The Independant has announced it’s predictions for 2005. So what can we look forward to this year? Spyware, adware and phishing will continue to rise. More money will pass hands between hackers and “underworld operatives”. Broadband prices will plummet as subscribers rocket, VoIP will become more widespread. TTS and voice recognision software will become amazingly good, promoting automated telephone services.

Desktop searching tools will hit us hard from all the major search engine companies chasing Google’s tail. IE will be ditched in favour of “alternatives”, Microsoft will be embarassed by more security holes, and blog comment spam will strike us like newsgroups have.

And finally, The Independent’s guide to surviving this year; don’t trust people, spend more on antivirus software and less on hardware, try VoIP at least once, go wireless, don’t go 3G and start reading software licences.