If you predicted the decline of deadtree books or the rise of services like Netflix streaming, say, 25 years ago
In 1964, sci-fi legend Isaac Asimov penned a piece for the New York Times with his predictions for the world of 2014. Looking at the World’s Fair of 50 years hence, Asimov imagined 3D TV, underground cities, and colonies on the moon. Many people online have hailed this as an incredible example of prescient thinking, but what sticks out to me is just how shockingly restrained—unoriginal, even—his predictions were for the time.
Back when many of us were still kids and many more had yet to even be twinkles in our mothers’ uteri, Inspector Gadget was the apotheosis of all of technology’s promises—many of which, it turns out, came true. Vanity Fair has a wonderful little collection of those gadgets of the inspector’s that were particularly prescient.
Do you ever lie awake at night wondering what the world will look like in two or three hundred years? Ben Franklin did. And he thought that by the 21st century not only would humanity have some absurdly cool gadgets, men might live to be over 900 years old.
Everybody always imagines the future looking way cooler than it actually does. The Los Angeles Times just re-proved the point by republishing a 1988 issue in which it made a slew of guesses about 2013. Some of them were right, but unfortunately cars still don’t look that cool. More »
13 Design Trends For 2013
Posted in: Today's Chili What better way to start the year than to make predictions – some obvious, some not so obvious – as to what trends will become more widely used in the design community. Each year seems to bring new ideas to the community and once they gain enough traction, they eventually become the norm (we’re looking at you, “pull to refresh”). More »
There’s nothing like staring at the onset of a new year and making predictions on what the next 150 years will look like. Silly predictions are the best! BBC cooked up some ideas and gave odds on what they think will happen in the next 150 years ranging from most likely to least likely and if it’ll lead to utopia or dystopia. More »
Predictions of Wearable Technology
Posted in: Today's ChiliAccording to an analyst from Piper Jaffray, Apple’s next big thing might be wearable technology such as a Smart Watch pictured here. “We believe that wearable computers will ultimately be a major future trend,” said Gene Munster in a note released on Wednesday.
Munster also made a number of other predictions for technology in the coming years. Aside from wearable tech he is expecting Apple to sell a TV with Siri and Facetime built in, an update the Apple TV, an Apple radio service and Retina display to the iPad mini and the MacBook Air.
We’re about to put a big year behind us, but there’s also a big one ahead. We can expect the launch of next-gen game consoles, an inevitable onslaught of phablets, the death/rebirth of RIM, maybe a retina iPad Mini and who knows what else. What prospects have your hopes up? What is it you really want to see (or desperately want to not see) in the coming year? More »