Only 20 years ago, the internet was opened to the public. Being the greatest innovation since the invention of the book press, it has revolutionized the world. However, the revolution has just begun. In 2043, computers wll speak the language of humans. They will no longer look like machines, but like real humans, the most natural interface ever introduced. These virtual humans will live in the cloud, not restricted to any ‘device’. They will express emotions like humans, speak our language, even dialects, and understand our — often local — gestures. These AI characters will appear on floating, transparent camera screens, which will be as cheap as plastic bags today, and spread in all parts of the world, including the now developing countries. Their incarnation, the humanoid robots, will assist us with many physical tasks. We’ll work a lot less, maximum 15 hours per week, allowing us to focus on our core competence: being human

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Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

The world has its first bionic eye.

The Argus II works by substituting a small array of electrodes for the light-sensing cells that normally react to light by sending an electric signal toward the back of the retina. Those signals are relayed to the optic nerve behind the eye, and travel back along the nerve to the brain. In people with the genetic disease Retinitis pigmentosa, those light-sensing cells gradually stop working and this is resulting in total blindness.

In addition to the electrode array, which is implanted in the retina at the back of the eye, the Argus II system consists of a small video camera attached to a pair of eyeglasses and a visual processor the user carries around their waist. Data from the video camera is sent to the visual processor and then back to the glasses, where it is transmitted wirelessly to the embedded electrodes.

The system works for people with RP because the disease affects the light-sensing cells in the retina, but leaves the rest of the visual system--including the optic nerve, which carries visual signals from the retina to the brain--intact. The electrode array acts as a substitute for the eye's photoreceptors by directly stimulating the retina's remaining cells, which pass the signal on to the optic nerve.

Of course, an array of 60 electrodes cannot restore high-resolution vision--it's like watching TV on a screen with just 60 pixels--but it can supply enough information to allow people to move around without aid.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Gradually we will be able to replace every part of a human body. Interesting question remains: who are we when everything is replaced?

The Buycott App for iPhone and Android helps you to organize your everyday consumer spending so that it reflects your principles.

Example: During the SOPA/PIPA debate in 2012, a number of companies pushed to pass legislation that reduced online freedom of expression, while other companies fought hard to oppose the legislation. With Buycott, a campaign can be quickly created around a cause, with the goal of targeting companies with a boycott unless they change their position, or buycotting a company to show your support.

When you use Buycott to scan a product, it will look up the product, determine what brand it belongs to, and figure out what company owns that brand (and who owns that company, ad infinitum). It will then cross-check the product owners against the companies and brands included in the campaigns you've joined, in order to tell you if the scanned product conflicts with one of your campaign commitments.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is a vital development in the brand scape. This will allow consumer to find unite themselves, find information on the moment of purchasing. It will really make a difference.

Next obviously, is connecting your purchases (through connected programs of retailers) to your Facebook account, calculate your ‘world balance’ points (how balanced your purchases are with world), and you can see who of friends are actually spoiling the world.

This will really boost the worldwide sustainablity trend. Forever.

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The largest 3d printer in the world can even print a small house. The machine called Kamermaker (room builder) is currently still in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, but will soon be shipped all over the world. Think about it... How would the world look like if it would be used in developing countries?

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

How cool would it be if it could make use of solar energy? And what about using sand as primary material?

The only next step we would be looking for is 3D printers printing 3d Printers….

Wondering how the pyramides where build? With a few dozen of 3D printers, we’ll replicate complete pyramides in just a few weeks. How awesome would that be?

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Google expands its Google Play Music services to an online music streaming services that merges your collection with their catalog, personal recommendations using Googles advanced personalisation technology and options to explore music yourself.

It's a payed service, priced 9.99 $ in the US

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The experience economy is actually taking place in the virtual world. We will pay lots for content. It all has just started. Soon, ‘free’ television and radio, full of ads, will only be watched/listened to by poor people. Without the disappearing opportunity to buy time in the lives of consumers, it will change the brand scape forever.

And this is only just the beginning. In five years from we’ll have bands holographically projected in our living rooms. That will be a bit more expensive, but will really add value to our lives.

And we’ll be invited to join the virtual band. Leaving one instrument to us. Or invite a friend to play instrument, to sing.

Music is a social activity, and very valuable to peoples lives. It all has just started…

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• Experiences

Smarter Objects from Fluid Interfaces on Vimeo.

How augmented reality can be used to turn traditional switches into a lot more interesting domotic systems.

Last summer, a research group of MIT scientists debuted a new video amplification algorithm that exaggerates slight changes in movement or color, like a magnifying glass for moving images. Since then, they've made the open-source code available and started allowing anyone to upload videos and see the effect for themselves. The New York Times got inside the lab to see what they project is doing in this video.

Read their full paper including the source-code here.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Computers will be able to understand human behavior in a better way than we do. They’ll sence any small motion, any small change in our behaviour. They’ll use the lessons learned in physiognomics. They will be the best possible communication partners, and applied as brand agents, virtual characters representing brands with these motion magnifying capabilities, it will revolutionize the world of marketing communication.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

This is Pebble. The only smartwatch that works seamlessly with your iPhone of Android device

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

What a great invention! But certainly not the last. Soon, Pebble will also work with your TV, it will actually continously connected updating with new info all the time (like Google glasses) and acts as remote control at the same time. Pebble works outside via inhouse WifFi navigation. It will seamless work with your car navigation. And when you’re in the train, it will buzz when you have to get out. At last but not least, Pebble will measure your gestures, your emotions, your status and communicate this information with other information, and thus, with brands. A whole new era to come!

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

The video shows a comparison of Google Wallet, Paypay Wallet and Square WalletNot to far from now, all transactions are not only electronic, but sellers can also identify the buyers. As a result, they will be able to introduce price differentation per consumer. It's a sign of the end of traditional marketing models, such as the 4P model of Kotler, and the start of an era where everything is personalised, even the price.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Not to far from now, all transactions are not only electronic, but sellers can also identify the buyers. As a result, they will be able to introduce price differentation per consumer. It’s a sign of the end of traditional marketing models, such as the 4P model of Kotler, and the start of an era where everything is personalised, even the price.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

The video shows a comparison of Google Wallet, Paypay Wallet and Square Wallet

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Not to far from now, all transactions are not only electronic, but sellers can also identify the buyers. As a result, they will be able to introduce price differentation per consumer. It’s a sign of the end of traditional marketing models, such as the 4P model of Kotler, and the start of an era where everything is personalised, even the price.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

Mc Donalds is using computers to get order from customers.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

It won’t take long before we can use an smart phone app to place and pay an order through the McDonalds network.

We will have to get used to the dry facts that computers and robots will take over all the work there is, and that a economy can grown without growth in jobs. The ‘jobless recovery’ is definitely a new phenonemom we need to take into account.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

Most gesture-control systems require some kind of external sensors that "see" you, with optical sensors or depth sensors or cameras. They're on the outside, measuring your movements the same way human eyes do. And that's fine, but a new wristband advertises itself as a system that's more internal--it's directly controlled by you.

You make gestures similar to the ones you'd use on an Apple trackpad, except in the air: you'd wave a couple fingers to rewind or pause a video, scroll through pages, that kind of thing. It's compatible with Windows and Mac OS X to start, but since it connects via Bluetooth, it could conceivably connect to just about any mobile device as well: smartphones, tablets, or even drones.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Now computer are getting additional input from humans: gestures in the air, instead of mouse and keyboard. The next step will be the recognition of human gestures, i.e. gestures we already use in our day 2 day lives, having conversations with chatbots like we would do with normal human beings. That will really feel natural.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

Researchers have created a lithium-ion battery that keeps on working when stretched to four times its initial length--and bounces back into shape once you let go.

In the future, stretchy batteries such as these could help power solar-energy generating clothes, tattoos that monitor your vital signs, robot skin that's sensitive to touch and other futuristic, flexible devices.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And what about making roofs of these batteries? Any objects created by man could carry batteries, displays and cameras. Your whole house can be a display to! Camoflaging itself in the rainforest, charging itself by sun. Or an aircraft, constantly charging itself at heights. Or robotic humanoid skin to charge all its transistors and sensors.

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• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

Touchscreens treat all fleshy finger pads alike: Most detect a simple change in electrical current or in sound or light waves regardless of who is swiping. Researchers at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, have built a touchscreen that can discriminate between users. Every person’s body has its own bone density, muscle mass, blood volume, and water content. The device, called Touché, sends a series of harmless currents through a user’s body. Physiological differences produce differences in the body’s impedance of that current. Touché measures this unique capacitive signature. Scientists could apply capacitive fingerprinting to any touchscreen, or to other ubiquitous objects, such as doorknobs and furniture, turning the world into an interactive device. Touché is still in development, and plans for commercialization, alas, are top secret.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All brands will be able to recognize consumers and continue the dialog where they’ve left off the time. This begins with authentication technology and this is perfect step in this direction! Now, we’ll to touch a screen, soon, we’ll be recognized through our unique field around our bodies.

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• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

We've all seen 3D sensors before. In the Microsoft Kinect, for instance. That sensor's design was licensed to Microsoft by +PrimeSense.

At CES this year, Robert Scoble visited Primesense to get a look at its latest 3D sensor. What is big about it? First of all, it's small. Small enough to fit into tablet PCs. Second of all, it's lower cost. Will sell for under $100. Third of all it's more accurate and higher resolution than the one in Kinect (it is so accurate it can tell how hard you are pressing on a surface).

Why is this world changing? Because nothing can track human behavior quite as well as a 3D sensor. Expect to see these start to appear everywhere. In cars. In games. In tablets and TVs. And more.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

ALL screens will be 3D. In transparent mode, we’ll be able to look through them, and notice, very naturally, that the perspective changes when we move our head, and when we rotate the screen just a little the perspective will change as well. In non-transparant mode, we’ll have a view on a virtual 3D world and we’ll notice, very naturally, that the perspective changes when we move our head, and when we rotate the screen just a little the perspective will change as well. and obviously we have mixed mode. That’s the essence of the media-completion trend: the virtual world will be as naturally as the real world.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

MakerBot has announced a new Digitizer 3D Desktop Scanner prototype that analyzes real-world objects and generates designs compatible with its 3D printer line.

A preview page for the scanner, which uses lasers and cameras to essentially create a 3D CAD model, is up on the MakerBot site, but the project is still in prototype stage, so it’s likely going to be a while before this thing is released.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the future, lots of day products will be produced closeby., in a 3D print shop on the corner,  or even at home. It will no longer be necessary to produce products overseas in low cost countries. It will drastically transform the dynamics of the global economy.

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• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion