The next big thing.... [Archive]

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L33F3R

07-10-2009, 10:46 AM

Greetings everyone.

I on a quest to find out what the next BIG thing is. What is a big thing? No it isn't in your backyard or in your pants. I am talking about revolutionary technology that everyone picks up on and uses (well, almost). We all know technology and people change over time and I want to know, what is that BIG THING going to be? Here are some exmaples of technologies and maturity.

-Newspapers: Failing at a rapid rate. Very old and on the decline.
-AM/FM radio: Very important technology that seems to be going by the wayside.
-television: Very mature but slowly beginning to fall in popularity
-internet: Growing at a rapid pace. It will start to decline eventually....
-touch screens: have gained alot of attention recently.
-optical media
-stem cell research
-the microwave
-condoms
-myspace
-legal tender
-x86 architecture
-the car
-oxy clean
-jazz music
-linux

You get the point....

Now the tricky part is trying to predict what things will be BIG before they get BIG. 2 years ago I would have told you that facebook was for college students and asians, now look at it. So lets put our heads together and post what YOU think is the next BIG thing. It can be hardware, software, material, non material, theory or pretty much anything. Good luck :).

nanonyme

07-10-2009, 11:08 AM

They do say Facebook is already on the decline though. (And it definitely isn't mature technology, never has been - rather buggy crap whose every change users have complained about)

L33F3R

07-10-2009, 11:16 AM

yea it is. Some of the decisions they made were not very swift such as the idea to make everyones pictures their own. They reversed that idea but the damage was done.

nanonyme

07-10-2009, 11:42 AM

yea it is. Some of the decisions they made were not very swift such as the idea to make everyones pictures their own. They reversed that idea but the damage was done.Including that they broke the original fully functional layout in favour of trying to experimenting on Facebook come up with a new one. There was a lot of complaints about it at the time and people got pissed at Facebook because the new UI made it hard to use. Now after maybe a year or so they've finally managed to come up with a user interface that has about everything the original one had, just in different places. Despite major complaints they still haven't included an application whitelisting feature in your feeds so that you would only see feeds from an application you want to see them from. Then the chat: they introduced an AJAX-only hack that "disconnects" every now and then and people very commonly have had to resort to regular messages. (now that those aren't broken on Facebook too) Because of zero interoperability with other IM protocols people have written AJAX plugins into IM programs that in term work more or less as horribly as the original cludge.
All in all, using Facebook has felt like running an experimental platform whose stability no one seriously cares about. That's why I said it's not anywhere near mature. It'll likely be dead before it matures.

L33F3R

07-10-2009, 01:32 PM

Facebook managed to motivate people just as myspace did. You could consider social networking as a whole to be that big idea. Hardly a new concept in the case of facebook but what they did, although it didn't work half the time, was big.

nanonyme

07-10-2009, 02:23 PM

Getting people to connect is hardly a new idea. I was told by a friend Germans did a similar concept to Facebook just before it but it was then sold to direct marketers along with personal information of the users for big bucks. I see as their only accomplishment the integration of games and quizzes and the Facebook Platform which also is the source of all the feed spam Faceook users receive today... I don't really see Facebook as anything that big. What really was the big invention was that people realized they don't have to use Facebook to communicate with Facebook users. ;) They set up their Facebook accounts to work together with blogging utilities and Twitter (support for both of which have been built by individual users with Facebook Platform) and such and have no need anymore to use the inconvenient UI Facebook provides. So the biggest merit of Facebook is doing something that will likely kill themselves. Shall we give them a Darwin award yet? ;)

L33F3R

07-10-2009, 04:15 PM

this isnt a debate about what facebook is or isnt.

Although i am intrigued about this german one as I have never heard of it.

deanjo

07-10-2009, 05:46 PM

grantek

07-10-2009, 06:13 PM

The next big thing will be Phoronix once God steals everyone's $10...

L33F3R

07-10-2009, 06:18 PM

lol @ pulseaudio. Its funny kuz its true ;)

DanL

07-12-2009, 11:58 AM

The next big thing: turning off the computer and going outside in the (gulp) "fresh" air. It's not my thing, but some people I know really seem to be turning anti-computer.

Also, don't forget the old favorites as the next big thing (history has taught me that people don't learn from history).

Zhick

07-12-2009, 02:29 PM

this isnt a debate about what facebook is or isnt.

Although i am intrigued about this german one as I have never heard of it.
I guess he means www.studivz.net. I don't think it's older than facebook though.

Also, don't forget the old favorites as the next big thing (history has taught me that people don't learn from history).ROBOTS!!!111

Ex-Cyber

07-12-2009, 03:25 PM

Generally I don't think you can really predict the next big thing, because it has less to do with the technology itself than with how people and society react to it. History is full of technologies that became big for reasons and uses that the original developers never really intended. That's one of the reasons that I loathe anti-competitive control schemes (whether DRM-based, patent-based, etc.) - they project the arrogance of supposedly knowing which products/applications are worthwhile and which aren't.

That said, I think one candidate for the next big thing (in my little world of wishful thinking) is so-called "bottom-up manufacturing". Current industry is built around a "top-down" model, where centralized, expensive, specialized production machinery is built in order to mass-produce smaller products. There are people working toward the reverse of this model, where lots of smaller, more general manufacturing machines are used to build a wide variety of products without highly concentrated control or funding. This is potentially radical because it combines the automation and labor saving properties of modern industrial processes with the decentralization characteristic of the traditional trades. Combined with the potential of sharing knowledge, designs, and programs over the Internet, it could be really huge. RepRap (http://reprap.org/) is a good example, though the principle is broader than just one device.

curaga

07-12-2009, 03:34 PM

Cars running on compressed air. Both "pure" and hybrids. As soon as MDI can get their lines running, I'm quite sure there will be interest in those.

How would you like a new car for ~5000 €, zero emissions, rather cheap usage?

superppl

07-12-2009, 05:46 PM

Maybe in the next few years virtual reality will become feasible.
I know that would benefit the video game and porn industries. ;)

L33F3R

07-13-2009, 12:05 AM

great points all of you :D

-compressed air cars, thats trippin. I have begun investigating this further the past few hours.

-I have my own ideas about a virtual reality system. PM me if you want my master plan :p

-I think the no technology idea is going to hit hard. We have become so dependent on electronics in particular that its unbelievable. Even when camping, people use trailers, satellite TV, electric fans FFS. What ever happened to sleeping bags and tents? I think this is a cultural trend more-less. Interesting to see how this is going to play out :p

-@Ex_Cyber, from a political perspective I have many liberal views and many that are conservative. Now i as much as you, loathe control-schemes. I will be quick to point out that its unavoidable. Greed is good. greedy people may be asshats but these greedy people are the ones who give you your paycheck. Communism didn't work. Now i am not attacking you so dont be alarmed im just saying that these patents and such empower individuals or corporations to weed out competition. Competition is good but when you compete for an emerging market it can be dangerous. For example I will use XM and Sirius satellite radio (and the massive losses they both accumulated). Now I think right now they have their act together but what if a major 3rd party had entered? satellite radio simply wouldn't exist, at least of decent quality.

Now i like the idea of the bottom-up manufacturing. I am particularly fond of the idea of not sending my money overseas to a country that threatens my own for little reason at all. Such an idea would truly empower the people, not governments! Just as the internet has empowered all of us. the RepRap is a prime example of people level sharing.

Ex_Cyber you have arguably brought up the best idea yet. :D

pmorph

07-13-2009, 07:21 AM

-solar power
-thin clients (again)

nanonyme

07-14-2009, 07:50 AM

I guess he means www.studivz.net. I don't think it's older than facebook though.Possibly what he told me about wasn't founded before Facebook but it boomed before Facebook boomed and also got sold before it. (he didn't tell the name at that point, just told me that's the reason he's not going to join Facebook, afraid they'll just sell out the private information too)

nanonyme

07-14-2009, 07:52 AM

-solar powerHmm, like humans finally learning to mimick photosynthesis properly and take full use of it? I doubt solar power is a proper alternative before that.
Edit: I'm definitely going to laugh hard when someone tries to have a hardware patent on photosynthesis.

Ex-Cyber

07-14-2009, 09:21 AM

Hmm, like humans finally learning to mimick photosynthesis properly and take full use of it? I doubt solar power is a proper alternative before that.Photovoltaics are somewhat limited, but they're not the only form of solar power. On the more mundane side of things, there are passive solar technologies for water and home heating. For large-scale electrical generation, other technologies have been prototyped; see e.g. The Solar Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project) and Nevada Solar One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One). It will never be a 100% solution, but no energy technology has ever been a 100% solution; there are just too many conflicting demands.

L33F3R

07-14-2009, 11:19 AM

affordable solar power could be very big in africa.

bridgman

07-14-2009, 12:03 PM

IMO the real potential for solar power is direct-to-fuel technologies like farming high-oil algae for biodiesel.

L33F3R

07-14-2009, 02:06 PM

honestly I did not expect this thread to get anywhere. i am pleasantly surprised it has. The reason I am at phoronix is to learn and by golly jesus you guys are helping me do that :D.

LenS

07-14-2009, 07:56 PM

I think solar power, especially photovoltaics will be much bigger than people realize. It's been limited so far by a lack of funding for research. Tens of billions of dollars have been spent on nuclear, coal, and oil as their lobbyists have have huge sums to work with to entice governments continue funding their research into oil shale, clean coal, an oxymoron if there ever was one, and safe nuclear. There still is no accepted plan on what to do with spent waste.

That is starting to change. The slowly dawning reality of climate change is starting to affect even the political class. The dangers it poses to the survival of the human race are real and elucidated here:

Source: The Dark Side of Climate Change: It's Already Too Late, Cap and Trade Is a Scam, and Only the Few Will Survive | Environment | AlterNet
Address : <http://www.alternet.org/environment/141081/the_dark_side_of_climate_change%3A_it%27s_already_ too_late%2C_cap_and_trade_is_a_scam%2C_and_only_th e_few_will_survive/?page=entire>
There is another, fourth voice in the debate over cap-and-trade, one ringing out from shadows rarely approached by the media. In these shadows dwell scientists who believe the time has passed for any sort of legislation at all, no matter how radical.

The advantages of solar, wind, etc, and the disadvantages of oil and coal, both economically and environmentally are becoming more obvious. A point not lost upon some hi-tech heavyweights:

Source: Solar Sell: Companies that Mass Marketed PCs Turn to Photovoltaics: Scientific American
Address : <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ibm-hp-intel-solar-power&sc=DD_20080627>Although solar cell technology for converting the sun's power into electricity has improved steadily in recent years, high costs and inefficiencies have kept it from being a serious replacement for fossil fuels. A few high-tech heavyweights—IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard (HP)—hope to change this using the same formula of mass production and commoditization that helped them make personal computers mainstream over the past three decades.

As far as the amount of solar energy available waiting to be tapped it dwarfs anything remotely existing with oil or coal:

Source: A Solar Grand Plan: Scientific American
Address : <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan&sc=SA_20071217>Solar energy’s potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year. The U.S. is lucky to be endowed with a vast resource; at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants, and that land receives more than 4,500 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of solar radiation a year. Converting only 2.5 percent of that radiation into electricity would match the nation’s total energy consumption in 2006.

All that's been lacking is the political will to develop the technologies. Something the well connected and funded fossil fuel corporations have been fighting tooth and nail. I remember early in Bush's first term, he had a speech scheduled at an alternative energy research site to publicize his support for renewable energy. They discovered a big problem just before he was to make it: he'd slashed funding for much of the renewable research around the country and that site was one of them, the building was empty and all the scientists had been laid off. The solution was to restore the salaries of the researchers so they could go back to work, however since the money to do any actual research was not restored all they had to do was sit around and play video games and be the backdrop for the speech.

So I think the next big thing will be the realization that the sh&*'s about to hit the fan and continuing on the present course does not compute. Electing a president who's stated a desire to put science first and his appointment of a Nobel Laureate to a cabinet post is a good sign.

Len

L33F3R

07-15-2009, 12:54 AM

holy hell. enlightening :D

very well constructed post to say the least.

LenS

07-15-2009, 04:22 AM

I just read this, so I thought I'd pass it on:

Source: Mystery mechanism drove global warming 55 million years ago
Address : <http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Mystery_mechanism_drove_global_warming_55_million_ years_ago_999.html>
A runaway spurt of global warming 55 million years ago turned Earth into a hothouse but how this happened remains worryingly unclear, scientists said on Monday.

Previous research into this period, called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, estimates the planet's surface temperature blasted upwards by between five and nine degrees Celsius (nine and 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in just a few thousand years.

This happened 55 million years ago. Time estimates are imprecise. The estimate is a few thousand years, PLUS OR MINUS A FEW THOUSAND YEARS. In other words one year to 10-15 thousand years to fry the planet.

The Arctic Ocean warmed to 23 C (73 F), or about the temperature of a lukewarm bath.

How PETM happened is unclear but climatologists are eager to find out, as this could shed light on aspects of global warming today.

What seems clear is that a huge amount of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases -- natural, as opposed to man-made -- were disgorged in a very short time.

The theorised sources include volcanic activity and the sudden release of methane hydrates in the ocean.

The release of Methane hydrates are the feedback mechanism that was missing, and still is, in climate models. The Arctic ocean is already releasing increasing amounts of methane from melting methane hydrates on the warming sea bed. NO ONE expected this to happen so soon. It's feedback mechanisms like this which instruct the reasoning behind the article in the first link in my post: The Dark Side of Climate Change: It's Already Too Late.

Len

L33F3R

07-16-2009, 01:40 AM

so in other words. We gunna die.....

superppl

07-16-2009, 01:56 AM

Hey, the last link you gave us does not work (so far as I can tell.) Is this (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090713/sc_afp/sciencepalaeontologyextinction) the same article?

My mum emailed me this, I think it's worth reading. You can find the article here (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/), but it's a bit different from what my mum mailed me.

Taking Shorter Showers Doesn't Cut It: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change
By Derrick Jensen, Orion Magazine. Posted July 13, 2009.

Are we taking the easy route? Dumpster diving wouldn't have stopped Hitler, and composting wouldn't have ended slavery. Tools

This article was first published in the July/August 2009 issue of Orion Magazine.

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

Or let’s talk energy. Kirkpatrick Sale summarized it well: “For the past 15 years the story has been the same every year: individual consumption—residential, by private car, and so on—is never more than about a quarter of all consumption; the vast majority is commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government [he forgot military]. So, even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric pollution.”

Or let’s talk waste. In 2005, per-capita municipal waste production (basically everything that’s put out at the curb) in the U.S. was about 1,660 pounds. Let’s say you’re a die-hard simple-living activist, and you reduce this to zero. You recycle everything. You bring cloth bags shopping. You fix your toaster. Your toes poke out of old tennis shoes. You’re not done yet, though. Since municipal waste includes not just residential waste, but also waste from government offices and businesses, you march to those offices, waste reduction pamphlets in hand, and convince them to cut down on their waste enough to eliminate your share of it. Uh, I’ve got some bad news. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States .

I want to be clear. I’m not saying we shouldn’t live simply. I live reasonably simply myself, but I don’t pretend that not buying much (or not driving much, or not having kids) is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

So how, then, and especially with all the world at stake, have we come to accept these utterly insufficient responses? I think part of it is that we’re in a double bind. A double bind is where you’re given multiple options, but no matter what option you choose, you lose, and withdrawal is not an option. At this point, it should be pretty easy to recognize that every action involving the industrial economy is destructive (and we shouldn’t pretend that solar photovoltaics, for example, exempt us from this: they still require mining and transportation infrastructures at every point in the production processes; the same can be said for every other so-called green technology). So if we choose option one—if we avidly participate in the industrial economy—we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of “success” in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity. And we really lose because industrial civilization is killing the planet, which means everyone loses. If we choose the “alternative” option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn’t even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses. The third option, acting decisively to stop the industrial economy, is very scary for a number of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that we’d lose some of the luxuries (like electricity) to which we’ve grown accustomed, and the fact that those in power might try to kill us if we seriously impede their ability to exploit the world—none of which alters the fact that it’s a better option than a dead planet. Any option is a better option than a dead planet.

hax0r

07-16-2009, 01:58 AM

I can think one world military government and private bank, and humanity shifted away from the truth and purpose under the control and possession of elite and rich bastards.

stevea

07-17-2009, 09:46 AM

I'm not impressed by photovoltaics. You need millions of acres of these(environmental impact). They contain doping materials that are horrible for the environment (cadmium for example) or that are extremely rare (tellurium) and I have never seen an honest figure on the life-cycle costs that include re-refining the panels every 25 years to recover the nasties. I think they are toys - worthy of more research but not newrly ready for prime time.

Concentrated solar is readily implementable and has a higher efficiency - so why bother w/ PVs ?

No the big breakthrough needed is energy storage technology. All current electro-chem storage stink quite frankly - heavy, expensive and very low energy density, very limited lifespan. Look at the dismal laptop batteries for example ... all the better electric autos use the same Li-ion technology. Perhaps fuel cell technology is part of the solution - unclear. If you figure out how to store energy at a good density and with high conversion efficiency then things like solar, wind and electric vehicles all become an order of magnitude more practical.

Someday we will have controlled fusion power. In the mean time thorium probably makes more sense than uranium for fission plants (we would use up all known uranium in a century).

BTW compressed air autos are ridiculous - a joke against ppl who never passed a physics class. 1gal of gasoline(petrol) has ~120MJ energy and about 25% can efficiency for a modern auto (30MJ to the wheels). 1 cubic meter of compressed gas a 1000 atmospheres holds about 700kJ energy perhaps optimistically 70% efficient. You'd need a compressed air tank of 60 cubic meters (~15000 gallon) compressed to an outrageous 1000 atmospheres to match the accessible energy in one gallon of gasoline.

L33F3R

07-17-2009, 11:17 AM

http://www.nanovip.com/the-news/169-canadian-scientists-rely-on-nanotechnology-to-create-battery

Sound promising?

DeepDayze

07-17-2009, 11:58 AM

The next big thing would be that we'll be using teleportation to get from one place to another

bridgman

07-17-2009, 12:34 PM

Have you read Larry Niven's "Theory and Practice of Teleportation" ?

superppl

07-17-2009, 12:54 PM

Perhaps biochemistry will explode.
Then we can all have flying horses, plants that produce our electricity, and living items that grow stronger with time and recover from injuries.

stevea

07-19-2009, 05:43 AM

http://www.nanovip.com/the-news/169-canadian-scientists-rely-on-nanotechnology-to-create-battery

Sound promising?

Here's the abstract & an article,
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v8/n6/abs/nmat2460.html
http://www.ecosilly.com/2009/05/18/researchers-develop-electrode-materials-for-high-capacity-li-s-battery-cells/

Like a turbo-charged buggy-whip, this is a substantial incremental improvement to a crummy technology. There are lots of lithium battery varients, w/ vanadium and metal hydrides, phosphates, perhaps Li-S is among the best.

Here is the deal with electro-chem cells energy density ...
720 kJ/kg - commercial lithium ion batteries
9360 kJ/kg - theoretical limit of Li-S cells (Waterloo cells
are about 1/4th this IICC)

So the theoretical limit (which is certainly impractical) is only 13 times better than practical Li-ion batteries. There are already small laptop powering fuel cells around 2700 kJ/kg and larger fuel cells can be highly efficient. These could approach something like 100,000 kJ/kg. There are other issues besides power density wrt battery and fuel cell technology. The cells are currently very expensive, but that isn't a fundamental problem.
===

For massive power storage, like for grid power storage, efficiency of the storage is the biggest issue. Internal resistance losses and small number of recharge cycles make any lithium battery unacceptable.
===
Don't get me wrong - Li-S cells might be a great improvement in hybrid vehicles, but fuel cells with some battery storage will eventually leave electro-chem cells in the dust I think. See the Honda FCX, 107HP, 267 mile range. The hurdle is driving the fuel cell membrane & tank cost down.

L33F3R

07-20-2009, 04:39 PM

very yummy bits. Thx stevea

superppl

07-22-2009, 01:57 AM

I just thought of something recently. Anyway:
I've been using the Win7 RC recently and I personally think it sucks. It may be technically superior to Vista, in that compatibility and performance has been greatly improved, and it might be more secure, but it does nothing to resolve the traditional Windows problems: Microsoft is absolutely positive that you are an idiot and treats you as such, and you can only actually make rough changes to the configuration.

I think this is a bit related because Microsoft is going out of it's way to create a multimedia/home OS, something where the "prettiness" of the interface comes before and frequently interferes with the functionality of the OS.
IMHO, I see this as a pathetic by Microsoft to hold on to whatever corporate desks they can, but I can't believe that such a big company could be so stupid. A lot of people say we haven't had the real computer revolution yet, and that got me thinking.
We have had two computer revolutions so far:
The first revolutionized the way we do business.
The second revolutionized the way we communicate.

Perhaps the third will be a social revolution. Web apps are going crazy, with all this facebook, twitter and pandora stuff. Maybe in the near future everyone will have internet access in the US ('bout damn time) at home and in their pocket, and we can all carry pretty devices to do nice stuff.

In short, the next big thing will be the overdue death of television and crappy, single sided programming. :D

L33F3R

07-22-2009, 10:42 AM

I just thought of something recently. Anyway:
I've been using the Win7 RC recently and I personally think it sucks. It may be technically superior to Vista, in that compatibility and performance has been greatly improved, and it might be more secure, but it does nothing to resolve the traditional Windows problems: Microsoft is absolutely positive that you are an idiot and treats you as such, and you can only actually make rough changes to the configuration.

im down with the rest of what you said but i can relate to this. Win7 is officially removed from my computer to the degree that i shat on the disk. Does anyone else find the start menu they brought in from vista to be annoying as hell?

They create a restrictive OS. The idea is to tell you what to use your computer for. it will face the same adoption issues as vista I predict.

Actually you know what, im going to spoof the ad's they putting out here. "im a PC and im 6 years old". Well they have made it very clear that the target audience is 6 year olds. I'll do the same thing and just be like, "im a linux user and im 18 years old".

very related. The fall of microshaft would be a very big thing :D.