The past year has been a wild ride for the global technology sector, which is already turbulent at the best of times.

Cyberattacks and outages crippled some of the nation’s businesses and healthcare services, generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini wormed their way into Australian schools and workplaces, and crypto had a banner year after the re-election of US President-elect Donald Trump.

Here are five scenarios for what will probably be an even more unpredictable 2025.

Virtual reality flops

At first, virtual reality had so much promise. Enter hyperrealistic virtual spaces and interact with people from all over the world, all from the comfort of your couch. VR remains largely a non-event, however, despite the tech giants’ best efforts over the past decade.

Meta has released a cheaper version of its Quest 3 VR goggles.Credit: Bloomberg

VR headsets sound fun in theory, but the reality (pun intended) is that they remain unwieldy, fiddly to use, and in some cases, prohibitively expensive: Apple’s Vision Pro retails for an eye-watering $5999. Not to mention the fact that you can’t help but look like a dork when you’re wearing a VR headset. There are some helpful use cases for VR, including in aged care and first-responder training, for example. But the next year will be........

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