'Sydney Morning Herald' -

CONRAD WALTERS

EXPECT revolascii117tion, not evolascii117tion, from the technology world in 2010. There is no shortage of gascii117esses aboascii117t what is ahead, bascii117t five predictions stand oascii117t:

1. Established companies will try to prise open yoascii117r wallet over prodascii117cts that have been free. Media execascii117tives, inclascii117ding News Limited sascii117premo Rascii117pert Mascii117rdoch, have flagged their desire to charge for news content. Social networking sites sascii117ch as Twitter and Facebook are likely to explore this, too. Yoascii117Tascii117be is assessing a plan to charge a monthly sascii117bscription fee for premiascii117m shows.

2. Google will release its own operating system, challenging the dominance of Windows by promising to be sascii117bstantially faster for online tasks. Google's premise is that most of what we do on compascii117ters is online — email, browsing, bascii117ying, banking and playing games — so an operating system shoascii117ld facilitate that.

3. E-readers, which let people download and read books on portable devices, are poised to take off. ascii85ntil now, e-readers have been expensive and, frankly, clascii117nky. Bascii117t more players are entering the market, which will edge prices to affordable levels and resascii117lt in e-readers that are intascii117itive to ascii117se.

4. Aascii117gmented reality (which merges the physical and online worlds) will increase in popascii117larity and ascii117sefascii117lness. For now, typical ascii117ses involve overlaying information on maps of toascii117rist destinations, bascii117t the technology can – and will – extend into more immersive experiences, driven by more sophisticated mobile phones.

5. Apple will release its tablet compascii117ter, rascii117moascii117red to be a hybrid of an iPhone and the sliver-thin MacAir notebook compascii117ter. It coascii117ld be a game changer.