1. Wireless networks
We're in the middle of a wireless revolution, and next year will be more of the same. Bluetooth is working and cheap, 802.11a and 802.11g will bring 55 megabits a second to your radio network, and a whole host of small, cheap, low power devices may yet give us the automated, computerised home that we've promised ourselves since the 1950s.
Look out for Zigbee, the low power, low speed technology promised to be cheaper than Bluetooth and to run for months on ordinary batteries, but it has competitors; with Microsoft launching Bluetooth systems that don't work with other Bluetooth devices, beware the fragmentation of the market into different semi-standards.
2. Location-based services
You might not know where you are, but your mobile phone does. The network operators are already talking about beaming adverts to your phone or PDA when you're in the vicinity of a shop; somewhat more usefully, the same technology will tell you where to get petrol, cash, food or help, and automatically summon the closest free taxi to you.
At the same time, GPS satellite navigation technology is getting much cheaper and more reliable and will be built into more things. Including active pet-collars, although quite why you'll need to know where Tiddles is to within five metres anywhere on the earth's surface is not entirely clear.
3. Holographic storage
Holographic storage is real science fiction stuff, with lasers writing complex three-dimensional patterns to optical recording media.
It's also the epitome of next year's hot product, as people have been promising amazing things 'next year' since the mid-nineties--giving hard disks and solid-state storage ample opportunity to keep up.
But IBM is still keen, as are a handful of small start-ups, and the promise of terabyte storage in tiny spaces still hangs tantalisingly just out of reach.
4. Solar power
The trouble with solar cells has been that they take more energy to make than they produce during their lifetime--all that silicon smelting, purifying and processing.
Which makes the idea of plastic solar power, using organic compounds that you mix up and spread out like paint, very appealing. This year has seen a number of research departments and companies produce prototypes: they don't make much power, they're not very robust and they're not ready to come out and play just yet, but the potential is vast.
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