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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
700 Million Wi-Fi Users in 2008, Digital I.D. Cards For All In 2009
NEW YORK, April 28 -- By 2008, more than 700 million people worldwide will be using a Wi-Fi network, a seven-fold increase in less than four years, predicts Wired magazine. One year later, digital identity cards would be issued to all citizens - not as an antiterrorism measure, but to fight spam. In communication, the magazine further projects:
-- On-demand music, movies and television programming will make cable and
broadcast networks obsolete by 2011.
-- All phone calls - cell and landline - are routed over the Internet by
2017.
-- Media consumers no longer own discs or even bits by 2024; all they buy
is rights to authorized music and movies that can be streamed
anywhere, anytime.
Wired magazine's survey, "NextFest, the Shape of Things to Come," in the May 2004 issue, offers features, predictions and timelines of changes in five areas -- communication, entertainment, transportation, space exploration and medicine. The survey includes not coverage not just of the bold advances expected to be realized in the near future, but also of profound developments in the decades ahead.
Entertainment is changing with the proliferation of digital technology.
-- By 2006, a quarter of U.S. households will have a digital video
recorder and choose to watch 15 percent fewer commercials.
-- Legitimate online music retailers are responsible for half of all
music sales by 2010.
-- By 2011, DVD quality feature-length movies take only five seconds to
download; the next year 80 percent of U.S. homes will have broadband.
-- The decline of film will continue and, by 2020, a majority of movies
are shot and screened digitally.
In transportation, Wired predicts that the long-awaited future of travel is just over the horizon with flying cars, levitating trains and personal helicopters.
-- The limitations of travel will change by 2005 as the price for
hydrogen fuel cell cars drops below $100,000.
-- The first air taxies will be delivered in 2006 - submillion-dollar
jets that service regional airports along the East Coast.
-- Computer-navigated cars will account for 50 percent of vehicles sold
in the U.S. by 2015.
Wired's preview of space exploration predicts that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2006 will head for Pluto, the only planet in the solar system not yet explored.
-- In 2013, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter takes off, using nuclear
propulsion to travel among Jupiter's four large moons in search of
signs of life.
-- In 2034, a multinational project involving the United States, Russia
and Europe lands six people on the surface of Mars for a month-long
stay.
Health concerns will drastically change as major killers are eradicated and longevity rises.
-- By 2007, the first cheap, pill-based HIV vaccine becomes widely
available; the number of global AIDS cases declines for the first time
in 2011.
-- Alzheimer's vaccine in 2009 passes Viagra on the all-time top-drugs
list.
-- In 2013, an artificial-heart recipient finishes the New York city
marathon.
-- The cancer occurrence rate drops 40 percent in 2015 from 2005 levels,
and the cancer-death rate is down 80 percent.
Wired magazine's NextFest feature begins on page 149 of the May 2004 issue. The editorial package precedes Wired's NextFest celebration, a mini -- world's fair to be held May 14-16, 2004, in San Francisco. The exposition on the future of technology is expected to attract tens of thousands of people. Information about NextFest can be found at www.nextfest.net.
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