The Futurist magazine’s annual Outlook recently published their forecasts for 2010 and beyond. Here are some of the more interesting predictions:

Quantum computers will arrive by 2021 that use spinning electrons rather than silicon-based chips to process data, which will increase speed astronomically.

Search engines will become human-like by 2050. With the “semantic web”, artificial intelligence (AI)-based search engines will comprehend web users enquiries like a human research assistant.

We may not need screens in the future. Mathematicians in Finland have already produced a blueprint for instruments that would project  3-D floating images, using nanomaterials that bend light, and can be focused anywhere.

Architects will harness energy, for the movement of crowds in cities. MIT researchers have created a system of floor blocks that generate power when the blocks rub against each other as people walk on them.

The number of people reading books will actually increase as more books are published digitally, and available on-line.

Robots will be in the home. South Korea has mandated a robot in every home by 2020, and Japan hopes to accomplish this by 2015.

Virtual education will become mainstream by 2015, and may replace traditional education by 2030.

People will  create Avatars of themselves in significant detail to live way beyond their biological lifetimes.

The power to make things invisible may be soon at hand. Optical cloaking, bending light will be perfected, rendering far away objects invisible.