Historically, prophesies regarding the future tend to be a touch more miss than hit.
According to the movies, we’re only 5 years away from the plots of The Running Man and Blade Runner coming to fruition, a mere 365 days from the hover boards of Back to the Future: Part 2 and 8 years away from eating our loved ones for dinner a-la Soylent Green.
Come to think of it, where are the tube-based public transport systems we were promised? All disappointments aside, what one can be sure of is that the following list will turn out to be 100% accurate by 2014’s end, so join us, as we unveil the hottest items of the forthcoming year.
1) Oculus Rift
Oculus took the opportunity at CES 2014 to show off the latest prototype of their incredible virtual reality headset, the Rift, and left everyone blown away. With better displays, clever head tracking technology and a technique to stop users feeling motion sick, the Rift is now one step closer to a fully-fledged consumer product.
We can’t help but imagine that a 2014 where the Rift is released and changes the way we think about playing video games. After all, who doesn’t want to explore the majestic worlds of GTA V or Bioshock Infinite as if they were actually around us?
2) Wearables
Google got everyone excited about wearable technology with the Google Glass and Pebble made smartwatches a thing with a clever user interface and good battery life, but 2014 will see a huge uptick in the amount of wearables coming to market.
From fitness trackers like Fitbit to the oft-rumoured iWatch from Apple, it’s an exciting time for people who want to track, improve, quantify and share their life, as well as those of us who just want a way to see notifications without pulling our phones out of our pockets. Expect wearables to be huge in 2014.
3) PlayStation 4/Xbox One
Okay, okay, so both of these already launched in 2013, and got off to some strong sales, but 2014 will find them coming into their own as a library of must-have games and software updates arrive on each console, turning them from cool toys into essential gaming machines by years end.
Most promising of all is Titanfall, an Xbox and PC exclusive that features, wait for it, giant mechs beating ten bells of muck out of each other. It’s like all our Christmases at once.
4) Hi-Fi
The Hi-Fi might be old news, but as 4K and OLED TV’s become a thing people actually start buying, we predict people will start craving higher quality sound from their astoundingly high resolution televisions.
Yes, the dream of the home cinema is about to be reborn and it couldn’t be more glorious, with Superfi’s home cinema system collections, there’s going to be something that suits almost every budget (surely helpful once you’ve blown most of it on that 105” 4K behemoth), and even maybe enough room left over for a JBL Pulse, available from Superfi.
5) Gadgets that bend
We’re seeing it already, and it’s surely going to be a theme throughout the year – yes, the age of the bendy gadget is here. Both Samsung and LG have recently released curved smartphones in their native land and both were exhibiting televisions at this year’s CES that could bend and twist at your command.
Will we see the smartphone that snaps around your wrist or the one that folds in half like the flip phones of old this year? It’s unlikely, but expect most major manufactures to embrace the curve this year.
