Bitcoin boom and bust, Magic Leap glasses flop and other 2018 tech predictions

When it comes to year-ahead predictions, the bolder the prediction, the more likely it is to be wrong. But we love to read them anyway, hoping for a blue-moon longshot that turns out to be true.
What follows are some bold tech predictions for 2018, with some bolder than others.

Bitcoin will fly to the moon before crashing 

Cryptocurrency Bitcoin will peak above $60,000 in 2018 before crashing to its fundamental “production cost” of $1,000 the following year, says Danish investment bank Saxo Bank.
Bitcoin mania will find “the rug torn out from under it” as Russia and China move to sidelines and even prohibit non-sanctioned cryptocurrencies domestically, Saxo Bank predicted.
Bitcoin surged in 2017, from just under $1,000 in January to nearly $20,000 in early December. It now trades around $15,000.
(See articles by the Telegraph and Inquisitr.)

Apple’s HomePod speaker will flop

Apple’s voice-activated smart speaker HomePod “will be a huge dud,” says Paul Armstrong, who runs technology advisory firm Here/Forth.
HomePod is late to market and overpriced vs. rival products from Amazon.com, Google and Sonos, he said in a Forbes post.

Magic Leap AR glasses won’t catch on

Magic Leap’s augmented reality glasses “will debut to derision and not fanfare thanks to delay and overhyping,” Armstrong said.
Business Insider deputy editor Dave Smith said the specs will fail on looks alone.
“Unless the device, dubbed the Magic Leap One, gets a major makeover before it’s released to the public, you can expect it to bomb when it hits store shelves, even if it is a technological breakthrough. Why? Because it looks ridiculous,” Smith wrote.

Amazon will pick Atlanta or Austin for HQ2

Amazon.com expects to announce which North American city will get its second headquarters, aka HQ2, sometime in 2018. Betting website Paddy Power sees Atlanta and Austin, Texas, as the favorites to win the deal, tied at 3-1 odds.
Amazon expects to invest over $5 billion in the construction of the headquarters, which will have as many as 50,000 workers.

Apple will acquire Tesla and Elon Musk will become CEO

Apple will acquire luxury electric carmaker Tesla and Tesla’s Elon Musk will take the reins of the consumer electronics giant, Moor Insights & Strategy senior analyst Chris Wilder predicted in a Forbes post.
Musk will spearhead the production of a fully autonomous iCar by 2020, he said.
Also, Apple CEO Tim Cook will retire from Apple to go into politics, Wilder said.

Microsoft will make at least one big acquisition

Microsoft will make at least one big acquisition in 2018, says Eric Jhonsa, a technology columnist for TheStreet.
Possible targets include enterprise software-as-a-service providers Workday or ServiceNow, he said.

Apple will launch a Netflix rival in 2018

Apple will launch a subscription video-on-demand service next year to take on Netflix and others in the fast-growing sector, research firm CCS Insight predicts.

Premium video on demand will become a reality

Hollywood executives predict that premium video-on-demand offerings will happen next year.
In September, 20th Century Fox studio head Stacey Snider said she expects a deal to allow consumers to see movies at home just weeks after they appear in theaters to be finalized in the next six to 12 months.
Consumers will be able to download rentals much sooner than they can now for “less than $50,” Snider said, according to Bloomberg.
Also in September, Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns predicted that major film studios will reach a deal within a year with exhibitors on the launch of a premium video-on-demand window for new theatrical releases, Variety reported.

Jan. 2, 2018, update:

Amazon.com will buy Nordstrom

New York University Professor Scott Galloway, who correctly predicted that Amazon.com would buy Whole Foods, predicts that Amazon will take out department store chain Nordstrom, according to RBC Capital Markets.

Amazon will buy Target

Loup Ventures general partner Gene Munster predicts that e-commerce giant Amazon.com will buy Target in 2018.
“Amazon believes the future of retail is a mix of mostly online and some offline. Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count,” Munster wrote in a blog post. “As for the demographic, Target’s focus on moms is central to Amazon’s approach to win wallet share.”

Here are some tech predictions from last year that didn’t pan out:

Bold Tech M&A Predictions For 2017: Netflix, Twitter, GoPro In Play (Dec. 30, 2016)

Photo: Magic Leap One augmented reality glasses. (Magic Leap).