-
- (CNN) -- How would you like your own free e-mail account,
courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service? Or what about a small computer chip
embedded into your body that receives information and transmits it directly
into your brain?
-
- Those are among several surprising predictions coming
from futurists gazing into what lies ahead for humanity in the new century
and beyond.
-
- "One of my first predictions for the new millennium
is that the U.S. post office will give everyone in this country an e-mail
address," says <wacker.jpgWatts Wacker, founder and director of
FirstMatter, a research organization.
-
- Wacker said the Postal Service has the infrastructure,
the ideas and the will to carry this out.
-
- Forecasts for the future:
-
- The number of centenarians worldwide will increase from
135,000 today to 2.2 million people by 2050.
-
- By 2010, biomonitoring devices that resemble wristwatches
will provide wearers with up-to-the minute data about their health status.
-
- Tiny electronic microchips implanted in a person's forearm
could transmit messages to a computer that controls the heating and light
systems of intelligent buildings.
-
- Farmers will become genetic engineers, growing vaccines
as well as food.
-
- The worldwide consumption of meat will double by 2050.
-
- Ninety percent of the world's 6,000 languages could
become extinct by 2100.
-
- Water scarcity could threaten 1 billion people by 2025.
-
- The human population will level off by 2035, while pet
populations will increase dramatically. Source: World Future Society
-
- "I think that will actually happen pretty quickly,"
he told CNN, predicting that such a development will occur in about two
years. "They've done their homework."
-
- However, Wacker said the instinct against change among
many Washington lawmakers could pose an obstacle.
-
- Wacker and fellow professional visionary <popcorn.jpgFaith
Popcorn also see big advances in bioengineering -- the use of science and
technology to solve mankind's biological and medical problems.
-
- One example is technology embedded within people, which
Wacker calls "the fusion of the world of the made and the world of
the born."
-
- "It's a teeny, tiny brain chip that's inserted at
will ... (that) will give you language (skills or other) knowledge,"
Popcorn told CNN. "It will be very non-invasive ... and give us an
expanded ability to do what we want to do.
-
- "We won't have to learn French, we'll know French.
It'll extend our health and monitor our pulse and blood pressure,"
said Popcorn, the founder of BrainReserve, a futurist marketing consultancy.
"I think we're going to see that shift in the next 30 years."
|
