Robert Scoble Discusses Tech Trends In 2014 | Keen On

It's almost 2014, and who better to tell us about the year to come than the man that Silicon Valley admires and loves and sometimes even loathes, Robert Scoble. Scoble, Almost. Welcome to 2014. What's going to happen in 2014? What do you expect? And I'm going to get you back in a year's time. And if you get it wrong, you are going to be humiliated publicly.

I think it's going to be a war of wearables.

War of wearables. Wow.

Do we buy an Apple iWatch or a Google Glass? I think that's going to be a major story. Another major story. Does 4K TV or Ultra HD have a chance? Another story will be, is Apple finally going to take over the entire world of media? Whereas Amazon.

So we've got three stories there, so let's go through them individually. The first one, Wearables. Wearables. War of wearables. Is 2014 gonna be the year where. I know you're the crazy guy with the go go glasses, but they're not ready yet for ordinary mortals like myself.

No. I think this is gonna need it. Some cooking time.

2014. Is it gonna be ready?

It'll be ready. You could buy it in 2014. I just don't think it's gonna be the kind of thing my dad's gonna buy right away. I think it's gonna take another three, four, five years before most people in society want to wear something on their face that does smart computing of some kind. Although. So what are we going to see.

If it's real verticals?

Well, in verticals it's going to happen faster. Oakley ski goggles that have a little computer in them from Recon Instruments. Those are pretty cool. And if you're going to buy a ski goggle that costs $350, why not buy one that has a sensor to show you where your kids are on the mountain. Show you where you are on the mountain. Show you how fast you're going and what your hang time on your jumps are. Why not get a smarter glass like that?

So wearables are for real in 2014? Yeah. You're saying television is going to get blown up finally in 2014. Well, you mean the HT we're already.

Seeing, we're already seeing a trend where the cord cutting trend or getting rid of the cable company and going and getting your TV on an iPad or.

That happened in 2013.

It, it started to. But I know Apple's working on a TV product, a set top box what kind of effect will they have in the market? And they could have a deep effect, particularly as the industry really starts tooling up for this ultra HD or a sharper HD screen, which, by the way, even if I could afford one, I don't know that I could get content to it because the content is four times the size.

Although the FT had an interesting piece last week suggesting that Apple was way behind on tv, that Microsoft are ahead of them with their Xbox.

The Xbox one only sold 2 million copies in the first weekend. Apple sells a lot more than that.

But I've got an Apple tv. I've got an Apple tv and I was using it last weekend, and it's so annoying. It's so clunky. It's so archaic. And for me to say something's archaic, it's got to be seriously archaic.

Yeah, I agree with you.

Are we going to see a serious Apple play in TV in 2014? We could.

They just bought a new.

We could. You're the guy who knows. Yes or no?

Yes. We're gonna see. We're gonna see a new Apple tv. I just don't know that it's physical.

Like a.

No, no, no, no. Not a glass.

We're not gonna see the Glass in 2014.

A service in a box that's gonna be a lot less clunky and a lot more interesting.

But isn't that interesting? But what about the glass? We're not gonna see that.

No. But if Apple. Apple has the money to deals and get exclusive content deals, sort of like Netflix did with House of Cards. If Apple does that at any sort of serious level, it radically changes what we think of as tv.

And that's your third point. You're saying Apple. The question in 2014, will Apple take over all of media? Can they? Will they?

I don't think they can, but they have the components on the table to really make a serious change in how we think about media and tv. It's just. Does Tim Cook have the chutzpah to do it? Is he gonna spend some of that $130 billion he has in the bank to go and buy? Like, if he bought NFL rights and put it on his TV and took it away from the cable companies, man, that would radically reshape what we think of as TV and radically force a lot of people to buy an Apple TV just to stay. To stay up to date on sports.

What about the G issue? I mean, Google's trying to do the same thing. Fred Boglestein wrote a very interesting book about this. Coming huge clash between Apple and Google. Is that going to feature more and more in 2014, this fight between Google and Apple over who's going to be the dominant media company?

I think so. And on wearables, right, it's going to be Glass versus Watch. And then Google bought wimlabs, which also has a watch. So maybe Google's going to come out with a wimlabs watch and a Google Glass and go straight at Apple and see if they can keep you from buying the Apple iWatch, which Apple has a lot of advantages over Google because of the stores and the distribution and the service and the brand that they have versus Google. But Google's going to be a really interesting company next year.

I had Brad Stern on the show earlier this year as well and I asked him if Amazon could be a player in this great game. Can Amazon play in the same game as Apple?

Disclosure. I work for Rackspace, a competitor of Amazon. Amazon is the greatest competitor I've ever seen, very smartly run. And so yes, they are going to be a player no matter what. They understand my buying behavior at a far deeper level than anybody else, any other retailer, any other system does. And all they have to do is continue building on that knowledge and they're going to win.

What's going to happen with Microsoft in 2014? New CEO?

Well, a new CEO we're going to be waiting to see. Does he unleash innovation inside?

Is that possible? Can Microsoft unleash innovation?

I think so. There's still so many.

And you're a guy who knows that subject better than anyone.

Well, it's been seven years since I worked there, but there's still so many of my friends and so, so many smart people there and they have such a deep research bench with the R and D labs there that if they unlock that and unlock people and let them ship.

What do you mean? Guys like Jerome Lanier and people like that.

Well, Mark Davis, the problem is Microsoft has a very committee driven culture and that's not the way to get stuff out the door. Since I left, what have they really shipped that's new and innovative? An invention that we understand is new and interesting. The Kinect sensor. For 90,000 people with a company that has 60 or 80 billion dollars in the bank and has 18 something like 18 billion dollar businesses behind it. For me to only be able to point to one thing is an indictment on their innovation machine. And if this new CEO can get that innovation machine to ramp up a little bit and ship maybe five products in the next Seven years that we can look to. Holy. Wait till that engine gets unlocked. They can really do something crazy.

Final question, Scoble. What could happen in 2014? What would you like to happen? Something big, Something exciting. Not just another startup or an ipo. Something that you think could really make the tech business in Silicon Valley better not only for itself, but perhaps the rest of the world.

The problem is we're in a world of iteration, where iteration is rewarded in it. And once in a while we see somebody like Elon Musk propose something really crazy and big.

Or Jeff, he was your man of the year for 2030, but is he.

Gonna actually deliver on his hyperloop? I don't think so. So I'm not going to get a hyperloop. Is Larry Page going to put a self driving car?

I don't think he'd offer you a hyperloop. Would you? We're not supposed to each get one.

No, we get a pizza one so we can take it down to Los Angeles, but we're not going to have one built anywhere anytime soon. Am I going to get a Google self driving car from Larry Page? I don't think so.

Well, maybe if he's watching.

I don't think so. He's not going to give me one. And is Jeff Bezos gonna have drones deliver stuff to my house? I don't think so. So where the real action is is in the iteration. And when you are starting to see what's coming because of iteration, it's a contextual operating system. We're soon going to have a phone that knows whether we're walking, running, skiing, driving, shopping, in a meeting, in an interview. And the there's lots of contextual signals for Google to study and make that happen. If that happens, that's going to bring a new kind of human machine interface that's going to be pretty interesting to watch.

Maybe you should write a book about that.

I did, but that's so old.

The book's about 2014 as previewed by Robert Scoble, the man who sees the future as well as anyone. We're going to get you back at the end of the year to show how right or wrong you are. Robert, happy New Year. Always an honor and a pleasure to have you and I hope you have a healthy and particularly wealthy 2014.

Thank you very much. You too.