With the current blog tipping over 100,000 hits, and the combination with the old one tipping over 400,000, I’m reposting the top five blogs in terms of hits.
This came in at number 5, from 3 January 2014. It looks at the predictions 50 years previously from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov as to what the world of 2014 would look like. He got most of it right.
What is also interesting is
that my comments 12 years ago are also out of date. Skype anyone?!
THE WORLD IN 50 YEARS
Isaac Asimov was a science
fiction writer and fifty years ago in the New York Times he predicted what 2014
would look like. At the time he was living with inventions like eight-track
tapes as being cutting edge and with no sign of personal computers and the
like, so that helps us understand how far seeing he was. How did he do?
1. Coloured glass that can change colour to suit the mood and rooms that can
change colour at the touch of a button.
-
Correct. Not common in homes yet, but the technology exists. Last year Mercedes
introduced sun panels that darken in response to the extent of sunlight,
already common with sunglasses of course.
2. Lab grown meat to cope with the food crisis.
-
Correct. Lab grown burgers were produced for the first time last year.
3. Self-driving cars.
-
Correct. On the way to being reality. Current cars already have the
technology to park, break if too close to other vehicles and drive at
constant speeds. Automatically driven cars exist and are being
developed.
4. Sight and sound communications. You will see as well as hear the person
you are calling.
-
Correct. Skype.
5. Documents, photographs and books will be on screens. And people will be able to
watch screens in 3D.
-
Correct. Ipads, kindles and tablets. And 3D cinema.
6. Robots acting like humans will not be common, but they will exist.
-
Spot on. They are expensive but have been invented
7. Automeals and automatic coffee will be possible.
-
Correct. The microwave and coffee machines.
8. Machine tending will be on the school syllabus.
-
Call it computer studies and he’s correct. He thought computer languages would
be taught as well, but we’re not there yet.
9. Large scale Solar Power Stations
-
On the way. Solar power in the home is more and more common.
10. Unmanned Mars landings and planned human landings.
-
Spot on.
11. Large underground and underwater housing projects.
-
Oops. Not yet anyway.
12. Enforced leisure with less jobs and robots and computers doing more.
-
Not yet but the signs are there.
Bear in mind the world as it was in 1964- the first lung transplant
was recorded, the Rolling Stones were on their first tour and the Ford Zephyr
and Morris Oxford were the cars of choice. Pretty accurate predictions bearing
in mind the world he lived in.
Anyone want to have a go at the world in 2064?!
