MobHappy has been publishing a list of predictions. Among them:

3. 3G won't kill Wi-Fi, WiMAX won't kill 3G. There will be no killing of rival radio technologies.
4. Operators will still struggle to find the key selling points of 3G.
5. Ringtones implosion accelerates, as one of the shortest boom and bust cycles becomes clear to all.
9. Mobile TV and P2P video struggle again in 2006

Google Blogoscoped lists them out:

1. “Our article is too long, let’s split it up into many pages.”
2. “We have art content, so let’s create an artistic navigation.”
3. “Let’s ignore the rest of the world.”
4. “Let’s spam everything (blog comments, email accounts, referrer stats, discussion groups etc.)!”
5. “Let’s treat the mobile web as a separate entity.”
6. “Let’s do a traditional homepage for our company.”
7. “Let’s care about low bandwidth!”
8. “Let’s read out loud the URL on TV.”
9. “Let’s tell everyone Firefox is the better browser.”
10. “Let’s have a tiny font that looks better.”

MercuryNews writes about ten trends.

Video -- in the form of your favorite TV dramas or Hollywood hit movies -- will come to the big screen in your living room and to the small screen on your cell phone. Whenever you want it. No need to mess around with time-shifting TV devices or mail-order flicks.

Video comes to blogs to begat vlogs. For anybody who's getting tired of reading all those wordy blogs (short for Weblogs) posted on the Internet on every conceivable niche topic, video comes to the rescue. If a picture is worth a thousand words, video might be worth even more. Now anyone can subscribe to vlogs and have the latest installments automatically delivered to the computer desktop (and transferred to a portable player, such as the video iPod).

Meanwhile, Internet phone calls will become more common now that major Web companies Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are making it easier to call from your desktop computer.

For those of us who occasionally depart the virtual world for the real one, defending ourselves from all kinds of biological threats -- real or potential -- becomes a growth industry in 2006. Biotech companies step up to fight what could be the biggest threat of all, from nature itself -- bird flu. Other companies work to find a better, faster way to make vaccines for the wintertime flu that kills many thousands every year.

Directions on Microsoft outlines 10 challenges. Among them:

Take Vista into the Boardroom: Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface. However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features that probably turn off more IT staff than they attract, and sales of Windows upgrade rights to corporations have been disappointing. In 2006, Microsoft has to settle on a feature set for Vista that appeals to enterprises, explain clearly what that feature set is, and reveal what PC hardware and other infrastructure corporations require to reap the benefits.

Refresh the Online Strategy, Again: Microsoft’s latest online strategy is to match Google’s every move in hopes of raking in more advertising dollars, while taking yet another stab at subscription services. 2005 saw a lot of motion—leaked memos, blog buzz, reorgs, and a new "Live" brand—but little progress in terms of service improvements, audience share, or dollars. So Microsoft’s online strategy must start to gel in 2006, or the company will find Google continuing to steal headlines and rake in the advertising bucks—or worse, building online services that begin to compete with Microsoft's core software franchises.

Business Week writes:

Otellini is tossing out the old model. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing Intel to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications, and health care. And rather than just microprocessors, he wants Intel to create all kinds of chips, as well as software, and then meld them together into what he calls "platforms." The idea is to power innovation from the living room to the emergency room. "This is the right thing for our company, and to some extent the industry," he says. "All of us want [technology] to be more powerful and to be simpler, to do stuff for us without us having to think about it."

The start of a new year is a good time to look ahead and review trends. Everyone seems to have a set of predictions for the year. I am also going to throw my hat in the ring. But rather than focus on a specific set of predictions for the year, I want to step back and review some of the tech trends that we are seeing. Life and business are a continuum, so there is nothing really special about a new year which changes trends!

Here are my 11 trends. I will discuss each of them, along with comments from others.

1. The Four Screens in our life are being transformed.
2. The Internet is becoming computing’s centre.
3. Mobiles are becoming the next platform.
4. The digital home is the next big technology battleground.
5. Search is at the heart of the rise of online advertising.
6. Networks are becoming higher speed and ubiquitous.
7. Peer production and syndication are at the heart of the new Web.
8. Multimedia on the Web is coming into its own.
9. Voice calls are becoming free.
10. Software-as-a-service is happening.
11. Emerging markets are where the action is.

Let us begin with the first one.

1. The Four Screens in our life are being transformed.

Television is becoming on-demand and high-definition. Computing is becoming centralised, with the computer screen becoming a multimedia window not just to what’s on the local network but the Internet. The ‘big screen’ (in movie theatres) is becoming digital and the primary way entertainment is being consumed in countries like India with the proliferation of multiplexes. The mobile screen is becoming colourful, media-rich, and a gateway to the Web. It is these four screens around which our life and work revolves. The changes in what’s behind these screens is perhaps the most important trend that we are seeing around us.

BBC News: "Sales of flat panel TV such as plasma and LCD will continue to rise, as people continue to be willing to pay a little more for a TV set with better picture quality. New technologies such as surface conduction electron emitter (SED) and organic light emitting diodes (OLED) will be launched in the near future, offering even better picture quality."

Swanni’s 2006 Predictions: “Plasma TV 'Enhanced-Definition' Prices Will Hit $1,000 By the 2006 Holidays, With Plasma HDTVs Falling Below $1,500.”

Tomorrow: Internet at Centre