by North American standards, it's good coin (for now) in Bangladesh.
AuRA (Augmented Reality Apps): These will run on iPhone, Google's mobile and a list of other smart motion-sensitive phones. The apps will hit phones and miss desktops and laptops because phones are now mobile computers. This year people will become disappointed with the performance of AuRA, much in the same way that people didn't like "server-push" in 1996 that eventual found life as Ajax and RSS. 2012 will be the year of AuRA with the London Olympics being as AuRA enabled as our world is wifi/Bluetooth enabled now.
Global Warming will become Global Adaptation: People are in a frenzy over whether America or China is the biggest polluter and contributor to Global Warming. Who cares. The main impact of pollution is to destroy eco systems we are near (our cities and buffer zones). We walk on trampled Earth. The impact of pollution on the human population is self-correcting-- too much lead in the water and the people are crippled: if the people want to live better lives they can resist the forces that are harming the streets they live in. In China, people who harvest valuable elements from electronics are poisoning themselves and their environs. At some point they will become too sick to continue and stop the practice. People who work in this environment will be prone to related illnesses. I think this year, we will "get it"-- that Global Climate Change has happened before and it's happening now; it's happening on other planets too. Our solution is not to fall for all of the greenwashing. Our solution is to adapt: move to higher ground; use the heat; close down the parka factories; buy stock in CNN because they get some awesome hurricane footage. We can shout at the wind; or we can fly a kite.
