Digital Transition » What to expect in the next 5 years.

Since years, BT has done some nice technology predictions.
Here is what we can expect in the next 5 years (note some items have links pointing to the actual product existing):

1. Artificial Intelligence & Artificial Life
   • Emotionally Responsive Toys (2006)
   • Medicine delivered in fruit (2008)
   • AI entity passes secondary education grade (2010)
   • Addiction to on-line games seen as a national problem (2008-2012)
   • Virus aimed at toys released (2006-2010)
   • AI Chatbots indistinguishable from people First arcitifial Electronic life (2006-2010)
   • First species brought back from extinction (2006-2010)
   • Domestic appliances with personality (2006-2010)
   • Toys with built in tracking technology (2008-2012)
   • Mood-sensitive home décor (2008-2012)
   • Location devices implated into pets (2008-2012)
   • First divorce due to virtual affair with computer game character (2008-2012)
   • First bacterium assembled from scratch (2008-2012)
2. Biotech
   • Video tattoos (2008)
   • Blood analysis chips (2006-2010)
   • Instant electronic identification of pathogens (2008 - 2012)
   • Tooth regeneration (2011)
   • Hospitals use virtual queuing system (2008-2012)
   • Anti-bacterial coating on domestic appliances, phones,…(2008-2012)
   • Rich world badly infected by third world disease (2008-2012)
   • Diabetes cure via stem cell research (2008-2012)
   • Hotels offer some hospital services (2008-2012)
3. Business & Education
   • Personalized advertising on TV (2008)
   • Lifestyle brands dominate (2006-2010)
   • Human free companies (2008-2012)
   • All government services delivered Electronically (2008-2012)
   • “Made in China” seen as a sign of status (2008-2012)
   • Mass internet blockade of business, brand, country (2008-2012)
   • Inter-business financial transactions all electronic (2008-2012)
4. Demographics
   • 50% of the world population has internet access (2012)
5. Environment
   • Insect-like robots used for crop pollination (2011)
   • Complete list op 1.5 million known species available on the web (2006-2010)
   • Effective prediction of most natural disasters (2008-2012) –>Wind prediction
   • Killer bug resistent to all known antibiotics (2008-2012)
   • nuclear power generally accepted by green groups (2008-2012)
6. Home and Office infrastructure
   • Most homes have wireless networks (2006-2010)
   • Electronic notebook with contrast as good as paper (2008-2012)
   • Virtual Windows (2008)
   • Mood sensitive light bulbs (2008-2012)
   • Nanotechnology toys (2012)
   • Domestic positioning systems (2008-2012)
   • Most homes use webcams for communication (2008-2012)
7. Life & Leisure in cyberspace
   • Avatar cosmetic surgery (2006-2010)
   • 1 billion internet users (2006-2010)
   • Automatic video capture of personal events (2006-2010)
   • People have cyberspace wardrobe (2008-2012)
   • Frequent use of multiple net identities cause personality disorders (2008-2012)
   • Kitchen rage caused by electronic gadgets(2011)
8. Machine I/O
   Smelly TV (2006)
   • e-ink advertizements and billboards (2006-2010)
   • Simple voice command for home appliances (2006-2010)
   • Holographic animated advertisements (2008)
   • Full voice interactive PC (2010)
   • Displays with image quality comparable to paper (2008-2012)
   • Voice Synthesis comparable to human voice (2008-2012)
   • Data loss due to format changes becomes major business problem (2008-2012)
9. Materials & electronic devices (Processing, memory & storage)
   • Supercomputer as fast as a human brain (2006)
   • Chemical lab on a chip (2006-2010)
   • Simple quantum computing (2008-2012)
   • 100GB Memorystick (2008-2012)
   • Smart skin for direct human repair (2008)
   • DNS Storage device (2011)
   • Desktop computer as fast as human brain (2012)
10. Robotics
    • Totally automated factory (2006)
    • Robots in hospitals (for cleaning, washing,…) (2008)
    • Insect-like robots used in warfare (2008-2012)
    • Robot gardeners (2010)
    • Robots guide blind people (2012)
11. Shopping & Money
    • No more movies sold in VHS format (2006)
    • VR Shopping booth (2008)
12. Security, Military & law
    • Major terrorist attack on company or country via the internet (2006-2010)
    • War fought over water supply (2006-2010)
    • Biometric home access (2006-2010)
    • Autonomous weapon authorised to fire at own discretion (2008-2012)
    • War for water (2008-2012)
    • Weapons use buimetric authentication of user (2008-2012)
    • Communications network severely disrupted by hackers (2008-2012)
13. Telecommunications
    • 100MBit/s wireless speed in home/office (2006-2010)
    • HDTV over broadband (2008)
    • 60% of internet accessed from mobile devices (2008-2012)
14. Transport & travel
    • Polution-monitor chips built into cars (2006)
    • Cars with automatic steering (2008)
    • Automatically controlled speed (2010)
15. Wearable technology
    • Flexible screens (2006-2010)
    • TV Quality video screens build into clothes (2008-2012)

[See also: BT Technology Timeline]