Reading the runes

If there is one thing that has fascinated us as a species, it is the future course of events. While we have grown in sophistication since the days when generals would consult the omens on the eve of battle (much to Sun Tzu’s chagrin), prediction is still a hit-and-miss affair. For this reason, it is always worth paying more attention to the direction of ‘travel’ indicated by industry experts rather than precise timings or numbers. That caveat made, let’s kick off with a few eye-opening predictions from CCS Insight.

It expects that by 2021, a Premier League football club will launch a facial-recognition ticketing system and that: “Facial recognition will become an acceptable and widespread method of authentication for organisations not affiliated with state or local authorities by the end of the 2020s.” It also predicts that next year will see the smartphone market hit by the oversupply of 5G smartphones, which will cause their prices to plummet. “Competition among semiconductor suppliers and the advent of second-generation chipsets [will drive] down prices even further in 2020. The additional impact of subsidised devices accelerates uptake of 5G subscriptions, especially in China and Japan.”