The next decade…….
8th January 2010
As an avid magazine reader, I subscribe to one of the most popular women’s magazines in the country, Cosmopolitan. From month to month there are (in my opinion) always interesting articles about the three main subjects the magazine focuses on love, life and fashion.
However, this month’s edition had a report that really got my interest, as the focus appeared to be….technology!
The title of the piece was “Welcome to your future” (February 2010 issue) and it basically decribed advancements that would be made between 2010-2020 in areas like leisure, relationships, health & well-being and food & drink. Each item could be linked together because the advancements that would be made had to use technology or science to do it.
For example, by 2020 an expert from a “futures institute” has described the invention of ‘interactive contact lenses’. If the person wanted their partner to look like David Beckham (my particular choice), they could wear the said contact lenses and “these would scan images on the retina and then would transmogrify your partner into (whoever you wanted)”. I presume this would work the other way round as well, however, you may have to wear a headset to fully experience this and it may destroy your relationship as the partner may feel unloved!
Another aspect is in the food & drink industry, “a Japanese company has developed ‘smart packaging’” that could let you know when your food has gone off, e.g. sell by dates could be a thing of the past. E-wallpaper could appear mid-decade, this means you can change the colour of your internal decor depending on what mood you are in and re-decorating could become stress-free!
Botox is predicted to be no longer used by 2020 as other things will take its place. Instead, which to me could become abused very quickly, is a tiny chip that a person can implant into their forehead themselves. This chip will be able to tighten your forehead, making lines and wrinkles disappear immediately, but will only last for the evening. Also, colourless make-up could be on the horizon. With the aid of a mirror, the shade of your face can be changed to whatever you want in a split second.
All this totally blows my mind, the future really does harbour some fantastic technological advancements that could change our lives as we know it. Other surprising statistics included in this report were:
- “By 2015, 1/3 of American fighting strength will be composed of robots according to the US Department of Defense.”
- “By 2019 a standard home computer will match the processing power of the human brain.”
- “By 2020 post offices, secretaries, DVDs and phone directories are all expected to have become extinct.”
I don’t know about you, but I am very excited. The future is going to change the world, not everyone may welcome these changes but personally, I can’t wait to see which of these come to fruition and which new ones appear along the way. Have you heard of any that are as innovative, or more, than the ones I have found? If so, please let us know.
(Please note: All this information is courtesy of Cosmopolitan, February 2010 issue, report “Welcome to your Future”.)
