A very obvious component of AR glasses is mapping/GPS and businesses. That is where immense profits lie – basically McDonald’s offering you two hash browns for $2 when you walk by. It will literally pop-up on your glasses. Next level marketing.

Google and Apple already have mature maps operations. The upside of AR is so great that if a partnership forms between Meta and either of those, then it is very win-win.

However, Apple and Google own the phones. It is more profitable to buy staff from Meta and make their own AR glasses, and then use their own maps infrastructure.

There will be three plays, and a market for two. Apple and Google will be ready to pounce, with both quite possibly having products ready to launch ASAP. Meta is the runt in this scenario. No maps app of their own. No phone operating system. They are already spending mega-bucks on other things (metaverse, AI), and this could ruin them if they proceeded. But in theory they could create their own maps app, or buy some weird 3rd-tier app from Germany. They could potentially venture into the phone space, getting a Chinese company to manufacture the phones in the US, with a Meta-owned fork of Android. It would primarily be a brand play, hoping to leverage the brand equity of something that has already peaked, by combining it with the trust and assurances of an old friend. No tracking, nothing foreign. A solid phone (sold at a discount because AR advertising will be bank), with minimal branding. More like a Lexus made by Toyota than a “Facebook Phone”.

Apple will win. They will avoid the gimmicky miss-steps by being last to launch.

This site began with my opinion that vertical farming of lettuce could not be profitable. The original example, SkyGreens in Singapore – well their site has not been updated in 8 years. Even so, many similar businesses are seemingly thriving. There is still a major problem – they all only grow lettuce and micro-greens – neither of which will solve hunger in the world.

The curved Apple Watch (2014) never arrived.

Stem cells are already being used to repair humans. This new discovery means it is highly likely that within a decade or two we will be able to repair virtually any damage to our bodies. 2014, and happening today.

In 2014 I kinda predicted BeReal. Well, what is next after BeReal: The next step forward would be real-time video updates – literally push a button and people you are connected to online can watch what is happening.

Spoken website navigation (2016) hasn’t happened yet, although the younger generation love Google searching with their voice

2017 – I absolutely called dark kitchens, but I called them kitchens in a box. My idea is better, they are portable.

And the same year I wrote about self-driving wheelie bins, two years before someone made one.

In 2019 I predicted the 360 Degree Mirror – it will be huge for whoever brings it to market.

The pandemic got me thinking about fake news, and I worked out a solution – truth panels.

Meanwhile, everyone is talking about metaverses (well, only Zuckerberg) and I have a way of making it work. It needs to be based on playing roles that are just like real life. A mashup of Second Life, Animal Crossing and Minecraft.

And finally, a prediction from 2020 that isn’t true yet, but we are strongly heading in that direction – governments are going to outlaw any actions derived from misinformation

Intelligent believers in democracy often have a conundrum – possibly the majority of voters are not smart enough to choose the right people. Yet they accept it, because everyone, regardless, should get to vote.

The same goes for religion. It does a lot of harm and tends to trend towards telling others how to live. But atheists allow it, because everyone should have the right to their own beliefs.

Yet as society becomes more informed, and in many lands the left and right are not getting on so well – the right tend to be religious, because they don’t like change, and Christianity is 2000 years old – there is significant tension.

The atheists, not so blindly self-righteous, and not backed by a god, are not the type to take arms. And yet they are losing, whether they are in Kashmir, the southern US, or Saudi Arabia. So what can be done, to not have the religious dictate the lives of the non-religious?

Separatism – in the US, while not easy to achieve, many will shift where they live to somewhere that does not have a majority of religious people. Meanwhile someone in Portland might move to Texas to ensure they have lots of grandkids.

Damnation – shame the wrongs of religion in social media, and out any religious hypocrites (like the many fans of banning abortions who actually had one…)

Ridicule – suggest that they adhere to everything the Bible decrees

But whatever we do, don’t take arms. We would lose a war, and the other team gets off on martyrs.

But here’s the reason I wrote this:

Parallel Societies

We all know that apartheid was bad, but that was one-sided. What if both sides decided they didn’t want anything to do with each other?

I’m not joking. Let’s have schools and buses and shopping malls and football leagues and banks that are either for the righteous or the damned.

Let’s start with an absolute schism, everything cut in half. And then let folk decide that (in most of society) they would rather live and let live, because it is easier. Learn to love and respect our differences.

OR…

Maybe start excluding religious people?

(legally)

A business could ask customers to promise to be pro-choice. That is not religious discrimination… Not any more than Chick-fil-A not opening on Sundays.

We already have couch-potatoes and drug addicts.

New Age is growing.

Scientists are starting to tap into our dreams (in a very basic way).

Lucid dreaming

Virtual reality…

Designer drugs.

High-worth-individuals.

Combine all of those and we might see a subculture, where people choose to stay in a dream state more-or-so permanently.

Imagine that.

“use your feet while you meet”

That is what feeting.app promises.

This is part of the new “working from anywhere” world we live in.

It would be nice to know the circumstances we are dialling in from…

And the status to be shown, so we know. Like:

• I am jogging (short of breath)
• I am driving
• I am at the beach (hard to see the screen)
• I am at a restaurant (mouth full)
• I am at a nightclub (background noise)
• I am putting my baby to sleep (shhh)
• I am at a nudist beach

Possibly the main factor in adopting electric vehicles is the purchase price – they cost more than their fossil fuel equivalents. The countries with the most sales also have the strongest subsidies.

Because it is quite new technology, and in the west the early models have been on the premium side of things, expect the price to gradually come down. Don’t be surprised if a $10K (USD) entry-level car is available in the next few years.

Here are the cheapest EVs currently, retail price before subsidies:

USA

Chevrolet Bolt $26,595 (was $36,620 in 2020)
Nissan Leaf $27,400
Tesla 3 $48,440

UK

Skoda CITIGOe iV £15,000
SEAT e-Mii Electric £16,000
VW e-UP! £16,000

It needs a name and these days fin-tech is a thing, so I am thinking RL-Tech.

I mean taking real world hassles to a more efficient level.

• Getting a library card
• Getting a divorce

Actually divorce is the only good example I can think of.

Anyone who hears the word divorce instantly thinks of lawyers, court costs, animosity and takes forever.

Why doesn’t a heavily advertised business offer the opposite?

• Low cost
• NO court
• Amicable
• Quick

This is how it works – in the initial consultation you tell both parties that typically the wife gets two-thirds, and no matter how much you pay to argue it, the result doesn’t change. You waste a free consult or get a client.

For people smart enough to see how good it is, there is a quick and easy option, where you both just accept the probable outcome, and get it done ASAP for low fees.

Of course RL-Tech do all the legal, the financials, the therapy (extra fee), the bankruptcy (extra fee), the tax accounting (extra fee), the child care…

Call it something catchy and descriptive, like Insta!

First mover advantage, get on it!

This is a serious concept.

I predict that physical art will be huge once robots take all our jobs.

That art needs a marketplace, where anyone in the world can buy it.

The business model:

If a local, physically present person buys it – zero fees – sale price goes 100% to the artist

If someone remote buys it – 30% surcharge – the platform keeps that.

The incentive of the platform is to show the item well, and promote its existence, worldwide.

Augmented reality will almost certainly contain a camera.

So it is not inconceivable that if you decide someone is not nice, others can get that via facial recognition.

That guy raped me = his life destroyed.

This can go in so many directions, but the clear result is twofold:

Such IDing is illegal
Underground networks doing this cannot be stopped

A movement not unlike that of Elon’s Mars mission, but here on Earth:

• Polar
• Underwater
• Deserts

Science geniuses make these habitats (barely) liveable, and at the same time try new forms of society. They argue that they have a right to be there, seeing as nobody else was using that part of Earth.