I picked 30 years, because I am almost there and technology has come a long way since 1973. Take your best guess, or tell what you hope we will have.
Plurals on words that will indicate more than one thing? 
Well, there’s that fabric that can display print and graphics, like a computer screen.
http://civ.idc.cs.chalmers.se/publications/2001/textile-siggraph.pdf
Note the .pdf part.
Damn you Chefguy. My joke about the typo…
I have a dream… A dream that all posters will be allowed access to the letter ‘s’ whenever they need one. No more will the down-trodden masses need to resort to … oh, whatever. Not really all that funny anyway.
Hopefully we will have the technology to allow me to retire.
I hope we have Tele/Transporters like in Star Trek, or the Time Machine-Car like Back To The Future.
2020’s style “Death Rays”.
2020’s style “Death Rays”.
…capable of destroying double posts…
Nanofiber. If it’s humanly possible to make it, they’ll find a way. Not just for space tethers but anything you want ultra-high tensile strength and light weight; like graphite composite only 50 times as strong.
Probably by then we’ll have seen the first battlefield use of some kind of directed energy weapon- laser, microwave or plasma.
According to Moore’s Law computers will have over one million times as much processing power as today. That sounds like Mark Twain’s famous prediction about the Mississippi, but given the absolute limits of molecule-scale engineering, it may actually happen.
Human cloning will be available at “offshore” clinics for people with large wallets and larger egos.
Hypersonic airbreathing drones and missiles will be in use, though whether there will be manned versions of same is iffy.
What was Mark Twain’s prediction about the Mississippi?
Very interesting thoughts about what’s coming up…
My main guess would be that everything we have now will be minute (phones, computer chips, cameras).
My guesses…
Stem cell research will have matured, making things like nerve regrowth a possibility.
Incandescent bulbs will become obsolete in 15-20 years. Ultra-bright LED clusters will become the new standard.
The internet will become 99.999999 percent porn and spam, making it almost impossible to find anything but porn and spam. A new “regulated” information web will be born, which will be moderated by AI (I dub them Cecil-bots!)
Due to excessive logging, wood and wood products will be phased out. Inexpensive and durable plastics will become the standard framing material for new houses, and traditional paper products will be made out of biodegradeble plastics instead.
AI capable of passing a Turing test will exist, though the hardware to run it will be pricey. This will have a profound effect on all of society, in ways that we can’t predict.
This sounds like the most educated version of Conan’s “In the year 2000” I’ve ever heard.
FYI, the Turing test is: “Can you tell it’s not a human when you talk to it?” This has become somewhat the holy grail of AI computing.
FYI, the Turing test is: “Can you tell it’s not a human when you talk to it?” This has become somewhat the holy grail of AI computing.
This sounds like the most educated version of Conan’s “In the year 2000” I’ve ever heard.
FYI, the Turing test is: “Can you tell it’s not a human when you talk to it?” This has become somewhat the holy grail of AI computing.
Really? Plastics? Doesn’t plastic require the use of fossil fuels to manufacture? I would think that even with a revolution in fuels (IE, hydrogen-powered cars), there isn’t going to be a lot of oil to burn for building houses or printing books, at least not enough to make plastic a long-term replacement.
Also, the first use of AI’s will be to prevent mutliple post on message boards.
And to go along with ** ProjectOmega’s ** point, isn’t most paper now made from tree-farm trees, which can be harvested every couple of years?