And then there's 3D. "I think 2009 is going to be a breakthrough year for 3D, at least in the sense of it building a head of steam as the next must-have tech upgrade," said Editor-in-Chief Nick Merritt. "The technology is closing in and it works: from Hollywood, with James Cameron blazing trails with Avatar and rapid installation of 3D in theatres."
That at least has happened. Indeed, TechRadar's Editor (News) Patrick Goss sums up many people's attitude to 3D, even if it has had success at the cinema. "Expect to see plenty of people publicly question if a tech that has been considered a gimmick since it hit cinemas more than 20 years ago has any real place in today's cinemas and living rooms."
Patrick correctly predicted a raft of 3D tech demos and 3D TV sets shown off during 2009. Sky has announced it will be launching a 3D channel during 2010.
News Writer Marc Chacksfield predicted that YouTube would cement its position as the online video destination by introducing much more feature-length content, with it and other movie-streaming sites making peer-to-peer sharing less important.
"There's been a plethora of illegitimate streaming movie sites pop up in 2008, which points to a move away from peer-to-peer for online pirates." While this hasn't quite happened, it's certainly been the case that official streaming services such as BBC iPlayer have gone from strength to strength and have also started streaming movies.
Reviews Editor James Rivington predicted what most of us were thinking – a boon in cheap imports caused by the credit crunch followed by OLED emerging onto the market at the high end. But aside from Sony's XEL-1, no other OLED sets are yet on sale in the UK. Can we expect this to change in 2010?
As James said last year, "Don't expect to see many of them anywhere other than in a John Lewis store window - the cheap mass-produced LCD panels are going to be the mainstay for a good while yet." That will still hold true for next year, so watch out for our 2010 predictions.
