What will the 21st century Bring?

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Since a lot of technology was invented in the 20th century, what do you think will be invented in the 21st? We've got 88 years left so I would like to know what do you think we might have in that amount of time?

The Borg.

Bionic men and women. Quadriplegics and paraplegics will be walking and speaking with computer assisted devices.
Solar powered vehicles. The gasoline engine will be exhibited only in museums.
Flying cars and self-propelled solar powered jet packs.
A prototype time machine will be created.
Teleportation of simple objects will be created.
Man will be walking on Mars and living on the Moon.
Eyesight to the blind through advances in optical technology.

Death, disease, despair, and destruction are all that we have to look forward to. If we miraculously not succumb to our own greed and stupidity, a comet or asteroid will smash into the world and since we still don't have the technology, money, or intelligence to save ourselves we will horribly perish. It will be just like the dinosaurs. And then the so-called lower life forms that survive the comet, just like the lowly rodents and insects that survived the one that killed the dinosaurs, will evolve and become the next dominate life on Earth, possibly rats and other small mammals that will be sheltered from the destruction. I wish I could say it would be the apes but they will probably end up extinct as well. Being almost genetically identical to us they will suffer almost as horribly. Or maybe the dolphins will replace us. Since they live in the sea they may survive the comet like most fish and other sea creatures have before. But it will be like WE never lived. All our creations and inventions will be destroyed and decayed and it will be like, what was the point of us even existing in the first place? The End?

[quote="lostonearth35"]Death, disease, despair, and destruction are all that we have to look forward to. /quote]

Death disease and despair are far from what we can look forward to. In the industrialized parts of the world technology is bringing new levels of comfort and health to the people who live there.

Check out the life span statistics for people who live in the industrialized parts of the world and compare them to the nations of Africa.

I have no doubt there are parts of the world where the outlook is neither good nor cheerful but that is not all that there is.

ruveyn

It's not going to be despair. We are undertaking the most dangerous transition of all time. We will jump from type 0 to type 1 by the end of this century - unless we kill ourselves.

Well, most of our predictions will probably be wrong, just because predictions usually are. (Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke actually thought that the technology they portrayed in 2001: A Space Odyssey would be avialable by now, for example.) I'm guessing that we'll see lots of improvement in energy efficiency, some totally new and unpredictable applications of IT, better and better reproductive technology (perhaps including some germ-line modification), some sort of replacement for fossil fuels, and that's about all that I feel I can safely say for the moment.

Assuming we dont all die? Permenant settlement on the moon within 50 years, first human on mars within the same period. Computers get a lot more advanced, firstcomputer to have more processing power and artificial intelligence than a human brain within 30 years or so. Robots become more commonplace as workers, etc, though probably not very intelligent. Experimental teleportation by the end of the century. And better methods of energy production, hopefully soon (if they ever get fusion working with a net energy output, that would probably be one of the big ones, since its safe, no dangerous waste, etc).

Oh. I should take back the bit about time travel. If it became possible in the future we would have probably met a traveler already, wouldn't we?!

Doom.

This century will bring what all prior centuries have brought. Good things and bad things.

ruveyn

Themionics will be perfected, this will allow super low power requirements and wearable heat and kinetic powered computers, that allow for instant download of knowledge pertinent to what your doing.
And augmented reality such as blueprint overlays on tasks etc.

Another big one to watch is quantum communications, imagine instant data transmission. Telapresence anyone?

Feeding people and not getting pandemic after pandemic would be cool, and low power space travel.