If I were to answer the question, I'd said that I have an intuition for what is real trend and what is fad. Thus, I do not bother with every "technology X" coming out (reading summary is enough to assess whether it's really game changer). Also reading research articles is one more possible answer: Those sometimes contain good hints on what comes in 3-5 year time. Solid educational / research background is needed to make sense of those at times.