here is a random list of big ticket scifi items...what year do you predict will have these things..
Hmm, tough calls and interesting thread - thanks...
Flying cars (like Fifth Element/Jetsons) - I think we need these
now; roads have been becoming annoyingly crowded in places for decades. When will we get them? The tech is sorta available now - give it 10 years to develop, another 10 to become legal elsewhere, and another 10 to catch on in the US... so:
2040.
Manned missions to Jupiter - I'm rather for it, but the big question is "why?" No major, easy-to-get-to resources outside the asteroid belt, so I have to push this one back a ways...
2250.
Transporter/Teleportation Tech - tough call. Quantum mechanics is diddling with this a little (a
very little, as in one photon) now. But will it ever cross over into classical physics? Easier than getting to Jupiter at least:
2150.
Implanted chips in our minds to watch TV on. - Blind folks are already getting something like 8x8 B&W matrices. Once we get a proper understanding of the brain, it seems pretty easy:
2090.
Large number, meaning over 10 million, cloned people - whew, that seems more ethics/law than tech... are clones really "people" with full rights? (I say yes, but that's still denied to homosexuals in some major nations in the 21st century). So... the tech in 2050, legal rights in most nations in 2100, pretty universal (and large population) in
2150.
Time Travel - except for near-lightspeed relativity, forward-only stuff,
never.
Instant Hookers beamed to your house - given my wild guesses about transporters and clones (once they're legal, there's a recognition that we really
do own our bodies and can use them as we wish), I'd guess
2150.
Hologram characters we can interact with like on STAR TREK TNG - Let's see... AI researchers have been promising that decent AI is around 20 years out for the past 40 or so years. I'm more likely to trust Rudy Rucker, who says that 100 years is a conservative estimate. So...
2130.
The Discovery of life, intelligent life, in outer space and contact with it - What a wild card - it could be next week, it could be millennia from now! My own feeling is that planets are plentiful; life on suitable ones is plentiful; but intelligent life is rare (there's not really a need: you've gotta have a weak-ass species like ours that
has to become smart to survive, which isn't efficient). Communication seems a big tech issue. Wild-ass guess: the year
2300.
Jurrasic Park!!! - it looks like some dinosaur "fossils" are actually real tissue rather than rock, so that might not be as tough as thought. And it's a lot less troubling than making artificial humans. My initial guess would be 2040, but this stuff always takes longer than expected, so....
2070?
