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It's time for this year's high-tech predictions

ATLANTA — I was 10 or 11 when I noticed my first high-tech prediction. The cover of Popular Science had a picture of a Buick with fold-down wings.

The story had the ring of truth. It predicted that, before I was old, people would drive cars like that, zooming above the earthbound traffic. Commutes would be easy. Vacation trips would take place at 12,000 feet in the family car.

In fact, there have been flying cars. But they're mostly in museums now. The lesson here is that all sorts of neat and possible things — like that Buick — never get off the ground.

That's why I limit my annual high-tech predictions to the near future. I'm like a cowardly gambler, only putting my money down when the odds are in my favor.

So we'll start off with a sure bet. 2007 is the year HDTV sets become common and affordable. They're already cheaper, but this is the year the sets will be the rule at the store, not the exception. You'll find good sets that cost in the hundreds, not thousands, of dollars. The high-end sets will still be there, but it'll be no problem finding one you like for less than $1,000.

Despite all the buzz about DLP and LCD sets, plasma HDTV — troubled by high cost and dependability issues early on — will thrive.

Another sure bet? The battle between the two competing formats for HDTV DVD players will continue. But by the end of the year, signs of which format will prevail will become clearer — and, eventually, one format will force the other off the map.

The winner is too hard to call right now. Blu-ray holds more data compared to the other format, HD DVD. But that may also be its weakness. The higher-density discs it uses cost more to produce, a factor for movie studios.

Now let's talk about cellular phones. I'm going out on a limb with this one. And maybe I'm indulging in wishful thinking. You'll start seeing a backlash against all the multifunction telephones and see the desire for a really nice phone that is just a phone.

I'm not alone in wanting a high-quality telephone that specializes in, well, being a telephone. Every week I get at least one or two e-mails from people looking for a first-class telephone without a camera, an MP3 player or the flash and glitter that adorn so many these days.

These folks want a phone with great battery life, terrific reception and no frills. The market will respond, I'm guessing.

My next prediction brings to mind a technology buzzword of the early '90s: convergence. It's come true to a large degree. You can watch TV on your PC, and connect many of your gadgets so that they work together. But it's often too complicated and involves wires.

The roadblock to real convergence is easy, built-in wireless connectivity. Connecting your new TV to your PC or your MP3 player shouldn't involve stringing a bunch of wires, or punching in a lot of code to make a wireless connection.

What the market craves are devices that automatically find other compatible devices and connect with no action on your part. Just turn them on and they would search out other devices.

You'll see a movement in 2007 — 2008 at the latest — toward the creation of a universal standard for connectivity — some industrywide move to make sure a Philips TV, for instance, will be able to talk to an Apple Mac just as easily as to a Sony MP3 player.

Maybe the universal standard will be one that exists now like BlueTooth or even one of the technologies used for computer routers.

It'll take a while but it will happen. There's just too much frustration among consumers as they try to connect gadgets and fail.

I'll finish with a prediction that is sure to be accurate: At least half of my predictions are wrong — fanciful thinking to be filed away with that back issue of Popular Science.

But that's OK. The fun of technology is that it will always bring surprises.

Bill Husted writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.