A list compiled in September 1994 by BT futurology unit....

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    A list compiled in September 1994 by BT futurology unit.

    Twenty-five years ago there were no personal computers, laptop machines, liquid crystal displays, digital wrist watches or pocket calculators. Most households didn't have a telephone or a colour television set and tape recorders still used open reels. Washing machines, cars and other domestic appliances contained no intelligence and there were no camcorders or VHS players. However, man had been to the moon and the space race, plus the cold war, had promoted the creation of integrated circuit technology. Since that time, our electronic based industries and society have seen a doubling in capability every one or two years across a broad range of technologies.

    The listing that follows therefore represents the combined wisdom and guesses of a multitude of organisations and people. We have also taken the insights and projections of our own team to temper and shape the listing of two hundred and one technologies we predict to be key features of our society and individual lives by the year 2020.

    Our purpose in compiling this list was to create a concise and, hopefully, visionary document that condenses a wide range of views from a large number of organisations.


    BIOTECHNOLOGY, HEALTH & MEDICAL

    1. Effective management of the organic environment

    We will know the genomes of most plant and animal groups, so will be able to manage gene pools effectively, and also control their populations.

    2. New engineered organisms used to produce chemicals

    Organisms will be designed for production of commodities, medicines and complex chemicals, and for waste disposal, agricultural processing and environmental management.

    3. Widespread genetic intervention programs for animals and plants

    Many genetic enhancement techniques will be applied to wild and domestic organisms, including pets.

    4. Many new forms of plants and animals from genetic engineering

    5. Custom foods for particular medical conditions will exist.

    6. Genetic links of all diseases identified

    The important biochemical mechanisms and interactions with the environment will also be known for most diseases.

    7. Genetic screening widely used

    8. Genetic programs to enhance human well-being

    Beyond curing disease, we will see the enhancement of physical and mental abilities.

    9. Genetic, chemical and physiological bases of human behaviour understood

    This will allow control of mental disorders. Brain and mind manipulation will allow control of emotions, learning, senses, memory and other psychological phenomena.

    10. Full personal medical records stored on smart card

    Records will be highly comprehensive, with videos of operations, audio-visual interview records - complete life history on a smart card size device.

    11. Individual's genome part of their medical record

    12. More people will live into their 80s in good health

    13. Many synthetic body parts available

    14. Home (health) diagnostic systems, daily/real time check-up via radio

    15. Home AI based elderly and handicapped support devices

    16. Devices roaming within blood vessels under own power

    17. Sensors directly connected to human sensory nerves. Also artificial nerves

    18. Artificial senses, sensors directly stimulating nerves

    19. Direct pleasure production

    20. Prevention of cancer

    21. Artificial ears, eyes, legs, lungs, hearts, pancreas, liver, kidneys, blood

    22. Fine particle beam gene engineering


    BUSINESS

    23. Global electronic currency in use

    24. Paper and coins largely replaced by electronic cash

    25. Paper cash used mainly for black market

    26. Virtual companies dominant

    27. AI models used extensively in business management

    28. Purely electronic companies exist - minimal human involvement

    29. Universal monitoring of business transactions


    DEVICES

    30. Self recovering multiprocessor systems

    31. Blue semiconductor lasers

    32. 3D VLSI with at least 10 layers of devices

    33. Optical inter-chip connection

    34. Electronics with <10 nm line spacing

    35. Optical ICs: optical devices & wave guides on SC substrate

    36. Integrated logic devices with switching speed < 1ps

    37. Digital optical binary logic using phase information

    38. Three terminal super conductive devices

    39. Quantum effect interferometer for flux measurement

    40. High performance non linear optical 3rd order devices

    41. Super lattice 2D or 3D controlled semiconductor devices

    42. x-ray free electron lasers with few dozen angstroms wavelength

    43. Self organising adaptive integrated circuits

    44. Continuous sheet production of LSI semiconductor substrate


    EDUCATION & KNOWLEDGE PURSUIT

    45. Life long learning is the norm

    46. Distance learning widespread - virtual universities

    47. Expert systems surpass human learning and logic abilities

    48. Real time language translation for print and voice

    49. Broadband networked electronic libraries

    50. Natural language home information retrieval and interaction

    51. Very intelligent knowledge pursuit and consultation

    52. Systems to understand text and drawings (eg patent information)

    53. Subliminal learning

    54. Machine use of human memorising, recognising, learning


    ENERGY

    55. Cost of energy will be higher

    56. Cities and accommodation designed to be more efficient

    57. Solar cells with efficiency > 30%

    58. Multi layer solar cells with efficiency > 50%

    59. Large area amorphous solar cells with efficiency > 20%

    60. Conversion/storage of solar energy as biochemical energy

    61. Common use of solar cells for residential power supply

    62. Space solar power stations

    63. Water decomposition by sunlight


    ENVIRONMENT

    64. Totally managed world environment

    Extensive large scale environmental engineering, including oceans, forests etc. Industry will be a part of the managed environment.

    65. More effective resource management

    Recycling, re-engineering and resource recovery will be more effectively used

    66. Extensive remote sensing use in environmental management

    67. Effective intervention in natural disasters

    Mitigation, control or prevention of floods, earthquakes and landslides

    68. World wide NIMBY problem for refugees, waste etc

    69. Widespread contamination (worse than Chernobyl) by a nuclear device

    70. Carbon dioxide fixation technologies for environment protection

    71. Deep underground cities

    72. Artificial precipitation induction

    73. Global environmental management corporations


    INTERFACES

    74. High quality A3 flat displays

    75. Colour video display with > 2000 x 2000 pixels

    76. Large, wall hung high definition colour displays

    77. Wide screen (>100 in) with contrast ratio of > 10:1

    78. Video walls, including living area use of VR (scenes)

    79. Electronic notebook, contrast = paper even after power off

    80. Video playback over network at 10 x normal speed

    81. Many people sharing a virtual space

    82. Positioning sound at any point in space

    83. 3D TV without need for special glasses

    84. Personal audio-visual interfaces well developed

    85. 3D video conferencing

    86. Computer link to biological sensory organs

    87. Use of cheap holograms to convey 3D images

    88. Full integration of processing, audio and video equipment


    IT LITERACY

    89. Everyone in advanced nations computer literate

    90. IT literacy essential for any employment

    91. Widespread VR use for recreation and training


    MACHINE INPUT

    92. Highly integrated biosensors

    93. Speech dialling, with recognition in switch equipment

    94. Single chip multi-speaker-learning voice recognition

    95. Odour and flavour sensors comparable to human

    96. Tactile sensors comparable to human sensation

    97. No-contact identification of individuals

    98. Portable translation device for simple conversation

    99. Machine recognition of body language and gestures

    100. Hands in screen interface

    101. Biosensors capable of processing information


    MATERIALS

    102. Atomic customisation of materials

    103. Polymers with conductivity > copper at room temperature

    104. Material, refractive index variable by 0.1 in electric or magnetic field

    105. Intelligent materials with sensors, storage and effectors

    106. Aerogels that are heat resistent to 3500 degrees Fahrenheit

    107. Metals that memorize their origanl shape to return to if damaged

    108. Use of polymer gels for muscles, bioreactors, information processing

    109. Membranes with active transport and receptors


    MEMORY & STORAGE

    110. 1 TB memory chip

    111. Large capacity recording faster than 1Gb/s

    112. Hard x-ray holography

    113. Memory with access time of 1ns

    114. 100GB non volatile erasable RAM in few cm square

    115. Molecular memory with density of 1 TB/sq cm

    116. Retrieval from 1TB database within 10 seconds

    117. Optical storage media will be static, e.g. optical card

    118. Single storage medium usable for all forms of data

    119. Memory/storage density still a bottleneck for some applications

    120. Photochemical hole burning memory at 100GB per sq cm


    PROCESSING

    121. Very widespread embedded intelligence

    Everything will use processors, sensors, and smart materials sensitive to heat, light, sound and electromagnetic fields where appropriate.

    122. Computers with speed exceeding 10 TFLOPS

    123. 3D OEICs for image processing > 500 x 500 pixels

    124. Behaviour alarms based on human mistake mechanisms

    125. Extensive use of analog and neural processing

    126. AI technology imitating thinking processes of the brain

    127. Optical neuro-computers

    128. Parallel computer with 1000 million processors

    129. PCs with clock rate > 100 GHz

    130. Computers will write much of their own software

    131. Processing speed still a bottleneck for some applications


    ROBOTICS

    132. Robots will be commonplace

    In home, manufacturing, agriculture, building & construction, undersea, space, mining, hospitals and streets for repair, construction, maintenance, security, entertainment, companionship, care.

    133. Domestic robots will be small, specialised and attractive, e.g. cuddly

    134. Robotised space vehicles and facilities

    135. Totally automated factories commonplace

    136. Autonomous robots with environmental awareness sensors

    137. Intelligent robots for unmanned plants

    138. Anthropomorphic robots used for factory jobs

    139. Robots for almost any job in home or hospital

    140. Housework robots for cleaning, washing etc

    141. Artificial brains with ten thousand or more cells

    142. Robots for guiding blind people

    143. Self diagnostic self repairing robots


    SECURITY

    144. Universal ID cards

    May include nationality, medical history, education, employment record, credit status, social security, affiliations, passport, life history etc.

    145. Crime and terrorism will mainly be computer based

    146. Viruses based on advanced AI will evolve and adapt

    147. Replacement of card based ID by other methods

    148. Almost all transmissions will be encrypted

    149. Fire detection by odour or vibration

    150. Fire fighting robots that can find and rescue people


    SOCIAL

    151. Products of all kinds will be customised

    152. Infrastructures will be self monitoring, using smart materials and sensors.

    153. Factory manufactured housing will be the norm

    154. English still the global language

    155. Numerous world-wide virtual communities

    156. World-wide popular culture, regardless of government intervention

    157. Online voting

    158. Electronic shopping for many products will be the norm

    159. National decisions influenced by electronic referenda

    160. World population > 7.5 billion

    161. Average age in advanced nations will be 41

    162. Migration regulated by international law

    163. State pensions on a need only basis

    164. More recreation and leisure time in middle classes

    165. Still mass starvation in 3rd world

    166. Rise of secular substitutes for religion, such as network based groups

    167. Electronic newspaper to households

    168. Various forms of electronic addiction will be a big problem

    169. Replacement of people leads to anti-technology subculture

    170. Power will be held more by corporations than by countries

    171. Some cybernations will exist which have significant economic muscle

    172. Many people will have nationality of both geonation and cybernation

    173. 3rd world technology highly vulnerable to 1st world hackers



    SPACE

    174. Orbiting space station well developed

    175. Regular manned missions to Mars

    176. Start of manned Mars laboratory construction

    177. Space planes in practical use

    178. Space factories for commercial production

    179. Moon base the size of small village


    SWITCHING

    180. Electronic ATM switches largely obsolete & replaced by photonic versions

    181. Unified personal numbering for everything

    182. All optic integrated logic, switching below 1 ps

    183. Optical switches for 10,000 interactive video (3D/VR terminals)


    TRANSMISSION

    184. Global broadband fibre based network

    185. Audio transmission at 2.4kb/s, quality = analogue telephony

    186. Multiple channels of >100Gbit/s/ on single fibre

    187. Tb/s on optical fibres over long distance

    188. Light detection sensitivity exceeding shot noise limit

    189. Network will still be a significant bottleneck for some services

    190. New mechanisms for communication discovered

    191. Laser interferometer detection of gravitational waves


    TRANSPORT

    192. Interactive vehicle highway systems

    193. Use of fibre gyros in car navigation

    194. Various traffic information systems in use

    These will help with navigation, traffic control, ETA, dynamic routing, monitoring, taxation and crime prevention/detection

    195. Energy provided by hydrogen fuel cells and/or solar power

    196. Nuclear propulsion systems for various transport types

    197. Ships with super conductive electromagnetic thrust

    198. Fully automatic ships able to navigate and dock automatically

    199. Passenger planes with speed beyond Mach 4 and >300 capacity

    200. Super conductive magnetic levitation railways at 500km/h

    201. Wormhole technology using fluctuating electromagnetic waves H2O and lasers in sequins in order to open a hole in space and time, allowing transportation instantaneously from one point in space and time to another point in space and time anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye.
 
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