I found these predictions in Macleans magazine.
Some of them are very realistic, while others not as much.
What do you think?
by 2015
- Demand for oil will increase from roughly 75 million barrels per day in 2000 to more than 100 million barrels per day.
- Nearly half the world's population - more than 3 billion people - living in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and northern China will be thirsting and "water-stressed"
- A sick person's DNA profile will allow doctors to better tailor treatments for a wide variety of diseases.
- Livestock will be commercially cloned.
by 2020
- World population hits 7.6 billion
- First samples returned from Mars show no fossil evidence of life.
- Infertile men use the DNA in their skin to clone stem cells that are then persuaded to grow into functioning sperm. Nine months later, the first stem-cell-sperm child is born.
- Astromomers discover extraterrestrial intelligence
- Retinal projectors redefine the home-theatre experience
by 2030
- Population odometer hits 8.2 billion
- Scientists create a gene to increase the three colour-producing cones in our eyes (red, green, and blue) to FOUR, enabling us to see new hues that we can't even imagine now.
- We reach
Vernor Vinge's deadline for singularity, the point at which technology gives rise to "entities with greater than human intelligence".
by 2040
- Population? 8.7 billion
- Physicists figure out the origin of the universe
- Human power is increasingly battery powered. We'll be riding ultra-compact cars, bi-cycles and our scooterboards to Wal-Mart, the only grocery chain in the world.
by 2050
- 9.1 billion people wandering around
- The availability of fresh water is now limited only by the energy costs of transportation and desalinization.
by 2060 to 2100
- Human longevity increased by 30 years
- Vertical take-off and landing vehicles become popular
- Genetic engineering of humans creates a hostile super-race
- Most of the planet is now using a common currency
- Humans will learn almost all they will ever know about the laws of physics
- Travel faster than the speed of light becomes possible.
- An immortality chip allows humans to upload into cyberspace