The end of a year is a time for reflection, but it’s also a time for running full-pelt at the new year with some ill-thought-out predictions under ones belt. It’s with this in mind that I fire up my 100%-accurate Criswell Brand crystal ball, and peer into next year’s world of technology.

• Newly free of the burden of Microsoft stewardship and imaginary death squads respectively, Steve Ballmer and John McAfee will team up to form a rock supergroup. They will be terrible, but no one will be able to look away.
• Big data analysis will continue to compete with relational databases. End users will continue to do whatever they’d already decided before they saw the numbers.
• Google Glass will overturn the longstanding embargo on hitting people with glasses, and no one will mind.
• Additionally, the sheer prevalence of “making a spectacle” jokes in relation to wearable tech will make life on Earth so unpleasant that it will eventually become the main driver behind commercial manned spaceflight.
• The Olympics will be replaced by a competition between governments to see how much data they can gather on their own citizens.
• Digital currencies will continue to proliferate. Digital currency advocates will continue to be the worst people to get stuck talking to at parties.
• 3D printing technology will become cheaper and more prevalent, allowing more and more people to experience the faint - yet lingering - sense of disappointment 3D printing brings.
• Google’s purchase of robot manufacturer Boston Dynamics will bear fruit. True to its plan so far, Google will subtly integrate its core search and ad functionality into the bought technology. “Hello,” the bipedal rescue droid will say, hauling you out of a mountainous crevasse, “It appears your injuries have a 2-year recuperation period. Would you like me to search for gentle cottage holidays after that?”
• Amazon’s robots will go to war with Google’s. While both wish to destroy humanity, Amazon’s will seem slightly nicer about it.
• By November 2014, Larry Ellison will finally have finished his hot dog.
• There still won’t be jetpacks.

Be sure to share your own predictions for next year in the comments.