[js1138]

No one can predict when a technology will become practical. Two years ago all the big names in ePunditry were saying that LCD monitors had reached their lowest price points for a long while. I'm typing this using a 17 inch $329 BenQ monitor with excellent specs and clear, readable type at 1280x1024. CRTs are doomed. Regardless or their superiority in certain applications, they will join vinyl LPs (and camera film) in the hall of expensive niche products.

[discostu]

I don't doubt that ebook will be here eventually, but after hearing that solar power would be a viable alternative en mas energy source in "five to ten years" for 30 years, that cancer would be cured in "five to ten years" for 15 years, and that offices would be paperless in "five to ten years" for 20 years I'm simply never going to buy into a 5-to-10 prediction again. Eventually of course all of these things will come to pass and the last people to make the 5-to-10 prediction will be hailed as geniuses with amazing forsight, but I'll be around to remind people that they were just the latest guy to make the exact same prediction (not that anyone will listen, nobody ever listens).

Actually LPs and CRTs are hanging pretty tough. BestBuy has a 17" CRT for $99 bucks. And LPs are running about the same price as cassettes (in the world) over on WhatAreRecords.com, given the hord of turners on the market these days I think LPs are making a comeback, but I'm not making any prediction.