Also in the Indy, Charles Arthur makes his technology predictions for 2005.
Some of his guesses are continuity claims for things that have already happened, or are happening (such as VoIP). Others seem a little blue sky - at least in general consumer terms right now ("a barcode reader that can "Googlefridge" a recipe from whatever objects you scan past it").
Here are a choice few:
Phishing will be used for industrial espionage, rather than obtaining bank details.
Legal downloads will outstrip CD singles sales. But record labels will insist on keeping CDs in the charts because downloaders buy such a broad range of content they dilute the marketing push behind new artists - which labels need to survive.
Internet Explorer's market share will fall below 75 per cent (from 95 per cent last May) and keep falling as users of older systems and companies shift to safer and more flexible alternatives such as Firefox and Opera.
Enterprising Linux resellers will start selling USB memory sticks with bootable Linux distributions (such as Knoppix) stored on them. They'll spread Linux to Windows users.
3G phones will start to sell big, but video calls won't until screens get a lot bigger. Viral film clips for phones will be a huge hit, but sent by Bluetooth rather than expensive video messaging.
Apple will release an iPod that will have wireless capabilities.
Charles also puts forward the idea that Toshiba, Gateway and HP will follow IBM's lead and sell off their PC-making divisions. His predictions for 2004 weren't too bad, so let's see how this lot makes it.
