Visions of the Future: 34 Predictions We're Still Waiting For

Nothing dates faster than visions of the future

1. We'll dress in spider silk and nettle thread. There's a piece about spinning and weaving spider silk here.

2. Products will send messages to your mobile from the shelf (a centralised shopping database knows your preferences).

3. Ladies - you'll keep a computer in your kitchen to store your recipes!

4. We'll live in the house of the future: cuboid, with moulded plastic furniture and a conversation pit. Or possibly an egg-shaped pod on a stalk.

5. The Information Superhighway will come through your television.

6. The family computer will sit in the living room and the man of the house will be in charge of it.

7. We will make the Web more “intuitive” by presenting it as a 3D molecule diagram, and replace the outdated desktop metaphor.

8. We will interact with computers by waving our hands in front of them, or typing on a keyboard image projected onto the desktop.

9. A fridge with an Internet connection will read the bar codes of whatever you put in it and order more when you're about to run out.

10. Your washing machine will flash up a message on your TV screen when it's entering its final cycle.

11. Every home will have a Vacubot!

12. You will order dinner in advance from your amphibicar.

13. You will turn on your oven or aircon from the shopping centre.

14. Walls will change colour according to your mood.

15. The airship will make the aeroplane obsolete.

16. Trains will run on overhead tracks.

17. We'll grow crops on the moon.

18. We will travel at top speed through the stratosphere.

19. We will colonise Mars.

20. We will wash dishes, clean shoes and purify sewage with ultrasound.

21. Electronic credit will be operated by thumb print.

22. Computers will put most people out of work.

23. We will travel on the maglev (predicted before WWI).

24. Movies and TV will be 3D.

25. Excess population will be housed in satellites.

26. Ships - and space craft - will be powered by giant sails.

27. We'll have robot pets.

28. Robot insects will act as spies.

29. All phones will be videophones.

30. Space mirrors will turn night to day.

31. Rubbish will be sent into orbit, or used for fuel.

32. We'll be driving wooden cars.

33. Intercontinental travel will be by rocket.

34. We will live cheaply off farmed fish – or plankton – or antarctic seals – or protein made from leaves.