My dad said that when I was a kid, too funny!

Yes please tell us how one side is better than the other ahoole.....Both sides are ahooles like yourself...Worthless and representing no one....12 years of Bush's????...8 years of Clinton?????? Name just one in the last 40 years who has done anything that helped anyone in this Country...Another in denial puke......Carry on....

Yes Banker, dems and repubs are all worthless. They can blame each other till the cows come home. Does not change the fact that neither side cares about us citizens.

Mr. Liebhold doesn't even know what he will be having for lunch tomorrow, far-less what 2020 will look like.

Learn from Japan's experience, Mr. Liebhold. No one can predict not even an hour into the future.

Liebhold is one of many, many, highly intelligent people who are predicting this stuff, remember, he explicitly states that it won't neccesarily be 2020, we won't have this golden year, but rather it's 2015-2025 where we will see some amazing technological advancement. We can't predict the future but we can predict the future of our technology, we've been doing it for about 30 years now and we've been pretty on the money about it.

@tomtom

Actually we should ask the Japanese and Chinese what the World will look like as it seems they will be holding the technology that brings us there.

And to all the political pundits who have to pit parties against each other in every thread. Read the smart people's post. Both parties suck and the longer they keep you arguing amongst yourselves the longer they do what they want for themselves.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A POOR POLITICIAN!

We will NEVER begin to find the solution to the problems of the world until we stop arguing over trivialities that are NOT the REAL problems. You democrats and republicans look like you're arguing over whether a removable sticker on the car's dash should be red or blue when it has a blown engine. Smaaaaart!

I'm afraid humanity will have to evolve another 2 or 3 million years before we can stop killing each other. Unffortunately, we seem to be doing everything in our power today to DEVOLVE. We are saving all of the liars, cheats, thieves, and stupid people, feeding them all they want, aiding them to proliferate, and sacrificing the intelligent and hardworking people to do so.

Why should we, who put man on the moon, be listening and taking advise from an ancient civilization, the Mayans, who devised and used a 260-day a year calendar to tell us that things will go kaput in 2012?

Tom-Tom

Ever wonder if they just ran out of rock? I don't know about anyone else out there, but I don't feat the end of the world every time I realize my paper calendar is about to run out on Dec 31. I just realize, why am I still buying paper calendars when my smart phone has a perfectly good NEVER ENDING ONE!

*fear

pardon my sleepy typo.

Now that's on topic, or more like it will all be MADE IN CHINA!

Futurists have always driven me absolutely NUTS!

It's hard to believe such a thing is a possible option for a paying job, though most I'm aware of seem to be freelance consultants.

In any case, they're hired to produce a 'product', which is captivating conjecture on what the future will be like. So, they always go waaaaay out on a limb and illustrate all kinds of stuff the world won't actually see for a minimum of several decades past the date they're focusing their predictions on, if at all.

And, yes, economics has a lot to do with it.

If they were wise - and truthful - they'd remind us of how much will not change, all the tried and true technology that is both mature and as close to perfect as it's going to get. Not to mention a lot of less than ideal stuff that we're going to hang onto because the more advanced alternatives just cost too much or use technology we haven't yet mastered. If we haven't figured it out today, the odds are more than even that we won't have it in 50 or 100 years, either. If we've already got it, it can be improved upon and made available to the masses. But if it's beyond us, there's a good chance it always will be.

A lot of future concepts are hugely resource intensive, either consuming enormous amounts of energy that has to come from somewhere, or else requiring a lot of exotic materials. Things like moon bases and flying cars come to mind.

Does anyone remember Back to the Future: Part II? It's almost 2015 right now, and most of what was depicted there isn't going to be happening by then. Even better, how about some of the older sci-fi...2001: A Space Odyssey, or Space: 1999 would be prime cases in point. Anyone want to guess when we'll actually be colonizing the moon and the rest of our solar system? The way it's looking now, 2099 might be a bit more like it, if even then...

The economy will always be good for things like these. The economy is only bad for middle class and poor people. If the economy really was that bad as you think then the US would look like the middle east. The real issue here is priority. The top priorities are the military, political campaigns, pharmaceuticals, things like that. The people are not a priority. At the end of the day there is not much money left over oriented to the people of America. Hence, the economy is only bad for middle class and poor people.

Futurists are fine, leave them alone. The point is to keep moving forward.. Though to think we can all stay on Earth forever without any movement into space to support growth is a bit short sited. Robotic ran mines on moon and mars . . . yup. I know things are tough people, hang in there.

If we can keep total control away from the rethugs, then there'll be a chance for some prosperity by 2020. Good luck with that.

Well first off the economy has been recovering rapidly, so many jobs have been created, stock market is on the rise, the dollar value is surging and only continues to increase. Also consumer spending which accounts for 70% of the economy has increased largely. And even if our economy still was rough, do you realize how many technologies can still be created? In the great depression we had many advancements in agriculture, the radio was invented too and intercontinental aviation as well. Even if the economy is bad that doesn't mean advancements in technology won't be met. I know for a fact we'll see moon mining and moon bases and then there is the trip to Mars which a budget has already been set for and training and advancements in technologies to get us there are already happening.

Though all of these predictions may have some basis in possibility, the only two that struck me as probable are the competitiveness of biofuels (which is evident from the higher costs of petroleum fuels and the increased interest in ethanol and other plant based products), and the use of OLED screens, which are essentially a matter of widespread usage of an already existent technology.

The flying car has been a wish for many decades and, quite frankly, has such logistic problems that make it unfeasible, even if there was an actual market for them.

Computer processing and theories pertaining to artificial intelligence and/or life, will not come to pass because we have no idea of how our own minds come into existence, much less how they really work. Additionally the best "avenues" towards machine life come from mimicking evolutionary arrangements, which we know nothing of, and have little control over. The matter of computer chips being able to process as much as the human mind is interesting, but we're hitting pretty darn close to molecular circuitry limits. There's only so far the current model can carry us before we have to scrap it all for a new method (and what need would we really have for that sort of power?).

A lot of the other predictions have other issues, including economic and budgetary problems, along with the need to cooperate between many nations. And they aren't exactly going to happen. The space program? They've been claiming intergalactic travel since before the 60's.... and we haven't really anybody outside of our own exosphere since landing on the moon.

Nobody'd going to want to have brain implants, no matter what the "benefits". "enhanced reality" glasses might be more likely.

As for translation equipment, yeah.. sure.. why not? but I doubt it will be more than text based communications. We haven't done squat with developing voice recognition software, and that's really the biggest hurdle.

@lfreel@hughes.net

Yes, you're right, because the world revolves around the United States...

Bob, the military going off traditional bio fuels like corn is not exactly what they are working on in reality. However, (at last I read) they are working on some coal to liquid stuff with biomass that is rather interesting. They do want to be able to have fuel in case they are not able to get oil internationally. The ideas they have could be done quicker since most of the infrastructure is already there, quicker than drilling a well, the trickle down effect would be good for commercial traffic, higher density fuel, and could produce more fuel than traditional oil wells. If the military is going with this idea, there would be cheaper fuel long before 2020. It would be a greener option but not a pollutant free option. We just can't afford to dump existing equipment for pollutant free ones. I hope they do keep working on it as it would drop the price of fuel for the average consumer. If any even trickles down to the commercial market (trucking companies) it would mean the price of goods could drop as fuel surcharges drop.

I agree that we won't ditch petroleum in the next ten years chris, but I do believe that the options for "greener" fuel will increase dramatically as prices are going up and up. More models of hybrid and diesel cars are getting on to the market, and the price of biofuel is already at a point where prices are comparable (especially with how gas prices are right this second). The only thing that can really kill the trend we're seeing in for gas to plummet to about $1.80 a gallon again and stay there. Honestly, I feel this prediction to be more of a "it's already here, we're just predicting the trend to continue" sort of "prediction".

Reliance of fuels not derived from petroleum are a very good example of my earlier statement (post 3.2) that technology we've already got can be improved - and become a significant part of our future, where things we don't yet have we may well never see.

Biofuels are nothing new. Early internal combustion engines were fueled by ethyl alcohol or turpentine. Petroleum gasoline came into the picture because refining it from collected petroleum was faster and cheaper than distilling batches of alcohol, an expedient solution to a logistics problem which would have kept the automobile out of the hands of anyone not wealthy. The Germans did extensive work with synthetic fuels in the WWII era. This stuff, while most of us hadn't ever experienced it, represents technology that did exist, even if not perfected. It can be further perfected and then used more widely. Other things that remain beyond us, like cold fusion, will remain beyond us until some kind of discovery is made to change that. There certainly aren't any guarantees that'll ever happen, either, until it does.

This is ridiculous, every good Mayan knows the world will end in 2012

Could it be the Mayans predicted Obamas re-election in 2012? These folks may have been more prescient than we give them credit for.

More likely they were going off of the Palin-Bachmann 2012 model.

....The calender only repeats itself..just saying..

SO yea...Why even believe that?

Some parts of "self driving cars" are easy - navigation and co-ordination with other automated vehicles were demonstrated years ago. The real challenge is dealing with non-automated vehicles, pedestrians, animals and other unexpected obstacles - computerized visual recognition just isn't very good. One way around those challenges is to build special guideways isolated from regular traffic and pedestrians, and there have been several proposals to do just that. Another potential advantage to automated guideways is they could provide power to vehicles, allowing electric vehicles to travel long distances without stopping to recharge.

How about a freeway set up like a slot-car track. Run off the grid while on it, pull up the guide to get off.

CM-6969/sheepherder1, all that sounds good but suspiciously like something we call a "subway".

The Mayan calendar is supposedly set for a 5,000 (and some) year period, ends, then resets and would repeat again for 5k year period....and so on. A loop.

The real year is Four Billion, five hundred million, two thousand and eleven years old or thereabout.

my kids will have all moved out and I'll be 50!!!

and possibly reporting to the green cracker factory.

Good luck with that Jim - I though 2010 was "my" year for all that.... sigh.

yes Jim, my last one will be 18 in 2013, and with college, hopefully be out 4 years later, so 2020 should be a good year, I hope, but like Cassandra, I had one come back with his wife and 2 kids. They both needed to go back to college so that they can support their kids eventually. I'll be 57 in 2020 and I hope all 4 kids are settled by then.

This will NEVER happen as long as the Muslims are out to destroy the ENTIRE human race for the sake of religion. Yep a REALLY peaceful religion that will kill as sanctioned by Sharia Law, children, women and even their own kind as well as ANYONE ELSE.

Allah must rolling over in his grave seeing how these IDIOTS have gone off the deep end.

And as far as green technology goes, if the Chevy Volt is what Dumbama had in mind for cars, then you better be buying a horse, since that fine piece of technology will go a whopping 34 miles on a charge. Way to go Muslim Dictator for your ideas of green technology and having NASA make the killers in the Middle East feel better for what they did 2000 years ago.

Yes sir you have a great opportunity of making Jimmy Carter look like a Great President as compared to you...

This report reminds me of the Weekly Reader predictions of the 1960s: Cities under glass domes, colonization of Mars, happy-go-lucky lives, ALL happening by 2000.

Notice the accompanying picture. I guess we'll be bombing someone then, too. I wonder if there is actually a "think tank" with a huge government grant to blow to come up with this stuff. If so, let me in on it. I predict a "Super Beano" that totally eliminates farts!

America at risk:

That's what the Christians did with the Crusades.

True, though we are in reality at the edge of one of a 100 trillion (known as of now) galaxies. In fact I would predict that any time soon, specifically in the next 1-2 hundred years at most, the won't be a human being or anything else in particular, living on the Earth. Unfortunately, I can say without bigotry that Islam will be the principal, if not only cause of it.

Here here Matt.

Sorry Matt. It's mankind in general that will be the destruction of this world and any others they can get to. Man must be dominate over all else, so man seems to think. It's not religion that the problem. It's the factor of wanting to be dominate. Sorry but life is what it is.

And as far as green technology goes, if the Chevy Volt is what Dumbama had in mind for cars, then you better be buying a horse, since that fine piece of technology will go a whopping 34 miles on a charge

Jeez, what a know-nothing! The Volt project started in the summer of 2006 in response to the introduction of the Tesla electric Roadster, with the first concept being shown January of 2007. That was before the GM "bailout" and long before Obama was chosen as President by the voters. It is not Obama's Car. While the Volt will go 25 to 50 miles on a charge in EV mode, it also has a gas engine to go another 300 miles in hybrid mode, the switchover is automatic and seamless. Besides, over 90% of daily drives are under 40 miles, meaning most Volt drivers could go months without burning any gasoline at all! One Volt driver has gone over 1,400 miles before having to refill the 9 gallon tank, that works out to 155 mpg.

Exactly, mass-produced, Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs will be practical for the daily commute and even longer trips, and will lessen our dependence of foreign oil, and mean a halt to pollution and global warming, which has resulted in severe storms fires and floods and tornadoes. Plus, you'll never have to blow your budget on high-priced gasoline again. Oure economy is based on cheap energy. When energy is no longer cheap...

I love how every time someone brings up Islam someone has to shout about how Christians do/did the same thing. What about those of us who are neither? Are we suppose to suffer because one group got away with it so the other should have the chance now? What if someone claimed they should be allowed to own slaves because someone else at some point in history owned slaves?

I'm really sick of this moronic way of thinking. Just because group A did something hundreds of years ago (or even last week) isn't justification for group B doing something.

And as a historic *fact*, Muslims weren't exactly innocent in the events surrounding the crusades. Maybe if you knew you history you'd have known this. Maybe if you took some time to think about it you'd know it's not justification one way or another.

Apparently, the racist idiot doesn't understand the severe range limitations of horses. Why do you think rural towns are almost exactly ten miles apart from one another?

Obama isn't a Muslim, nor is he a dictator.... Checks and balances don't suddenly change with the election of a president....

I'm not sure what your point is about 2000 years ago. Why would a Muslim try to make the Jews feel better about killing Jesus? That is what happened roughly 2000 years ago. Islam didn't exist till 600ish AD...

Universal translation has already happened. Google won the competition a couple years ago, and the US government has banned Google from ever selling their high end version of translate for profit. It's just too good/too accurate and the CIA/NSA wants it for themselves.

There are some great stuff being developed. I've seen it on TED. Innovation is reaching a fine point these days.

To bad we will al be living under the freeway when the fat cats reach this Utopia.

Do you mean highly armed mini drones? Kind of like the scout drones, but with attitude?

"What I can see are mini-helicopters or ducted fan (like the Harrier Jump-jet) vehicals being launched from mobile platforms (truck-trailers) into a disputed area to provide cover for ground troops."

Maybe you "can see" that becuase it's just like the HK's (Hunter-Killers) in Terminator and in other sci-fi. Today's sci-fi tomorrows reality in many cases.

But think bigger - ground troops? WTF for when we have hover attack devices that could give them cover could do most of the work too while StarTroopers fly them like today's drones from the midwest or wherever convenient.

Skynet won't forget this insult, air-breather.

The current great advance of AI is big blues computer which has the brains of a grasshopper, and it takes up all of a very large room. Maybe in 3020 but I doubt even that.

For you naysayers, one word, memristors. These were considered unrealistic 10, 20 years ago, but guess what? We got them now, and they're capable of using synaptic logic, the BB project has already simulated parts of the brain, it's only a matter of time.

Not much for noticing the log rate of technology advances are you Ed.

Maybe in 3020? Maybe leave the predictions and related heavy lifting to those of us who are technologists. As others have pointed out we'll have overcome muc harder problems before the next 50 years has passed - don't sweat the advances in AI & embedded systesm as much as the growing needs for clean water, food, and safe affordable fuel.

first days of artificial intelligence

sometimes it seems we have already achieved artificial intelligence. Just needs top be made rational.

Hmm , reminds me Frederick Pohls "The Space Merchants" mixed with Andre Nortons "The Starmans Son" . Sometimes science fiction becomes fact.

I agree with you 100%

I feel ya bro. I asked myself..."what the heck is goin on here"? Didnt anyone read the article? I didnt read a thing about our prez or any political party in there. The weird continue to be weird. And my future is so bright, I gotta wear shades!!!

Actually, idiot is an incorrect word in this case. The proper word is ignorant, as in you too are as ignorant as they come. What the hell is that screen name, a reflection of you? Oh, you are a heel, I get it.

You can always safely predict that most predictions will fail.