Guest Blog by Mxyl: Fact Checking the Future Part 2 - The Great Outdoors and Beyond!

Fig 1. Our priorities, apparently.

 It's been a bit, but we're heading on a field trip from the virtual home of 2020 to the book's other predictions, some specific to this year and some beyond! Without further ado, let's get to the elephant in the room:

Population: We're actually pretty much on track for the book's population numbers (hard to say as it doesn't give numbers for our specific year), although while different articles disagree on the topic, its overpopulation worries feel pretty dated. Many suspect that what's starting in Japan now is liable to happen in other areas (decreasing but eventually stabilizing), to say nothing of moon bases and whatever other projects lie in store.

Anyway, with that out of the way, it's time for the fun parts:

Space Hotels: "By the year 2020, there will be space hotels as well as space stations orbiting the Earth, 280 miles [up]... A special shuttle service will carry guests to and from Earth as well as on sightseeing tours to the Moon (p.23)... In the 21st century, there will be bases on the moon, probably with lunar hotels (p.56).

...Did Elon Musk just read the same book I did and get incredibly disappointed that we're not there yet? Because it feels like that's what he's going for. 

Miniaturization: The book shows off that computers have gotten small enough to fit into one's hand... like the Psion Series 3c, complete with its 1 megabyte of RAM. (For what it's worth, given another 20 years an iPhone 8's ~2,000 megabytes of RAM will probably sound just as laughable.) However, we're not here to measure the late '90s, just what it thinks the future will be! They propose an Internet-connected laptop successor, an "Office on the Arm" (a 1996 prototype shown at a wearable machines exhibition) that works as a phone, calculator and alarm clock, complete with a laptop-style touch pad! Again, though, this is one of those instances where the future's out-performed the past's predictions: we can do all that and more from an Apple Watch. Still, the concept of charging it via "a special vest worn by the user, which will convert body heat into energy" still isn't in mainstream use to my knowledge.

Virtual Reality Advancements: Granted, I referenced that this came true in the last post, and it isn't really outdoors-y, but I'll just say it's simulated outdoors. Anyway, the book also mentions "virtual sensory suits" that essentially mimic the feeling of, for instance, a ride or a sport. The Teslasuit does exactly this, bringing "full body haptic feedback" and climate control to the table, while also allowing the potential for motion capture and biometrics, making it a scientific and health tool as well as a media/gaming device. Can't find a price on it, but I'm getting the impression that developer kits are being sold for around $13,000. Well, at least it's nice to know the technology exists. It's worth noting that we're still fairly into the broad "21st century" listed in the book's description, so this could definitely become commonplace within the next eighty years. 

Nonetheless, it's interesting to note that Augmented Reality didn't seem to exist as a concept by this point. I suppose it makes sense--if one's working on technology to enter a virtual world, why would it occur to people to go for only part-virtual?

In-Car Navigation: According to the book, all-new cars will use CD-ROM maps and things called global positioning satellites to calculate the best route to take, complete with a digital voice. This is another one of the cases in which we've out-performed predictions, with zero need for CD-ROMs for maps, to say nothing of phone-based GPS systems. 

Automatic Cars and Highways: Honestly, this is probably one of the more exciting items in that we're right on the cusp on it. Automatic cars have been a thing for a while, but are only starting to enter the mainstream market--mostly in the limited form of cars that, say, guide parking work and keep drivers from drifting outside their lane (I once had the opportunity to travel in one). Whether highways will be electrified or magnetized to keep such cars in their lanes is another question; we seem to have moved past the need for that, relying more on AI recognition technology. 

Calendar of the Future: The book's listed a long-term calendar (up to 2035); there's way too much there to cover in total, but here are its predictions on 2020 (be warned, though--it places electronic shopping as becoming dominant quite accurately in 2014, but it puts the first human landing on Mars at the same year):

• 3D video conferencing: Well... does basically just enhanced VRChat for businesses count? If not, I don't think we're there yet, at least not on a widespread basis.
  
• Artificial lungs, kidneys, and brain cells: prototype artificial lungs have actually been made successfully in 2018; artificial kidneys haven't been made yet, although the University of California reports that The Kidney Project, a project dedicated to just this, was recently given a $1,000,000 grant to continue research on it. Artificial organic brain cells don't seem to be here yet either; the closest I could immediately find were machines that might reasonably fulfill a brain cell's functions.
• Cars that drive themselves on smart highways: (See above: Automatic Cars and Highways)
  
• Genetic links of all diseases identified: Uuh... heh... wouldn't that have been nice.

Interestingly, in their Could Happen at Any Time segment, they list "worldwide epidemic" right between "human mutation" and "time travel invented." Huh.

Last but not least: some relevant factoids from the book's Fascinating Facts page! 

• Scientists aim for plastic made from plants: Plant-based plastic has actually come true!
• The James Webb Space Telescope will turn its eye to galaxies' birth, launching 2011: Well... they were actually off by a bit. Like, ten years. The plan's still around, but according to the Space Telescope's Official NASA Website, the latest delay, due to a guessable health concern, has pushed the launch back to Halloween of 2021. 
• By 2020, four out of ten people could be working from home: Huh. I guess we've noticed a good chunk of that. What is it with the weirdly relevant stuff?
  
• The first manned Mars mission will be in 2019: Missed by a mile... which, since Mars is so far away, actually adds up to a whole lot. (And yes, it did mention it'd be 2014 elsewhere; maybe an update went uncaught in the revision?) On the other hand, Elon Musk (who I'm now all but convinced has read the same book I have) is aiming for the book to only be off by a mere four years. 

Overall, it's pretty easy to laugh at what they've gotten wrong, but some of its predictions are stunningly accurate. I suppose it shows the difference between an educated guess and a wild, out-in-the-dark one--you can still be wrong with either one, but knowing the data from the past and present allows one to extrapolating something far closer to the truth than going from nothing.