Looking into the Glass Ball and Into the Future

I'm a follower of the Futurist Magazine.  Every year, the editors of the publication identify the most provocative forecasts and statements about the future that it's published.  Each year, it identifies the ten forecasts from that report that paint the most compelling picture of the future as it exists right now.

Far from exhaustive though, they do represent trends that are of wide relevance and futures that are becoming more likely.   Patrick Tucker, the editor of Futurist Magazine and author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?curates the top ten forecasts for 2014 and beyond.

1. Thanks to big data, the environment around you will anticipate your every move

2. Revival of extinct species

3. Populations will shrink, and wealth will shrink with them

4. Doctors will see brain diseases many years before they arise

5. Buying and owning things will go out of style

6. Quantum computing could lead the way to true artificial intelligence

7. Phytoplankton death will further disrupt aquatic ecosystems

8. The future of science is in the hands of crowdsourcing amateurs

9. Fusion-fueled rockets could significantly reduce the potential time and cost of sending humans to Mars

10. Atomically precise manufacturing will make machinery, infrastructure, and other systems more productive and less expensive.