TECHNOBUDDY / Bill Husted

Calendar says it's time for fearless predictions

Published on: 01/01/06

Once, long ago, I consulted a woman who billed herself as a European psychic. I'm not sure what part of Europe she came from, but her accent nicely matched the one I acquired growing up in Arkansas.

Her prediction was pretty general. She said that a lot of predictable things would happen to me in the coming year, along with some stuff that wasn't predictable. She was amazingly accurate. Since I'm not ashamed to learn from real professionals, I'll borrow her theme for my annual predictions about technology for the coming year.

Lets start with the predictable.

• HDTV: Prices will continue to drop. I'm already seeing 42-inch plasma sets selling at $2,500 and below. Back in December 2003, I reviewed a 42-inch plasma set. The big news at the time was that prices had fallen to a mere $6,000.

By the end of 2006, look for routine prices of $1,800 or less for brand-name, 42-inch plasma sets.

LCD/DLP sets also will drop in price. The old-fashioned sets that use a picture tube — CRT models — may already be as low as they'll go, considering you can buy one for a little over $500.

• Wireless: While it's been possible for a while to browse the Web and send e-mail using a cellular phone, 2006 will mark the year it becomes truly ordinary. By this time next year, even low-priced cellular service plans will include this as standard.

I guess that's good news. But if you thought driving behind someone talking on the phone was frightening, you have new horrors awaiting you.

• Internet: By and large, you won't see meaningful price reductions for high-speed Internet service during the coming year. Instead, the sales pitches will continue to harp on ease of use and the fact, duh, that high-speed is superior to dial-up.

• Bundling: I'm not talking about following your mom's advice to dress in layers. This kind of bundling refers to the trend to bundle several services — TV, local telephone, long-distance and Internet — under one bill from one provider. Both cable and telephone companies are doing this. I think bundling is well on its way to becoming the norm.

Now let's turn to some surprising failures and successes for 2006.

• Podcasting: Blogs moved from obscure to trendy in what seemed like an instant. Many of my fellow psychics think podcasting will follow the same path. Podcasting lets almost anyone create an audio or video program and distribute it over the Internet for download and playback. Just as blogs let folks become instant publishers, podcasting offers the potential to be a low-rent radio or TV producer.

Trouble is, most podcasts are terrible. Most blogs are dreadful, too. But bad radio and TV is remarkably bad. Podcasting is here to stay, but it will not become as common as blogging.

• VoIP: That stands for "Voice over Internet Protocol," which is the geek term for the ability to send voice conversations over Internet connections. That means a lot of people can make calls on the cheap, or even for free. Prices are dropping at regular phone companies, too.

They can lower the price, but the Bells can't give away the store. So you'd figure the headquarters buildings for the big telephone companies would soon be turned into a bowling alley here, a pizza parlor there.

Not so. Internet telephony will remain a niche market. There's something really comforting about buying an old-fashioned dial tone from the big guys, especially when something goes wrong at home at 2:15 a.m.

• Satellite radio: I've written about it, interviewed experts who praised it and used it with much enjoyment. Automakers are beginning to install satellite radio capability as standard equipment. Howard Stern, the shock jock, has taken his act to satellite radio. It's a no-brainer to predict big things for this subscription service over the coming year.

I would join the chorus, but I still can't answer my stepdaughter's question about it, and she subscribed for a while. She asked: "Why would anyone pay for it?" She would rather listen to FM and to her iPod. I don't think she is a voice in the wilderness. Satellite radio won't go away, but neither will it become the next big thing.

• Broadband over power lines: This technology delivers high-speed Internet access right over the lines that deliver electricity to your home. So you plug your modem into an AC socket and you're ready to go. My ham radio buddies hate this transmission method because it causes serious interference with some of the high-frequency bands we use.

But my sister would love to have it. She lives way out in the country, where no cable lines run. And she's too far away for DSL. So she has an expensive, not very efficient satellite earth station for high-speed Internet. I love my ham radio, but in truth, there's huge value in reaching people like my sister with affordable high-speed access.

OK. I'm done. I think my predictions will be at least as accurate as those I got from my European psychic. And as a bonus, I will not — as she did — try to sell you some amazing healing crystals as you depart.