We live in an age of great technological change and innovation. While it can be confusing and at times scary, these changes are often a good thing.

The staff of Designtechnica lives technology. When we're not testing the latest gadgets, computer hardware or audio equipment, we're working tech day jobs such as software engineers, MIS managers and microprocessor engineers at organizations such as Intel, RealNetworks, Microsoft, and NASA.

With that in mind, we polled the Designtechnica staff to see what they thought would be the big tech stories of this year. With 2004 well underway, we're starting to see some new trends and ideas that really look like they will be in the forefront of technology this year.