In the latest study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, over 700 technology experts were asked to evaluate an assortment of scenarios in an attempt to determine potential trends for the year 2020. With responses from representatives of the World Wide Web Consortium, ICANN, the Association of Internet Researchers, and major corporations like Google and IBM, the report reflects the perceptions of "Internet pioneers," more than half of whom "were online before 1993."
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Member since:2006-04-21
Member since:2006-01-01
it's only my prediction 
Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2005-07-09
Hmmm. Let's see. It's near the end of 2006 and 2020 is almost 13 years from now, so let's look at 13 years in the past and see how things have changed. In 1995, Windows 95 burst on the scenes and it was the first MS operating system that all but killed DOS (Win 3.1 sure didn't). The internet was called "The Information Superhighway" and it was going to change the world, so people started becoming interested in web browsing without having a clue what they were browsering for. It didn't matter. Back then, electric cars and recycling really didn't have that much prominence (at least in north america) but programs were starting. Politically, the death of the cold war brought the US into the realm of working with the world instead of claiming dibs before the russians did. The Maastricht Treaty was signed a few years and the EU was starting to get its act together. Not much else is different from now.
Today, The "Information Superhighway" is less commercial than was thought it could have been, GUIs are everywhere and people care about frivilous things like wobbly windows. Recycling is a natural for most industrial cities. Electric cars exist but aren't that practical or affordable yet. The natural assertation of power and the backlash against having a winner in the cold war has happened. Other world powers started to emerge, including the EU, India, and China.
14 years from now? I predict the same trends will follow. The internet will be even more diverse than it is today. GUIs will be even more fancy and in more places, electric cars will be affordable. The world powers will solidify further. Not much else.
Member since:
2006-01-01
I disagree. Here is my prediction for the future for 2020. Non-petrol cars such as pure electric cars, solar powered cars will be widely affordable by anyone in the same way like today's petrol cars. Flying cars will still be in testing stage. Today also exist flying cars but they are nothing like the ones in Back to the Future film. The 2020 flying cars although still not commercially wide spread will however resemble the ones from the Back to the Future movie.
There would be one more mission to the moon and one mission to Mars and that's about it. Teleportation will still be highly unreliable and experimental. I know, today they have succeeded in teleporting light however teleporting living things is a different thing.
MS would have released two more OSes, possibly Windows core might be replaced with the Singularity OS or whatever they call it. So Singularity OS with a Windows GUI and there will be a third OS being in beta stage tested by people pretty much like Vista is being tested today. Computers? Well, I do believe we will be able to use air as a display device via some type of special computer device that projects the signals in the air. The larger the projection area, the more expensive the device will be.
Edited 2006-09-25 11:33