THE FUTURIST Magazine's Top 10 Forecasts for 2010 and BeyondEach year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War. Here are the top ten forecasts for 2010 and beyond.
1. Your phone will tell you when you’re in love.
2. In the design economy of the future, people will download and print their own products, including auto parts, jewelry, and even the kitchen sink.
3. The era of brain-to-brain telepathy dawns.
4. Tomorrow’s inventors will spend their days writing descriptions of the problems they want to solve, and then letting computers find the solutions.
5. Micronations built on artificial islands will dramatically shift the face of global politics.
6. Young people will read more, and the old will play more video games.
7. Ammonia may become the fuel of choice for cars by 2020.
8. Algae may become the new oil.
9. Radical methods of altering the planet may be the only way to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
9. Radical methods of altering the planet may be the only way to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
10. The existence of extraterrestrial life will be confirmed or conclusively denied within a generation.
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Forecast # 1: Everything you say and do will be recorded by 2030.
Forecast #2: Bioviolence will become a greater threat as the technology becomes more accessible.
Forecast #3: The car's days as king of the road will soon be over.
Forecast #4: Careers, and the college majors for preparing for them, are becoming more specialized.
Forecast #3: The car's days as king of the road will soon be over.
Forecast #4: Careers, and the college majors for preparing for them, are becoming more specialized.
Forecast #5: There may not be world law in the foreseeable future, but the world's legal systems will be networked.
Forecast #6: The race for biomedical and genetic enhancement will — in the twenty-first century — be what the space race was in the previous century.
Forecast #7: Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it's acquired.
Forecast #8: Urbanization will hit 60% by 2030.
Forecast #9: The Middle East will become more secular while religious influence in China will grow.
Forecast #10: Access to electricity will reach 83% of the world by 2030.
