The world in 2020

I've just been watching the predictions for the world by 2020 - a fascinating slideshow posted on this World by 2020 presentation (YouTube)

What's in store for us by 2020?

Very interesting slideshow with a wide range of technology featured and social impacts based primarily on our failure to address environment concerns (extinction of animals in Africa, humanitarian crisis in southern Asia, etc).

2020 is slightly earlier than my 10 year range of 2023 but it certainly filled me with hope that I'm are on the right track.

In the video I saw a number of medical advances - cures for disease, use of nanobots entering the operation arena.

They also featured a probe that would enter the sun's atmosphere - did I understand that bit correctly?  If this is going to happen we are going to need some radical new materials that can withstand unbelievable levels of heat (not to mention the ability to travel 90 million miles - when will it need to leave earth?)

There were predictions on a number of tech fronts - sending messages by thinking (careful what you think !!), textiles that use processes from nanotechnology.

I think the connected user figure was 5 billion but I'll need to replay to check that.  Clearly that's a huge number but according to the world population forecasts we'll have 8 billion people on the planet so that's only just over 60%.

Anyway, I'm going to watch this one again, plus a few others as I think these provide good validators for my current thinking.  It's certainly no simple matter being a future gazer, even with all this excellent help from fellow futurists.

Predictions for 2030

Take a look at this prediction for what the world may look like by 2030.