It's good to see even Clarke could be wrong about the flying cars. Why is it more people don't realize that the danger issues trump the cool factor of this by about a billion to one?

oh my goodness, i found this book at a garage sale when i was around 8. got me started on knowing way too much random crap :)

to his credit he did say that several of those things "may" or "might" or "will probably" happen. then again it doesn't assuage my anger that I sit here entirely visible and without the ability to teleport

Wait. "There are petroleum-derived colors and additives in some of our food right now."
Did I know this? I don't think I did. Why not? Why have I not been told that I've been supporting terrorism with every purchase of a blue #5 colored food product?

@moncapitaine: Cheez Whiz is made from petroleum.

This is what happens when you ask a science fiction writer to make predictions rather than have things they write about become a reality over time.

Don't tell John Edward (the medium, not the politician) that you can't communicate with the dead.

@Gyrus:
Many people do not grasp the concept of motion in two dimensions or even one let alone three. Although I have to admit, flying cars would aid in natural selection.

@Gyrus: Not flying, but floating, like anti-grav, or a landspeeder. I'm with Red Forman:

"They promised us hovercars! Where's my hovercar, dammit?"

@latoberg:
You don't have to. He already knows.

@Gyrus:

Dude, Flying Cars! FLYING CARS!!!!!!!

@hypatiadotca: "Knowing way too much random crap" is the story of my life.

I discovered this book in my parents library when I was around 9. Considering this was right around the time I hit puberty, it was a gold mine.

Loved this book, always wondered why they didn't make another.

In Clarke's defense, he uses words like "might" and "possible" a lot in his predictions. So he's saying that a lot of things could come to pass, or they might not.

I could be wrong (it's been a lotta years) but weren't there other predictions in the book from different folks? Revisit childhood nostalgia!!!

Are those ALL Arthur C. Clarke?!?!

Quite a number of those "predictions" are about 450% more retarded than I would have imagined he could have predicted.

Communion with the DEAD? When was he born, 1860?

Most of the crazier ones he did qualify by stating "might" or "may". Also his predictions for the 21st century that he outlined in Greeting Carbon-based Bi-Peds has been eerily accurate upto this point.

I pray that he is correct that we will achieve "free" energy within the next thirty years.

@7Zark7 Iz In Ur Internetz: "Loved this book, always wondered why they didn't make another."

They actually did two more - I got them both years after the fact at thrift stores. The People's Almanac 2 has its pleasurable moments, but the third one is a waste of time.

""We might be able to increase the intelligence of our domestic animals." Based on my daily observation of two house cats, this is wrong, wrong, wrong. "

based on my observation of my dog... our pets are getting dumber by the day. and mine is a German Shepard... they are supposed to be intelligent :D

Clarke did better than you think. Teleportation is a fact, but only on a subatomic scale (check out quantum entanglement). Domestication has without doubt changed dogs and cats in major ways, almost certainly including intelligence (Consider the cat's meow, for example). Edible oil products are here (yuck indeed). A moonbase would have been a slam-dunk if the shuttle hadn't done its July 4th trick...twice. And even cursory efforts at encryption allow you to e-mail with a very high degree of security.

Likewise, we've got some interesting new approaches to invisibility at least in limited cases [www.sciencemag.org], and transmutation has been possible for a while if you've got a particle accelerator handy. So that's:
yes, no, yes, almost, no, working on it, no, yes in limited cases, no

I disagree with the evaluation of the last one

robots: yes, I'm waiting for the "clutterbot" that can clean up after my kids.
death rays: yes They have "Real Genius" style plane mounted combat lasers now.
transmutation: no unless you count radioactive decay.
artificial life: maybe I just read a story the other day about a genome constructed form the ground up somewhere.
immortality: working on it yea ... I don't think anyone REALLY wants to be truly immortal, especially after the first few billion years.
invisibility: yes That inverse refraction material has serious potential. The biggest drawback is rigidity and the fact that if you refract all light around something, whatever is inside is completely blind.
levitation: sort of electromagnetic levitation is getting better. I also read something about spinning magnets possibly having an effect on gravity.
teleportation: sort of Quantum entanglement and atomic level teleportation have been done. Although it doesn't happen quite like people were thinking it might.
communication with the dead: yes I read a story about a new tape from Osama Bin Laden just today. He seems to be quite up to date on current events for someone whose been dead for a few years now.

The robot in the post office is actually correct. Although it's not an 8 armed humanoid that flings letters into holes and tubes like in the Jetsons or something, most post offices are automated using computer controlled machines.

Barcode readers sort the mail automatically into different zones and delivery areas, right down to being able to pile all the letters in the same street together, with the only human hand touching them being the one that puts them into your letter box.

With the email, it can be encrypted. And it is possible, just no company wants to leave the juicy gossip alone.

With the flying cars, hovercrafts are real. Just not mass produced. (And Clark meant hovercrafts, because they "float on air", unlike antigravity or jet packs.)

Settlements on the moon are an active plan by Nasa.

Trained Assistant animals anyone? Or those mountain emergency dogs with that little wooden bottle of moonshine?

And how can you say a "Might be Possible" is wrong? How very unscientific of you.

@Dillenger69: Lets not forget Tupac is still releasing albums 10 years after...

Time travel will never be possible, especially not telepathically.

Flying cars: actually, sad thing is we have had flying cars for almost 40 years. The company behind them has just not been able to successfully position them as marketable. I'm referring to Moller Skycar ([www.moller.com]), based in Davis, California. I have toured their HQ, and checked out first hand (touched!) their totally awesome looking hot-metallic-red prototype, the latest of several generations of redesigns that go back a few decades. It works, but there are issues of safety, fuel economy, flight duration, and traffic control. But none of them too harsh. The real issue is a combination of a couple things, but notably: no one actually wants a flying car when fuel efficiency is increasingly the watchword for all vehicles. If we can resolve all the above issues - and help spread the word about Moller - the flying car is already waiting in the wings (ha) to take off (okay, that was bad, but you follow).

@cde: and @Counterglow: Regarding domestic animals, can you point to anything we've done since 1975 that has increased their intelligence? Don't get me wrong, I love animals, and I actually think one of my cats is very smart (the other not so much), but I think Clarke is suggesting something that hasn't come to pass. Cats began tailoring their meows to better communicate with humans over the thousands of years they've been domesticated. Rescue and assistance dogs, etc., have been trained by humans exploiting their innate pack behaviors. It seems to me that Clarke was suggesting something in the post-1975 timeframe that would bring domesticated animals a greater, perhaps more "human" intelligence (not that they'd want that or be well-served by it, mind you).

@cde: "Right" and "wrong" are words used by The People's Almanac in its prediction chapter. Of course, since none of you were looking at the book with me, you didn't get the reference. If only telepathy was possible.

@lperil: Here I thought it was just your musings on if they were right or wrong.... Maybe if the post was made in the quote blocks like Consumerist uses alot, then my displeasure would have been directed at them... or something... :P

Flying Cars, that's the ultimate SF utopia I guess. Though the flying car idea seems very much expensive for massive production, dangerous and not worth the cost. But I'd want one anyway, it's super-cool!

Um, where working on invisibility also. We got it to work on small objects an only in some wavelenghts.

no flying cars yet, but we do have Assimo The Smart Dog.-blurey

for invisibility go to crystallinks.com go to the alpha list, then all hollows eve traditions, "the art of becoming invisible"-blurey

food made from crude oil, yes, our food supply is filled with preservatives, its wrapped in cellophane(wich leaches chemicals into foods), bottled water in cheap plastic bottles leaches chemicals into the water, our pills and vitamins also have petrochemical additives.plastic its fantastic!-blurey

as far a telepathy, im not alowed to say anything, the psychic police are monitoring my thoughts.-blurey