Science and Technology

Right
GPS will soon follow us everywhere, and inform people of everything we do. GPS cellphones, google latitude, and Twitter see to that.

Wireless networking between objects across a household. Wrong on the specifics, but completely right on concept.

Time says we'll still be addicted to videogames, but not in a format we'd recognise as a video game. The launch of Modern Warfare 2 disagrees with Time, and thinks standard video games are going strong, thank you.

Wrong
We will stop evolving. This prediction fails to take into account that evolution is something that can happen at the fringes of society, among the poor, dispossessed and dying. If a resistance to HIV/AIDS arises, guess where it would happen.

We'll be living on Mars. Time says we have the tech, and 2007 would be the best time to go! 2009 runs itself slowly down, and still no plans of a manned mission to Mars.

Airlines will modernise, and increase their efficiency. Nope. Instead, we're stuck with aging fleets, hidden costs, and increasingly insane behavior from the TSA.

Automakers will streamline their operations. Instead, they just went bankrupt, and got bailed out.

Computer processors will hit 10GHz by 2010. We haven't even seen 4GHz yet. Whose law?

Wait and see
We can find a universal theory of everything. They didn't know then, and we're still not sure.

Self-controlled cars by 2025. We're seeing better and more GPS systems. In 15 years, it's completely possible that we'll see cars patching into a network

Matter will be software, and you can download hardware. 3D printers are certainly here, but we're a long, long way from replicators.

E-ink will save us all! Paper content and video content will combine on a single device. The Apple tablet (or something similar) might just do this, but there are still issues with battery life, weight, and cost.

Biotech will make major inroads in manufacturing and information technology.

Energy

Wrong
We will never run out of oil! And never hit $100 per barrel! Sigh.

Climate Change and the Planet

Right
Global warming skeptics will continue to argue with scientists over climate change. Yup, that one's true, and the sides have become increasingly polarized. The article mentions a wide variety of scientists who approach climate change with varying degrees of acceptance. Since then, the vast majority of scientists accept human-influenced global climate change as fact, and dissenters are increasingly laypeople.

Wrong
Will we still eat meat? Not if we realize how badly it effects the planet. Hasn't stopped us yet!

Culture and Society

Right
Time says there will be no female Pope, but that women will have an increasing role in the churches. Given the conservative swing in electing Ratzinger as Pope, female clergy are highly unlikely in the Catholic church, even with declining numbers of priests.

Indie music will flourish on the internet. JoCo, if you're reading this, I <3 U.

Advertising will evolve from the cold call into the cross call, where your details come from another company. At least we got the "do not call" registry.

Time predicted short attention spans will call for short form comedy, which we see in 30 second bits on YouTube. Ironic humor and memes are not predicted.

Product placements and advertising inserts will increase in order to get more attention for ads. Sounds about right.

Wrong
Time thinks religion will replace politicians. Instead, we've seen politicians become increasingly tied to religion as a method of gaining power.

We'll be wired into sporting events to approximate the feel of being there. They're right about the impressive increase in technology for sports broadcasting, but stadiums are still filled for major games.

Electronic Media magazine predicted that local news would come to dominate the news cycle, due to the ease of producing digital content. Instead, local newspapers and channels are now mostly just grabbing content off the wires.

People won't stay home instead of going to movie theaters. Wrong, due to torrents, NetFlix, HD and large screen TVs

The elite of the future will be entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, they didn't account for the rise in prominence of the reality star, famous for merely existing.

The Chicago Tribune predicted that the first decade of the 21st century would be good for home builders. And it was, for most of the decade - and then everything imploded.

We won't have privacy, but common decency will stop people from prying. Nope, paranoia, wiretapping, Facebook and everything else have severely limited what we can keep as private. Common decency isn't stopping people from losing their benefits due to Facebook posts.

"Young employees will be in high demand, and hard to come by." Quotes supplied by your semi-employed blogger.

Wait and See
Teenagers will cease to exist in 20 years (2020). 10 years in, and they're still going strong, abusing prescription drugs, and borrowing the minivan

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution posited that by 2035, the population boom would have tailed off, but people would have an increasing desire for pets. That's still 25 years away, but we're not seeing it yet.

Nationalism will cause an increase in splinter nations. Apart from the usual suspects, there hasn't been a massive increase in Balkanisation over the last decade. However, the situation in Iraq was leaning that way for a period.

Cybersex might replace real sex. It hasn't happened yet, but you can link sex toys to video feeds or other people, which has certainly made cybersex more real.

China may surpass the United States. Unless India scoops them, this is still a strong possibility.

The rise of digital film. More directors are using it, but there's still plenty who aren't.

Health

Right
Drug resistant bacteria are on the rise. Completely right on this front.

Tissue manipulation will provide amazing therapeutic advances, especially through the use of stem cells. While there have been certain moral objections raised to the use of fetal stem cells, they, and other tissue based bioengineering techniques, are a bright spot in health research.

Wrong
Alternative medicine will fade beneath the hard light of the future. Homeopathy on the NHS says otherwise

Christopher Reeve will walk again. =(

Bespoke drugs from the pharmacy will be available in 2020.. Halfway there, and we're not seeing it.

Wait and See
We'll copy our brains to PCs by 2030. We're still a long, long way off.

Internet

Right
We won't ever log off the internet. Push notification and an iPhone seem to agree.

The rise of internet based software, circumventing the need to have desktop versions of everything. Hello, Google.

Targeted marketing through the internet. This continues to worsen, thanks to the likes of Facebook, which market to you based on personal details.

Wrong
AOL will own everything. We say "hello Google!" again.

Wireless providers will move beyond the phone. While 3G modems are around, it's more that the phone has evolved beyond what people thought the phone would be.

The Dangers of Lists

Some news-sources decided just to run mammoth lists, parts of which are right, part wrong. Here's a few of them, with our scores (in parens).

New York Times' 21 Brands To Watch in the 21st Century
Amazon.com
America Online (dead in the water)
Banana Republic (really?)
Dell
Dryel (who?)
ESPN (includes ESPN2, ESPN Magazine, ESPN Zone)
eBay (not doing so well these days)
Excite@Home (again, really?)
Fidelity Investments
Tommy Hilfiger
Krispy Kreme (points for delicious)
Lucent Technologies (now owned by Alcatal, had to cut back on paying retirement funds, and has a massively reduced workforce)
Mountain Dew (or mtn dew, as it's now known)
Nickelodeon (includes Nick at Nite)
Nintendo (they had some rough years there, but are doing damned well right now)
Nokia (really, really struggling at present)
Priceline.com (well, they've got the Shat working for them, so there's that)
SBC Communications (now part of AT&T)
Starbucks (definitely got that one right)
Vanguard
Yahoo (almost, but not quite, dead)

No Google or Apple? Twitter, Facebook and YouTube hadn't yet hit the scene.

Discover magazine's list of things you'll need to know by 2020.
You will need to know stuff you can hardly guess today (Fair enough)
You will need to know how to talk to your house (Not yet an issue for most people)
You will have to learn to drive a more automated car (Slowly filtering down to many new cars, like the BMW park assist)
You'll identify yourself, gain access to homes and businesses, and board aircraft after a laser has measured the shape of your irises (Not happening yet, we still rely heavily on ID cards of one sort or another.)
You'll need to know how to clean up that electronic trail day in and day out (Yes, yes, yes!)
You'll need to know enough to make more complicated medical choices (To a certain extent this is becoming true, but not drastically more than previous years.)
You'll need to access your betrothed's genetic map (Genetic testing is already available, and encouraged among some populations. )
We will have to face the fact that technology favors some and eclipses others (We're starting to see this already, despite efforts of groups like OLPC.)
You're going to have to somehow live while you watch a billion people starve (Not yet, but we might be close.)
You will always need to know if the facts you've dredged up are accurate and truthful
(While Wikipedia has probably increased the general accuracy of information trawled from the internet, many don't care about accuracy, and never will. The entire Birther movement is testimony to that.)
You will be forced to take on moral questions no human has ever faced
(Should I upload this video to YouTube, or not?)

Ray Kurzweil made some very interesting (and accurate) predictions for 2009, in his book The Age of Intelligent Machines. He seems to be on the right track, but just goes a little too far. While we don't have space to discuss every point here, he did predict the shrinking size of most computers (laptops, netbooks and smartphones); the increasing reliance on flash memory; wireless communications between devices; facial identification from images; video chat, and the rise of autotune.

On the other hand, he also thought a sub-$1000 petaflop computer would be available; computers would come in more shapes and sizes than we see; displays would meet print quality; tablet devices would be used in schools; most data would be entered via speech to text; walking exoskeletons would help the disabled; and that privacy would be a major political issue, rather than a personal one.

Screen Rant is reporting/speculating that Fox will only distribute the film but not produce it, which means they don't have to use show creator Carter and can maintain the rights to the franchise. The supposed director? Brett A. Hart, who has one movie under his belt on imdb, Bone Dry.

Hart even told Screen Rant that he'd do the whole thing for free:

As a tremendous admirer of "The Millennium Series" I'm of course very intrigued by the recent rumors that there may indeed be a full length feature on the horizon. If any one can get "Millennium" made its Lance and it's been a long time coming. It's time to give the fans what they've been patiently waiting to see… More insight into the aberrant world of Frank Black… while further elevating and merging storylines, characterization and visuals… and finally closure for one of the finest series ever created. Let's hope as the title sequence suggests "The Time is near"… and As I've already publicly stated… my passion and conviction for the series is so deep that I'd direct "Millennium - The Movie" for free just to see it on the big screen.

I may not have enjoyed Chris Carter's last X-Files movie, but I certainly respect the creator's vision and tremendous body of work. No offense to Hart, but let's not just throw this film away before it even has a chance, some people liked Millennium. Plus if you're going to make money off of Carter's creation, you gotta pay the piper. But of course this is all mere speculation at this point.

Marvel's third issue of Halo: Uprising (delayed, if rumors are to believed, because Bungie changed the direction of the next Halo game mid-production) isn't the only treat that the House of Ideas has in store for you this week - They're also expanding their Secret Invasion with three new mini-series about the Skrull attacks starring the Inhumans (written by Heroes writer Joe Pokaski), Thor (written by Casanova and The Invincible Iron Man's Matt Fraction) and the X-Men. And if even that just leaves you hungry for more Mighty Marvel Action, then there's also X-Men Origins: Jean Gray, a one-shot starring everyone's favorite telekinetic redhead with some stunning art by Mike Mayhew.

DC Comics, in comparison, take it relatively lightly; in addition to the fourth part of Batman RIP, there's the launch of Final Crisis: Revelations (which sees the new Question take on her former partner-turned-official-personification-of-the-wrath-of-God, Cris Allen) as well as the long-awaited (by me) collection of 1988's most awesome crossover, Millennium. Alternatively, you could take that $100 you have laying around and spend it on the oversized hardcover Absolute League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier.

To get back to the tie-in books of the week, though: Moonstone has the first issue (of two) for Buckaroo Banzai: The Prequel, while IDW pushes both boundaries and your wallet with the following: Transformers Best Of The UK: Time Wars, Transformers Animated: Arrival, Igor: The Movie Adaptation (in both comic form and collected edition), as well as the first issue of Scott Lobdell's Galaxy Quest: Global Warning. Most importantly of all, however, is Viper Comics' sole release of the week, The Middleman: The Collected Series Indispensability, which collects all of the original comic series into one handy-dandy, easy-to-carry-and-just-as-easy-to-read 336 page book for your entertainment enjoyment. If you like the TV show, you owe it to yourself (and your local comic store) to pick this up.

That local comic store can be found here, in case you're wondering. And if you're also wondering what else is coming out this week? You can find your answer here. You can thank me later.

Here's the page that started us questioning Sinestro's orientation. It comes from Green Lantern #221, part of the Millennium cross-over. In a nutshell, the Green Lanterns (a space police force with magic wishing rings) are protecting a group of humans who are supposed to develop into the next stage of human evolution. It all goes horribly wrong, as you can read here. Those humans are supposed to evolve into quasi-gods and save the universe, or something.

One of those humans, Extraño, is very, very gay. He wears a pink shirt unbuttoned to his waist, huge earrings and chains. And he says things like, "I'd like to see some men in uniform!" (Sadly, he later gets AIDS.) In this scene from Green Lantern #211, the Green Lanterns have captured Sinestro, the would-be ruler of everything, and they're keeping him tightly bound. But Sinestro decides to flirt with Extraño. Is it a ploy? Or just a genuine moment of attraction? You be the judge:

So I had to ask Steve Englehart, the writer of that comic (and Millennium in general) what was going on here. Was Sinestro really gay? Or just pretending? Since another member of Sinestro's race, Katma Tui, married an Earthman (John Stewart), he definitely could have something akin to human sexuality. Here's what Engelhart says:

I haven't thought about Sinestro for a while, obviously, but here's my take:

He has an powerful, intense, crafty mind. He's the equal or better of most GLs, because he was one, and he's set himself against all 3600 of them. It's the life-choice of a man with an immense ego and grandiose imagination, who has no respect for conventional boundaries. His one overriding, single-minded goal is winning, and he will do anything to accomplish it. So - I don't see him thinking about sex much. At least to my time, we never saw him with another person, let alone another male or female. But since, in effect, he doesn't care, he would certainly seduce Extaño if that would help him, and he would certainly sleep with him in Times Square of that would help him. In other words, he's neither gay, straight, nor metro, he's just sociopathic.

A spin-off of a Green Lantern subplot, Millennium wasn't exactly the paranoiac's delight that Secret Invasion threatens to be, in that there was an upside to the story, as well. Representatives of the well-named Guardians of The Universe had come to Earth to select ten humans that would help usher in the greatest evolutionary step in a thousand years (hence the title), and the alien Manhunters - themselves created by the Guardians - went undercover to try and make sure that no-one helped that happen. The result was a line-wide story that switched between hippie lessons about the nature of life as the chosen few expanded their cosmic consciousness and revelations that many familiar faces - including a hypnotized Lana Lang, replaced Commisioner Gordon and the DC-Universe Nancy Reagan - were actually working with the bad guys to stall the process.

The series is a wonderful example of the schizophrenia of late-80s superhero comics, where political themes are attempted (The Iraqi woman chosen by the Guardians is stoned to death, for example, while the English chosen doesn't see the point of helping a humanity that helped put Margaret Thatcher in power) but everything devolves into a punchfest nonetheless. Once they achieve cosmic consciousness, the chosen turn into... more superheroes. Sadly never reprinted, there are two things that this series should be remembered for - the creation of the first openly gay superhero for either DC or Marvel (Admittedly, he called himself Extrano, but that's because he was a Mexican rip-off of Marvel's Doctor Strange as much as any queer joke), and the fact that The New Guardians, the spin-off comic starring the chosen cosmic avatars, not only featured HIV+ vampire assassins and bad guys fuelled by magic cocaine in its desire to be socially relevant. Ah, those more innocent days before it was all evil aliens trying to take over the world...

Millennium [Amazon]