Technology Predictions for 2006?

OffTheLip writes "As 2006 fast approaches it's time for some to gaze into the crystal ball of technology and predict what will be hot, what will make a difference in our lives or make someone rich and famous. The Mercury News takes a shot at predicting the coming year of technology. No great revelations but it nice to see clean technologies make the list. The list is light on pure technology and big on trends. Perhaps killer apps are not as important as they once were thought to be." What would Slashdot users put in their top 10?

Comments

The better battery?

[Presence2]

My hope is that 2006 will be the year a cheap, easily manufactured portable power cell will become popular. Rechargeable.. disposable.. who cares, just make it better then what we've been using for the past 20 years. Limitations in power supply is really starting to be the limitation for all our fancy high tech gadgets. We can put 3000 songs on ipod.. but you can't play them all. We can put the latest movies on a psp or portable dvd player, but they will barely stay on long enough to play some of today's epics. I can't think of any laptop that can last longer then what.. 8-10 hours? Pathetic!

Without reading their list

[thedletterman]

I've got money on most of my predictions, but I'll have them out here.. 1. WiMax, Intel signed onto this technology in 2005, and companies like Alvarion has already deployed BreezeMAX solutions all around the world. I think this is going to be one of the biggest trends in wireless networks in 2006, but maybe to hit the US the latest. 2. Video on Demand, this one has been around and gradually picking up steam, but as higher bandwidth starts hitting the national infrastructure and portable devices capable of carrying it around with you increase in popularity, the demand for this is going to start gaining exponentially. Companies like Path One Networks develop video switches and such for this technology that is going to do very well in 2006. 3. High Definition TV, in 2006, Sony is going to be the first company that has an end-to-end solution for HDTV from hardware to content. HDTVs, players, games, and videos. Expect the PS3 to be bigger than just what "core" promises. The Blueray will challenge against HDTV will be monumentally strengthened by the Japanese demand for this console, and once again, we will see the United States slow to adopt the revolutionary technology foreign countrys are recognizing first. 4. Portable electronics, with chip manufacturing down to a 65nm process, look for continued improvements in minaturization and energy efficiency to make more capable, portable electronic devices. Look for Sony to make the thinnest, lightest most capale VAIO yet. Also look for competition erupting against the Blackberry with devices like the Treo and iPod to meet head-on challenge in the portable mp3 player market. 5. Digital Rights Management, everyone's skittish about this one as it threatens many of our very lifestyles. Today we have the flexibility to record and tranfer our files between our devices spurring the innovation of new products. With the RIAA lobbying heavily to Congress to put barriers in manufacturing and lawsuits against application, don't be surprised if digital right managements mandated by law are applied to consumer electronics devices, and don't be surprised if these applications of the law suck worse than the recent Sony-BMG fiasco. 6. Unlimited bandwidth, Sun's been talking about this for years it seems like. The infrastructure is dependant on the fattest pipes you can imagine, and I'm imagining a combination of several emerging technologies competing and combining to create the fastest, most robust architecture ever conceived to emerge in 2006. Utilizing powerlines, wireless, fiber to the home, as well as improvements to cable signaling will result in companies like SBC, Verizon, and Comcast to offer cost-effective internet capablities up to 100mbit, and allow home access upward of 35mbit. 7. This one is wishful thinking, but an application of techonlogy that is entirely feasible and useful in 2006. The first self-bootable chipset. I'm talking the first motherboard with an integrated C: for loading an operating system resulting from "on board" nvram. I've got my fingers crossed it will be a company like ABIT or ASUS that drop this, what I see as the inevitable evolution in chipsets. Companies like Saifun that used different signaling storage to double the capacity of NVRAM promises to see the emergance of a 4GB nvram chip in 2006, which would be sufficient space to load any operating system in existance at lightning fast speeds. We've already integrated the sound card, networking cards, and everything else into the chipset, with the tremendous performance increase of integrated storage, coupled with the demand for "locked configuration" workstations dependant on network file storage system, the ability to expand with SATA devices doesn't even seem necessary in many configurations leaving us a motherboard, usb ports, and a video port combined with new low heat cpus could result in the slimmest pc yet, and without an optional optical drive.. no moving parts. This is a corportate administrator's dream, but I still think this configuration is more likely for 2008 than 2006. 8. AMD, 2006 is