Alien life will be discovered in our solar system (2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke): In 2010, the spaceship Leonov travels to Jupiter to learn the fate of the Discovery One. But perhaps more significant in the course of history is the ascended David Bowman's discovery of primitive life beneath the ice of Europa and on Jupiter — and the appearance of those alien monoliths signaling the next step in a species' development.

Advanced alien medical technology will render most of humanity sterile (Stargate SG-1 "2010"): In an unrealized future, the SG-1 team has made contact with the Aschen, an alien race with the technological capabilities to repel the Goa'uld. Unfortunately, the miraculous medicines they bring are part of a sinister plot. The Aschen are secretly sterilizing humanity so that we'll eventually die off.

A virus will have wiped out half of the world's population (Absolon): The events of this particular post-apocalyptic movie were set in motion prior to 2010. But by 2010, the remainder of humanity will have to take a special drug to fend off the effects of the deadly plague. And, to make matters worse, only one company controls the drug.

Parisian authorities will wall off their most crime-ridden slum (District 13): In order to deal with rampant violence and crime in one of its poorest districts, the government goes all Escape from New York, walling off the district and depriving its population of basic services. The wall goes up in 2010, and the operation goes precisely as well as you would expect.

The spaceship above Johannesburg will finally depart (District 9): Ah yes, that pesky flying saucer that's been hovering over South Africa since 1982? That will take off in 2010, presumably to return to its home planet. But most of the aliens won't go home with them, and will instead be relocated from District 9 to District 10.

People infected with an AIDS-like virus will live in quarantine camps (The Immortals by Tracy Hickman): Medical science thinks it has hit on a cure for AIDS, only to end up with V-CIDS, a far deadlier and more contagious diseases. By 2010, the US government, panicked at trying to prevent the spread of V-CIDS, has placed infected (and sometimes uninfected) citizens in "quarantine" camps — though the people running the camps may be doing something far more drastic to contain the infection.

A human being will transfer her consciousness into a car (Knight Rider 2010):
Video games that can read your mind are all well and good, but Hannah Tyree, a game developer at the Chrysalis Corporation, has accidentally discovered a way to download her memories and personality into her computer's memory. In 2010, Hannah's body is killed, and the only copy of her personality is in her computer. Naturally, her friend and coworker has the memory installed in his car so they can avenge her death.

A group of Londoners will travel through a wormhole (Doctor Who "Planet of the Dead"): Aliens are always invading London, so turnabout is fairplay. Of course, the Brits traveling that bus don't mean to travel through the wormhole, and the alien planet they accidentally invade is filled with giant stingrays that are probably planning to invade Earth.

The world's population will pass seven billion (Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner): In 2010, the world's population has swelled to unmanageable proportions. The overcrowded and media oversaturated population have to contend with eugenics laws, rampant drugs, and the fear that their fellow sardines will snap at any moment.

Ecoterrorists will plan to save the Earth by destroying humanity (The Last Albatross by Ian Irvine): As the Earth verges on ecological disaster, an engineer develops a mad plan to end humanity's impact on the world by taking the entire race out with a fistful of stolen plutonium. Of course, the world is already built on death, what with suicide game shows, a death lottery, and rival companies poisoning each others' crops.

Tony Blair will be put on trial for war crimes (The Trial of Tony Blair): This drama was a bit late on Tony Blair's resignation — placing it just before the 2010 election. But it also predicts that the International Criminal Court will bring war crime charges charges against Blair and the US leaders for their involvement in the Iraq War. It does not, however, predict the outcome of his trial.

The Chicago Tribune toted up some of the predictions people made ten years ago for the world of 2010 — and unless something drastic happens in the next couple of weeks, they're looking a bit optimistic.

Forecaster Faith Popcorn said 90 percent of all consumer goods would be home-delivered. The World Future Society said you'd have a wristwatch-type device that monitored your blood chemistry, while an implanted microchip in your forearm adjusted the lights and heating systems of any building you walked into. Arthur C. Clarke predicted we'd have portable quantum generators that drew on the power of space to give us unlimited clean energy.

Also: Animal-to-human organ transplants would become common by now, school would be year-round and pre-school would be universal, everyone would have wearable computers and 7 percent of cars would be internet-enabled, and "Smellyvision" would allow you to smell cooking shows.

The funny part is, Tribune columnist Eric Zorn starts out by saying these predictions are all for "the next ten years" — without mentioning they were made ten years ago. So as you read the list of predictions, you're left wondering just how plausible these predictions are for the year 2020. And in many cases, they seem at least somewhat believable. Does that mean the predictions were possibly accurate, but just too optimistic time-wise? Or are we just incurably optimistic ourselves? [Chicago Tribune]

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.

A Giant Monster Will Destroy New York (Cloverfield (2008)): On Saturday, May 23, a giant monster, probably of extraterrestrial origin, will tear through New York. It will also carry with it a set of killer parasites. At the time of the initial attack, the monster will be a mere newborn, suggesting that this first round of destruction is just the beginning.

We Will Perfect Time Travel and Upload Our Consciousness to Computers (Freejack (1992)): In 2009, we will use time travel to steal bodies from the past moments before death. The still-living bodies will then be sold to the highest bidder, who may have already uploaded their consciousness to a machine. The lucky buyer will then take over the stolen body and start life anew.

Artificial Intelligence Will Run Our Lives (Silver Hawk (2004)): In 2009, Professor Ho Chung will develop a wearable AI that will improve our very existence. The device will detect our every vital sign, every whim, and every need, and a robot attendant will provide us with food and drink, instruct us to exercise, or whatever else we require. And, of course, an evil fellow with a British accent will try to use it to take over the world.

President Cheney Will Pass the Patriot Act III (Death of a President (2006)): After the assassination of President Bush in 2006, blame for his death was erroneously laid upon a Syrian-born man. President Cheney authorized attacks against Syria and Iran and was reelected, Tony Blair stepped down to join Cheney’s Anti-Assassination Commission, and misery climbed along with gas prices. (You don't remember any of this?) Next year, Cheney will go to war with Cuba over the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, extend surveillance over Iranian and Arab Americans, and convince Congress to pass a new version of the Patriot Act.

Americans Will Struggle Through a Post-Apocalyptic Existence (The Postman by David Brin (1985)): Seventeen years after an apocalyptic event, Americans will continue to live without a postal service, radio system, or central government. Instead, they will live in isolated communities, waiting for signs of civilization's return. And, in 2009, a man in a postal uniform will start visiting these communities, carrying with him what appears to be a letter from the provisional government with promises for a better future.

The World Will Face Life Without Oil (We Were Warned: Tomorrow’s Oil Crisis (2008)): In September 2009, a Category 5 hurricane will demolish the oil drilling an delivery systems in Texas. Three days later, a terrorist group will attack Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refineries, choking off much of the world’s supply of oil. Faced with a global energy crisis, the world’s governments will race to find new sources of oil and explore alternative forms of energy.

America’s Computer Systems Will Be Destroyed (Dark Angel (2000)): On June 1, 2009, a terrorist group will detonate an electromagnetic pulse over the United States, disabling most of the country’s computer and communications systems. The result will be devastating, and even a decade later the country will continue to struggle. Earlier in the year, a group of genetically engineered children will escape from a government lab.

Humanity Will Go to War with an Alien Race (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982)): In 2009, the Zentradi fleet will arrive, looking for an enemy spacecraft that crash landed on Earth ten years ago. A panglobal space agency will have successfully reverse engineered and rebuilt the ship, and will defend the Earth in Space War I.

A New Conservative Party Will Displace the Democrats and Republicans (“From Our Point of View We Had Moved to the Left” by William Shunn (1993)): January 2009 will see the inauguration of a president from the New Right Party, a neoconservative party. But something will go awry during the inauguration ceremony.

Disaster Will Strike on a Commercial Spaceflight (Orbit by John J. Nance (2006)): American Space Adventure will launch the Intrepid on an orbital flight. But a meteorite will strike the ship, killing the pilot and damaging the communications system. Kip Dawson, who won a trip on the ship in a sweepstakes, will be left to steer the ship back to Earth, and the world will be gripped by his unwitting transmissions home.

A Virus Will Kill 90% of Humanity (I Am Legend (2007)): A virus genetically engineered to cure cancer will mutant into a lethal airborne strain. The virus will kill 90% of humans, mutate the majority of survivors into fearsome, vampiric monsters, and leave a small minority unaffected. Following the outbreak, most uninfected humans will be killed or commit suicide.

The British Government Will Begin Dismantling Public Freedom (Last Rights (2005)): After a record low voter turnout of 30%, members of the Democratic Consensus Party will take office. The new government will institute youth curfews, restrict the Internet, and manipulate the media to drum up support for their policies. But their real plan involves the Enabling Act, which will suspend normal parliamentary procedure and allow them to pass even more radical policies.

The Large Hadron Collider Will Cause All of Humanity to Experience a Flashforward (Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer (1999)): The LHC doesn’t destroy the universe, but during the search for the Higgs boson, all of humanity suddenly loses consciousness. During that loss of consciousness, each person experiences what their life will be like 21 years in the future for two minutes. Car accidents, plane crashes, and other disasters will also occur as a result of the simultaneous blackout.

Korea Nationalists Will Try to Change the Timeline (2009 – Lost Memories (2002)): In an alternate timeline, Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi was not assassinated in 1909, which leads to a chain of events in which Japan allies with the US in World War II and Korea remains part of Japan. In 2009, a group of pro-Korean nationalists will attempt to find an artifact that will let them travel back in time and alter the timeline to allow for the creation of an independent Korean state.

Earth Will Encounter Numerous Alien Threats (The Whoniverse (2007-2008)): The Doctor and his companions, the team at Torchwood, and Sarah Jane Smith will all deal with various and sundry alien threats to Earth. Among other events, Earth will be stolen from its orbit, the Master will conquer the entire planet, and the Sontarans will try to destroy humanity. But many of these events will be retroactively averted or hidden from the general populace.

As our "experts" tell us, the Earth was created for a billion people on bicycles, not 7 billion in SUVs. Wow, really? Good to know that biking to work was all part of why the Earth was created.

Even better is knowing, as our second expert explains, that ancient Mayan prophesies can be explained with references to what happens to VCR and microwave clocks after a power outage. Seriously, I love that this guy tells us so seriously that he's talked to Mayan shamans, and they explain this massive galactic eclipse as being like a VCR clock. Really? Because the VCR clock blinking 12:00 forever does sound like an apocalypse. Especially because everything is Blu-Ray now, so I won't have any movies to watch after the world ends. I really want to know what the Shamans make of DVRs.

Brought to you by the dementoids at Disinformation Video, this flick is a nice mix of freak philosophy featuring some pretty interesting guys waxing weird.

2012 [via Amazon]

This week New Scientist comes out with its science fiction issue, and Chown, who consults for the magazine, launches the discussion on where science fiction is headed. His question, whether science fiction is a dying genre, comes from individuals who suspect that science will leave science fiction with nothing to explore, a belief Chown does not share:

Such claims seem reminiscent of the perennial claims that science is dead or dying, most famously expounded by the prominent physicist Lord Kelvin in 1900, when he declared: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." This, of course, was just before the atom came apart, the quantum genie burst free and all scientific hell broke loose. In the case of science fiction, the premise of the doomsayers' claims is that the genre is about predicting the future. In fact, very little of it is.

Chown ultimately concludes that science fiction as we know it may change, but it will be an evolution rather than a distinction. And cyberpunk author William Gibson seems inclined to agree, noting that science fiction’s value has less to do with accuracy than on speculation, which casts a reflection on our society even as it imagines another time:

If I could magically access one body of knowledge from the real future, I think I'd choose either their history of the ancient past or whatever they might have that most resembles science fiction. The products of two different speculative activities. They'll know a lot more about our past than we do, and trying to reverse-engineer history out of dreams, as I recall, was quite a uniquely exciting activity.

Ursula K. Le Guin also emphasizes speculation over prediction, suggesting that recent science fiction has more successful when it puts less emphasis on the “science”:

Science fiction that pretended to show us the future couldn't keep up with the present. It failed to foresee the electronic revolution, for example. Now that science and technology move ever faster, much science fiction is really fantasy in a space suit: wishful thinking about galactic empires and cybersex - often a bit reactionary. Things are livelier over on the social and political side, where human nature, which doesn't revise itself every few years, can be relied on to provide good solid novel stuff. Writers like Geoff Ryman and China Miéville are showing the way, or Michael Chabon, who foregoes the future to give us a marvellous alternate present in The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Kim Stanley Robinson suggests a wholly different approach, however. He suggests science fiction writers return to form by setting their stories in a more distant future:

One solution is to jump past the next century to the familiar comforts of space fiction. If we survive we'll get out there, and it's a great story zone. Without the next century included, though, the imagined historical connection between now and then will be broken, and space fiction will become a kind of fantasy. We need to imagine the whole thing.

So we have to do the impossible and imagine the next century. The default probability is bad - not just dystopia but catastrophe, a mass extinction event that we will have caused and then suffered ourselves. That's a story we should tell, repeatedly, but it's only half the probability zone. It is also within our powers to create a sustainable permaculture in a healthy biosphere.

The issue also features meta-science fictional predictions from Margaret Atwood, Stephen Baxter, and Nick Sagan.

The Science Fiction Issue [via New Scientist]

PILOTED SATELLITE will mark man's first venture into outer space . . . It will come only after long experience with unmanned satellites. Best-informed opinion places the date with the decade 1970 to 1980. Later, manned satellites may be used as "space platforms." Moon rockets could be assembled and launched from such space laboratories. A TRIP AROUND THE MOON in a rocket ship launched either from a space platform or from the earth's surface (depending on technological developments) will be the next step. . . Experts believe that will come in the decade 1980-1990. A LANDING ON THE MOON . . . man's goal for as long as he has had the imagination to think about it, will be made in the last decade of this century. Travel to all these planets will come, but probably not within the lifetime of anyone now alive.

The release reads, in part:

"Security" is the word on everyone's lips these days, but there is more to this dramatic market growth than that. Video surveillance finds uses in a variety of vertical markets such as retail, education, banking, transportation and corporate business. And it's not always about security: new facial recognition software can analyze shoppers' behavior within stores, for example, tracking eyeball movements as shoppers view product displays.

European video surveillance markets are more mature than those in North America (some say the UK, with its 4.1 million surveillance cameras, is the most monitored society on earth), but massive deployments are also now taking place in North America and, in connection with the upcoming Olympics, in China . . .

But while digital technology offers advantages - higher resolution, easier searching and retrieval, and more efficient storage - many of the traditional security resellers of analog equipment are not yet comfortable with digital, and a massive retraining effort is going to be required.

"This is a modern version of the California gold rush," [ABI vice president Scott] Schatt concludes, "except that people are bringing cameras instead of pickaxes and shovels."

Ah, the future looks so bright. I'd better make sure I'm filming everything that happens in it with hidden cameras. Image via NYC Indymedia.

Video Surveillance: Explosive Market [ABI Research]

And where have we heard this before?

As for the climate of the future: science has done an about-face from its once-prevailing view that the earth was gradually cooling off and would wind up icy and barren ... Now, evidence points unmistakably to a climate that's getting warming all the time. Besides glacial melting all over the earth, actual temperature rises have been recorded over the past century in cities throughout the northern hemisphere, and various warm-weather fish have been noted in recent years migrating far north of their usual habitats.

The newest theory of climatic change attributes it to man's own doing. It's because of the sizable increase in carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere these days, due to industrial activities and forest fires. Millions of tons of CO₂ are being sent into the air constantly from these causes.

An increase of 50 per cent in the carbon dioxide concentration of the earth's atmosphere could happen in the next century, which could easily happen at the present rate it's being discharged, could raise the surface temperature of the globe about 2.2 degrees centigrade. Eventually this CO₂ factor could make an extreme change in climate everywhere.

Huge, rocket airliners that can take off and land vertically soar through the skies. Individuals take to the air in scooters. Big jet helicopters serve as aerial busses and trucks. A few gyrocopters—silent as a breeze—float overhead.

General Motors expanded the electronic highway theme, imagining cars (perhaps even the Firebird III pictured above) that were "steered, accelerated, braked or stopped without any assistance from their drivers." (Amend this to "from their drivers' brains," and I think we would all agree this is happening now.) Instead "various current-carrying wires [were] buried in the pavement. Pickup coils . . . mounted on the cars" flashed signals to "electrohydraulic servos" which did all the work. "Meanwhile, the driver can safely take a snooze if he likes."

Plastic-walled houses got their electricity from a "petroleum-powered fuel cell . . . the size of a standard office desk," at least according to Standard Oil. Another view was presented "in the Fair's theme diorama, 'The World of Tomorrow.'"

Here are houses put together with chemical fasteners in place of nails, built of color-impregnated materials that never need painting, and kept clean by high-frequency sound. The homes have solar ovens for use on clear days, microwave ovens for stormy days. Each chair or sofa can be heated or cooled individually to suit the sitter. Heating devices are woven into the rugs and installed in the walls.

Where the futurists of 1962 really shone, however, was in the field of communications. AT&T predicted fiber optics ("enormous conversational traffic will ride on beams of light"), cordless phones, videophones, teleconferencing, and the internet ("Between offices hundreds of miles apart, machine will 'talk' to machine, as computers automatically feed data to one another.") RCA claimed that all televisions would be color, ranging in size from that of a book, to "a very large set, only five inches thick" (huge compared to today's flat-panels, of course, but slender for the day). "One such console will offer a choice of live or preselected taped TV shows, plus stereophonic radio and tape recorder"—a primitive home entertainment center.

Even the American Library Association got in on the act, predicting computers that "at the twist of a dial" would "spew out complete lists of reference books on any subject. And if you want to take a look at a rare picture or manuscript in some distant library, you can do so by closed-circuit TV." Photo: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

RIGHT (or mostly so):

• "Video-telephones will make possible business lunches with 'the 2 halves of the table 10,000 mi. apart.' They might also be used to show new designs to the consumer, allowing selection to be made in the home." Video conferences and internet shopping—that's two points for Clarke.
  
• "Centralization of work in cities will become obsolete with improved electronic communications." Little did Clarke imagine this meant never getting out of your pajamas again.
  
• "It will be possible to radio or cable a letter anywhere in the world in less than a day with privacy assured because of 'robot handling at all stages of the operation.'" Email makes sending that letter possible in mere seconds, but as to privacy? Those robots turned out to be computer snoops, Sir Arthur.

• "Cars without wheels will float on air, bringing about the passing of the wheel." Next to the personal jet pack, the flying car is perhaps the most frequently mentioned symbol of superior technologies yet to come. We're still waiting.
  
• "Air-conditioned settlements on the moon will be situated under domes or below ground to avoid solar radiation." Not only are there no settlements on the moon, we haven't even been there since 1972 (or at all, according to some).
  
• "People of the future may live on food made from the protein in oil. Three percent of the world's oil production could feed everyone." Yuck. It's bad enough there are petroleum-derived colors and additives in some of our food right now.
  
• "It will probably be possible to observe the past and future through telepathy." Lost's Desmond Hume to the contrary, most of us remain incapable of telepathic time-travel.
  
• "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.
  
• "All of the following might be possible: robots, death rays, transmutation, artificial life, immortality, invisibility, levitation, teleportation, and communication with the dead." Let's see, that's yes, no, no, working on it, no, no, no, no, and no.

• More leisure time! A 30-hour work week "will be standard."
• More money! Experts estimated the "average family income will be about $12,000 annually."
• Flying machines for everyone! You'll "commute to work in your own helicopter or in a 'helibus.'"
• Electric cars! "Built in radar will prevent collisions and speed you to your destination."
• Coeds ahoy! Everyone "will get a chance for higher education, regardless of ability to pay."

The researchers also assumed that we'd be using the same disease-fighting methods we used in the SARS outbreak. This map doesn't mean that huge chunks of the world will soon be wiped out by a pandemic. It's actually, according to the researchers, a warning. They want national health organizations to be aware which areas of the world need better systems for handling viral outbreaks. That way, flu doesn't reach epidemic proportions and shoot all over the world. Of course, if governments handle the next epidemic it the way they did in 28 Weeks Later and Resident Evil: Extinction, this "help" might come in the form of nukes.

Predicting Outbreaks [BMC Medicine]

Says Nader Elhefnawy:

[James] started with thinly-sketched claims about Soviet capabilities and programs for which the evidence was slim, and then extrapolated from them in a frictionless universe where unproven technologies never disappoint and bureaucratic irrationality never gets in the way.

In other words, by focusing on the absolute worst case, James helped make the Cold War that much more frenzied. It's an important lesson for the next time futurists make teeth-grinding predictions about Chinese space mastery or super-terrorists. But is anyone willing to learn it?

Space War and Future Hype [Plausible Futures]