But none of these are really all that revolutionary. IPods are cool, but if I didn’t have one I’d still be doing the same thing, just with a CD player instead. Blu-ray discs and satellite radio are just a new form of an old technology- is the blu-ray watching satellite radio listening man of today really living a life that is much different than the VHS watching radio wave listening guy of yesterday?
Of these, I’d say online bill pay has been the only one that has had a meaningful impact on anyone’s life, and even that is just saving an hour or two at the bill paying place.
How about Youtube? it wasn’t around ten years ago. That has certainly changed pop culture and the way we view it. It could also be argued that Youtube changed politics, too.
I think podcasting will be much much more popular. Popular podcasts will be comparably culturally relevant to TV and movies. Terrestrial radio will be increasingly marginalized.
I think podcasting is poised for a huge leap because of the Itunes store app (not the app store) on iPhones. I use this every day, and I’m really starting to see potential in it. We are already at a point where streaming playback is seamless on cellular networks. As this technology becomes more widespread (i.e. more people have capable smart phones) the podcast industry will become more and more profitable. It should be relatively easy to monetize, even though all succesful podcasts will still be free to the end-user.
Audio advertising (sometimes live reads like on old radio) is difficult to skip over on a streaming podcast, because the position control isn’t very responsive to minor shifts. Plus, you can’t really just change the channel. Advertisers will covet listeners of popular podcasts with targeted advertising.
Murphys law so I’m gonna say it, probably be another World war in the next ten years, that or a big regional conflagration. Other than that, you can’t really predict things, the only changes I’ve seen are minor ones in everyday vocabulary and technology, books will still be around, as well as newspapers, as long as there is poor people, people will cater to poor peoples needs.
“impending oil crisis” (Peak oil) never materialized, because few had heard of fracking. Also five years ago few believed the world would still be in an economic depression which cuts heavily into demand. The world (and the US) is awash in oil and will be far into the future.
Not necessarily in the next five years, but in my working lifetime (before I hit retirement age in 17 years), these are mine:
Any kind of disk storage will be obsolete.
You will be asked for your Facebook page link on job applications, and having nothing on it public may count against you, because people assume you have something to hide. Not having one at all will arouse suspicion.
But non-hybrids will get excellent mileage. Before the SVU trend, small cars with excellent MPG were available. I had a 1994 Geo Metro that got 40mpg city/44 hwy. Smart cars get almost what Priuses do.
People who must use a high mpg vehicle for work, like farmers who must have trucks, will get a tax deduction. These will be the target of a lot of audits. Quiverfull families will want deductions for their vans, but won’t get them.
Houses will not be built with landlines going to them anymore.
There will be HIV vaccines, but they will be like flu vaccines: you will need a new one periodically for the most prevalent new strain. Not everyone will be a candidate for the vaccine-- mainly people at risk, like healthcare workers, unmarried gay men, drug users, and a few other groups, but sometimes whole populations, like prisoners, will be mandated to get them.
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We will have drugs available that make it (HIV) a life-long manageable condition. These drugs will be expensive.
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We will have better drugs than we have now, and many of the current ones will be available in generic, so they will be cheaper. Some of the stigma will be removed from using them, so people will be less afraid to claim insurance for them. A drug will be invented that will lessen the chance of transmission if a condom breaks or slips off, but people will still be told to use condoms.
A reversible vasectomy technique, like some kind of banding, will be invented.
An injection of oxygenated arterial fluid will be invented, so if a person needs emergency attention and can’t breathe, the injection can give them, say, five minutes of oxygen for their brain, giving EMTs time to clear their windpipe, or do a trecheostomy without the patient losing brain cells while the airway is being opened.
Spanish will be taught in public schools beginning in elementary school, though not as a required subject, as a “special,” like art, gym and music. Some college degree programs, like business degrees, may start to require it, though. A lot of high schools will drop German in favor of Japanese as a language elective. French won’t be dropped because we will still have Quebec to the North.
More than half of US residents over 25 will have college degrees.
Several more states will outlaw the death penalty. Texas and Florida will be responsible for well over half of all executions in the US every year. There will be non-DP states that refuse to extradite to Texas for capital crimes.
Alleles for autism will be discovered. The “Autism spectrum” will be tossed out in favor of ideas about different syndromes caused by different types of alleles. This already happens to an extent, but usually when a gene or allele is discovered, and a syndrome is named, it is taken out from under the umbrella of autism: this is what will stop happening. So many genes will be found that there will be very few cases not accounted for by genetics, and those may have other known etiologies, like certain viruses contracted by the mother during pregnancy. Better tests for specific antibodies to past diseases will be found, so we can gather more information ex post facto on a mother’s health during pregnancy: a lot of viruses produce few or no symptoms in the mother, but damage the fetus.
There will be independent television, like independent movies-- I don’t mean public access television. TV space will become cheaper when it’s competing with the internet, and anyone who can find their own advertisers or sponsors can get a slot. TVs will be able to interface with your computer, so you can stream a movie from Netflix or Amazon, and watch it on your TV without needing any kind of intermediate device (other than wi-fi).
All files will be shared electronically. Flashdrives, or something similar, will exist for storing files you want to keep private, but in general, people won’t use external storage, and certainly won’t use it for file transfer (except maybe for top secret military uses by off-line computers).
Birth certificates will no longer say “mother” and “father,” but just have spaces for two parents. And some children will legally have more than two parents, who all have equal rights. There will be a debate on how many parents it is reasonable for a child to have to answer to, and calls for a cap on co-parenting arrangements.
As more gay people become parents, and have children enter school, they will influence the way sex ed is taught, and put an end to “abstinence only” in many places. Not alone, mind you, just by tipping the scales in favor of the parents already against it.
