What Will Life Be Like in 2008?

[CoasterMatt]

Man, we were robbed...

An article from Popular Mechanics - 1968 (http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/)

[scaeagles]

Well, duh....

IT’S 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008,

They still have 8 months!

How odd that this article was published the day I was born.

[Alex]

Some fair hits in there among the wild misses

press a sequence of buttons and the national traffic computer notes your destination, figures out the current traffic situation

Not quite so automated as in the article but similar systems for route selection are starting to appear in cars.

Suddenly your TV phone buzzes. A business associate wants a sketch of a new kind of impeller your firm is putting out for sports boats. You reach for your attache case and draw the diagram with a pencil-thin infrared flashlight on what looks like a TV screen lining the back of the case. The diagram is relayed to a similar screen in your associate’s office, 200 mi. away.

Not bad on the phone, and actually under predicted on what you'd be able to do with it but smart phones and wireless broadband laptops certainly allow for this vision of the future to be true.

Electrostatic precipitators clean the air and climatizers maintain the temperature and humidity at optimum levels. Robots are available to do housework and other simple chores. New materials for siding and interiors are self-cleaning and never peel, chip or crack.

Not quite to universal as predicted but many of these things exist to some degree.


then slips prepackaged meals into the freezer and lets the automatic food utility do the rest. At preset times, each meal slides into the microwave oven and is cooked or thawed. The meal then is served on disposable plastic plates. These plates, as well as knives, forks and spoons of the same material, are so inexpensive they can be discarded after use.

Well the automated timing of cooking isn't there. But having spent several months in the past on NutriSystem I have certainly lived the rest of it.

The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer. These electronic brains govern everything from meal preparation and waking up the household to assembling shopping lists and keeping track of the bank balance...Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities...Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary checks directly into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank balance. Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending it easier. TV-telephone shopping is common.

A clean hit!

[JWBear]

I love this one:

A typical vacation in 2008 is to spend a week at an undersea resort, where your hotel room window looks out on a tropical underwater reef, a sunken ship or an ancient, excavated city.

That would be so cool.... <<sigh>>

[innerSpaceman]

Ah, Epcot. How I loved thee.

[Snowflake]

Great article! :)

Of course, why don't we have this? I sure could use it, especially since I'm thinking about going back to school!

No need to worry about failing memory or intelligence either.
The intelligence pill is another 21st century commodity. Slow learners
or people struck with forgetful-ness are given pills which increase
the production of enzymes controlling production of the chemicals known to
control learning and memory. Everyone is able to use his full mental
potential.

[Chernabog]

The computer stuff was actually pretty accurate.

Now, off to sit through an hour of rush hour traffic ;)

The comment in that article I thought was cute regarding the domed cities -- the person commented "did you say domed or doomed?" :D

[BDBopper]

Man I wih the thing about the cars was true today. You don't know how much my life would be easier and cooler if I could actually get around in a car that drove itself. You have no idea how muich that would rock!

[Nephythys]

Man I wih the thing about the cars was true today. You don't know how much my life would be easier and cooler if I could actually get around in a car that drove itself. You have no idea how muich that would rock!

After the driving I did last week- oh yes I do :D

[RStar]

I saw an under water resort that was opening sometime soon. I don't recall where (I NEED those memory pills!), I think Austrailia or the FL Keys or something.

I also read an article that they expect self driving and self parking cars in the not so distant future. They found a way to not need the implanted devises in the roads, it's done by computers and cameras on the car. The article mentioned that the car being driven by a computer lends a new meaning to the word "Crash"!

[Alex]

There is an underwater hotel (3 rooms I think) somewhere in the Florida Keys.

[Kevy Baby]

There is an underwater hotel (3 rooms I think) somewhere in the Florida Keys.Found it (http://www.jul.com/).

There is also a full-blown underwater hotel called Hydropolis (http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/Hydropolis/) being built in Dubai. It was supposed to be open at the end of 2007, but I do not know if they achieved that deadline.