Hindsight · review build · data not yet validated

Users’ servers store virtual reality environments

Ray Kurzweil, Books and essays, 1999, published 1999-01

Most users have servers where they keep digital “objects” such as virtual reality environments (although these are still at an early stage).

Source

Verdict

missTwo blind graders agree (D7, rule D16). The auditor agent confirmed it (D11).

Grader A: miss

Personal servers were rare (see 008) and virtual reality environments were not a common kind of personal digital object. The largest virtual world, Second Life, peaked at about 88,000 concurrent users in 2009 and then stalled.

Test: At least 20% of users keeping VR environments on their own servers: effectively 0%.

Windows Home Server (Wikipedia) (retrieved 2026-09): The consumer home-server product line ended in 2013.
Second Life (Wikipedia) (retrieved 2026-09): Peak concurrency of 88,200 avatars in Q1 2009; growth stalled after 2009.

Grader B: miss

Users did not keep virtual reality environments on personal servers in 2009 or by 2014.

Test: Household test: ~0%.

Wikipedia: Dropbox (accessed 2026-09-28): Dropbox launched 2008; 3M users Nov 2009, 50M Oct 2011, 100M Nov 2012.

All captured fields

rank: 10
kind: decade_prediction
section: Computers
subject: Users’ servers store virtual reality environments
target year: 2009
timing: in
position: Chapter 9, "2009"; item Computers 10 in Kurzweil 2010, p. 19
confidence: high
note: Wording as reproduced by the author in "How My Predictions Are Faring" (2010); book page not given there. Subject label is the essay's own item heading.