Personal hovercraft. Jet-propelled backpacks. Robots that automatically prepare your meals and clean up afterwards. And everyone's favorite — weekend junkets to the orbting Hilton space station. Back in the optimistic 1950s, technology writers were confident that by the 21st century, such things would be a part of daily life. In hindsight, their predictions proved, more than anything, just how hard it is to predict the future.

Undeterred by the difficulty of the task (or the prospect of being profoundly embarrassed in the 22nd century), the editors and I sat down and picked five consumer-electronics technologies that we guarantee . . . um, think maybe will emerge as being significant over the next few years. Some of them are already for sale — albeit only in expensive, early-adopter form — while others are still incubating in the lab. Either way, all five have the potential to raise the technology bar dramatically.

After making our choices, we realized that all of them have to do with video. Does this mean that audio is a done deal? Not at all. Audio is still very much a work in progress, but we do believe that video has the steepest growth curve right now. So, engage the autopilot in your personal rocket car, turn on the heads-up display, and see what's on the road ahead.

OLED TVs
If you think your LCD TV is keen or your plasma rocks, check out OLED. Organic Light-Emitting Diode TVs might become the ultimate winner of the LCD vs. plasma war. Like a conventional LED, an OLED is a solid-state device that emits light. But unlike LEDs, OLEDs use organic compounds for the emissive layer; these compounds can be deposited on substrates in dense rows and columns, making them ideal for displays.

OLED technology offers a number of advantages over other screen types. Most strikingly, because it doesn't require backlighting (like LCD), an OLED screen can be built on a single glass substrate and thus can be extremely thin — perhaps 3 millimeters, or about the thickness of three credit cards. Can your LCD do that?

OLED can also provide faster response times than standard LCD screens (perhaps 0.01 millisecond vs. 10 milliseconds), greatly reducing motion blur. Because there's no backlight, there's no light output when displaying black — and this helps deliver a very high contrast ratio. Although current-generation OLEDs are relatively expensive, they're fundamentally simpler to manufacture than LCD or plasma screens and might eventually cost considerably less.

Finally, OLED is a green technology. Ditching the backlight saves on power consumption, so OLED can be 40% more efficient than LCD, and it also avoids the mercury content of backlights. On the downside, at least for now, the organic materials in OLEDs have a relatively short lifetime. In particular, blue OLEDs last for about 5,000 hours, compared with 60,000 hours for LCD or plasma screens. But considerable effort is being made to improve endurance.

OLED is already available in small-screen devices like cellphones and personal media players. Sony is the first to offer an OLED TV in the U.S. market. With an 11-inch screen and an advertised contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, the XEL-1 retails at Sony Style stores for $2,500. (No, that price isn't a typo.) Even if you're not ready to trade in your 65-incher for it, check out its thin screen, deep blacks, brilliant brightness, and wide viewing angle. Meanwhile, Samsung has shown a number of large OLED prototypes, and Toshiba and Panasonic are among other companies anxious to maintain their reputations as display-technology innovators.

Prognosis
OLED is a slam dunk for small-screen applications, but it's not ready to be a contender in the big leagues. Because companies have invested billions to ramp up the manufacture of LCD and plasma, they'll think carefully before retooling for big OLED TVs, which require radically different manufacturing techniques.

Also, although OLED's relatively short life isn't a problem in intermittently used devices like cellphones, it's a serious limitation in big screens that are meant to run for years. Short-term, OLED's impact will be big in small screens, but relatively small in big screens. Look for portables and even laptops, but don't expect to see family-size TVs for another few years.

Wireless VIDEO
Imagine how The Future will look. Now glance out your front window. You'll notice two important differences. Most concepts of The Future, unlike your driveway, don't include a rusted-out AMC Gremlin up on blocks. Also, The Future doesn't have rows of wooden poles strung with utility wires. The Future is sleek, which means wireless.

Now consider your home theater system — and the thicket of wires not only stuffed behind your TV but possibly running throughout your house. How great would it be to eliminate those? Wireless audio, although still not mainstream, has been around for quite a while in some headphones and rear speakers. But wireless video is a much tougher proposition because of the greater bandwidth required. Still, the possibility of streaming high-def video is beginning to emerge.

The High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is fast becoming the de facto standard for lacing together consumer gear. An HDMI cable can transfer uncompressed multichannel audio and 1080p video at blistering rates of 3 gigabits per second. To achieve the same bit rate wirelessly is no small feat, since transmitted data is under constant and unpredictable attack by invisible interference from other radio signals and is degraded by physical obstacles like walls.

Solutions are fiendishly difficult. One might involve analyzing video data and giving priority to data that's deemed visually important. That way, if communication is stressed, only less important visual details will be lost, and hopefully not noticed by the viewer. Fortunately, clever engineers have devised a number of ways to wirelessly deliver uncompressed audio and video in real time over short ranges. For example, Motorola and Amimon are pitching the Wireless High-Definition Interface (WHDI), and Samsung has demonstrated a system using the emerging 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. Also, a consortium of manufacturers (including LG, Panasonic, NEC, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba) has developed a system called WirelessHD. Importantly, that group has sought approval from Hollywood studios, which must grant security certification before they'll allow their content to be streamed.

Manufacturers are already hinting at near-future products. DVD players, game consoles, TVs, and projectors are all possible candidates. But there's a catch: Until there's an industry-recognized wireless high-def standard, we'll be wondering if our Sanyo projector can talk to our Samsung TV. Yep, another standards war.

Prognosis
The Future is wireless. Cellphones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth — wireless rules. Spending a lot of money to eliminate one HDMI cable between your DVD player and your TV is questionable. But if that money lets the player communicate with any TV in the house, then that's a significant upgrade. Reliable wireless video — at 1080p, over distances of 30 to 100 feet, and through walls — is a technology that we're anxiously awaiting. We just have to avoid a standards deadlock. No problem: In the future, we'll all just get along, right?

4K VIDEO
Also in the future, everyone will have to jog 4K every morning before the robot makes their breakfast. Just kidding. (Then again, such a policy would make us fit and toned — and it would cure the health-insurance crisis.) Actually, 4K is a technology standard underlying new-and-improved digital video resolution that will make your awesome 1080p screen look crude. (I know that sounds harsh, but someone had to break the news to you.)

The 4K standard represents the next level of display resolution, as well as the brave new world of digital cinema. Imagine seeing not just a 1080p picture but four 1080p pictures displayed simultaneously. That's the kind of demo that manufacturers are showing as visual proof of 4K's incredible prowess. In particular, 4K designates a display resolution of 4,096 x 2,160 pixels. That works out to 8.8 million pixels, more than quadrupling the resolution of a 1,920 x 1,080 display, the highest of consumer high-def currently available.

The resolution of 4K is indeed staggering, and it has immediate implications. For starters, a vast and mighty 50-GB Blu-ray Disc couldn't even accommodate a 4K movie; you might need a 300-GB disc for that. So 4K will make the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD moot by creating the need for even higher-density optical storage.

Currently, 1080p is the top dog in consumer video, but 4K is the ultimate in professional digital cinema. In fact, the advent of HDTV consumer technology spurred the pros (including the movie industry) to devise something even better. Just like everyone else, movie theaters want to kick the analog habit and go digital, abandoning film for files. The studios have agreed on 4K and 2K (2,048 horizontal pixels) as the standards for digital movie distribution and projection. Some theaters have already installed 2K and 4K projectors to show movies as well as live events ranging from sports to opera. As 4K enters the consumer market, it will open up our living rooms to the wonders of digital cinema.

Prognosis
4K is the real deal. The four-fold increase in resolution over 1080p is significant and impressive enough to encourage upgrades. Stepping up from "home theater" to "home cinema" will be more than just semantics, because 4K gives the kind of picture that previously was only associated with film. It's amazing that right after we bought 1080p screens, even better ones come along. Ah, the simultaneously frustrating and rewarding march of technological evolution.

DOLBY HDR
You're probably wondering, "Dolby? But you said that all of these tech trends have to do with video." While Dolby's contributions to audio are well known — and whereas High Dynamic Range does have an audio ring to it — HDR is indeed a video technology. That role reversal demonstrates just how dramatically video dominates audio these days. In fact, Dolby was so anxious to get into the video market, and was so impressed with HDR, that it bought BrightSide, the company that originally developed the technology.

HDR tackles a fundamental limitation in most TV displays: the relatively narrow range in contrast from darkness to brightness. Imagine that range in the natural world, from walking in pitch-blackness to staring at the sun — a contrast ratio that TV displays can't encompass. Manufacturers are racing to boost their ratios, and thereby improve picture realism, with brighter and darker screens and the ability to show everything in between, like the subtle luma detail that's lost in the shadows of conventional screens.

Most LCD TVs use cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) for backlighting — which is great, but CCFLs generate a constant light across the screen that partly illuminates areas that should be black. HDR is an imaging technology that replaces CCFL backlighting with LED backlighting. A matrix of LEDs can turn different image-section backlights on and off as needed. (It's called "local dimming.") Using HDR, Dolby (BrightSide, actually) reported a contrast ratio of 200,000:1 and expects to better that. Meanwhile, Samsung, working on the same issue, has introduced screens (the LN-T81F series) with advertised contrast ratios of 500,000:1. The contest for contrast is on.

Prognosis
Dolby has a good track record of bringing audio inventions to market. HDR is a slight stretch for the company, but screen manufacturers will be looking desperately for innovations that make their products stand out from the showroom-floor competition. HDR is an example of one of the many improvements that can offer that kind of demonstrable distinction. Alongside the ongoing race for increased resolution, future LCDs will also feature brightness and dynamic-range enhancement techniques like HDR.

3-D TV
I know, I know — you're smirking. 3-D. It's the dorky glasses, right? Your skepticism is justified. Back in the 1950s, prognosticators thought that in the future, all movies and TV would be shown in 3-D. They said the polarizing glasses with the funky colored lenses were a small embarrassment to pay for the wonders of 3-D. They were wrong: It wasn't worth the embarrassment. Nevertheless, 3-D has been used in many films (most recently, Beowulf and U2 3D). But 3-D TV in the home? Come on.

Stereoscopic imaging strives to create a sense of depth, usually by displaying two images, one slightly different from the other. Glasses are usually required, to filter and thus determine which of the images reaches which eye. It's interesting that, living in a 3-D world, we so willingly accept so many 2-D images. But we do, and most people aren't frustrated that their TVs are lacking a dimension. Still, if you've seen 3-D, you understand its attraction, and manufacturers are actively exploring the possibilities.

For example, Sharp offers LCD computer screens with prisms that divert light from even and odd columns of pixels to create the two images necessary for 3-D. These screens are mainly used for visualizing medical or scientific images, and although glasses aren't required, you have to sit in the center of the screen to catch the left/right views. Philips has shown WOWvx screens that similarly use prisms to divert light into nine different views, allowing a 3-D effect without glasses over a wider viewing angle. Initially, they're mainly meant for retail advertising.

Closer to home, Texas Instruments has developed a version of its DLP engine that can display independent stereoscopic views. Because a true stereoscopic program requires twice the imaging bandwidth of 2-D, some 3-D systems must halve the horizontal or vertical resolution. But the DLP system is able to combine left and right images into a single frame and provides a 60-Hz frame rate to each eye for full-resolution, flicker-free presentation. Each view has a sync signal that's transmitted optically to LCD shutter glasses worn by viewers. The glasses don't need the red/blue lenses; instead, the shutters temporally admit only the correct view to each eye.

Both Mitsubishi and Samsung offer DLP 3-D-ready HDTVs at essentially the same price as 2-D screens. (You still need to buy the sync transmitter and the glasses.) The rub is that the content source must provide 3-D video. That can be sent to the TV via HDMI, but movie studios, game developers, and other content providers must step up and deliver. One more catch: There's no agreed-on 3-D standard. The 3-D movie you buy may or may not work on your 3-D TV.

Prognosis
Laugh if you must, but I still think that the 1953 3-D movie Robot Monster is awesome. And I think that 3-D TV has a future. The Next Big Thing? No. But there's enough interest — and, most important, content — to fuel the 3-D business. For example, DreamWorks has said that all future animated titles will be in 3-D, making content available for the home market. And the dorky glasses? Don't worry. If Bono starts wearing them, they'll suddenly become cool.

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