2 . Looking out across the city and on top of the tall buildings before you are cows. Yes, you read that right. Farm animals are eating grass on high-rise urban farms on top of high buildings in London. Elsewhere, off the coast of mainland England, against the background of extremely beautiful White Cliffs of Dover, a wonderful pod (吊舱) structure forms part of floating city. This is how we will live 100 years from now — if a group of UK experts to be believed.

Temporary housing pods, underwater cities and 3D-printed houses will also help reduce the burden of overpopulation and inner city living-space shortages. Building with their own microclimates and cities built in the skies are also among the amazing achievements of future engineering predicted by experts.

But not only today’s architects continue to advance towards the clouds, building higher and higher, as engineering advances allow, but we’ll also be headed deep below ground. Meanwhile, the future will feature city-spanning (跨城市) bridges. Want to travel to Mars quickly? No problem — the experts are predicting spaceports (宇航基地) will become common places, so future generations will be able to head over to their local station and hitch (搭顺风车) the next ride.

The predictions were heavily focused on water - based architecture and present problems such as overpopulation, global warming and rising sea levels. Using the future tech predictions, 2,000 people were then surveyed to see which of the suggestions they thought — and hoped — would become a reality by 2115. Topping the survey was super-deep basement buildings complete with hotels, restaurants, green space, swimming pools and gyms. The survey also found that one in three respondents (调查对象) considered floating sea cities — which could use solar and tidal (潮汐的) energy — as a choice for future development.

3 . Each of Apple’s products such as the iPhone and the iPad sounds cool and has become a fashion. Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter “i”, and many other brands are following suit. The BBC iPlayer, which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet, used the title in 2008. A lovely bear — popular in the US and the UK — that plays music and video is called iTeddy. A simplified version of The Independent was launched in 2010 under the name i.

In general, single-letter prefixes(前缀) have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce first came into use.

Most “i” products are aimed at young people and considering the major readers of The Independent’s sister paper I, it’s no surprise that they’ve selected this fashionable name.

But it’s hard to see what’s so special about the letter “i”. Why not use “a” , “b”, or “c” instead? According to Tony Thorne, former Director of the Language Centre at King’s College London, “i” works because its meaning has become unclear. “When Apple uses ‘I’, no one knows whether it means the Internet, information, individual or interactive,” Thorne told BBC Magazines. “Even when Apple created the iPad, it seems it didn’t have one clear definition,” he said.

“However, thanks to Apple, the term is now connected with portability (轻便),” added Thorne.

Clearly the letter “i” also agrees with the idea that the Western world is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and they love personalized products for this reason.

Along with “Google” and “blog”, readers of BBC Magazines voted “i” as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade.

But as history shows, people grow tired of fashion. From the 1900s to the 1990s, products with “2000” in their names became fashionable as the year was connected with all things advanced and modern.

However, as we entered the new century, the trend unavoidably disappeared.

4 . People have always wanted to know what the future will look like. Then, how can we?     1       The world has changed a lot in the last 150 years, but we humans are driven by the same basic needs as we were 150 years ago, such as food, sleep, the feeling of being appreciated and loved.     2     No. In addition, generally speaking, the inventions for the last 150 years have been a human effort for freedom and communication, to be able to get in control of the time and world. Since there is still much to do in this area, this will be the focus at least for the next 150 years.

But why do we need to predict the future? Predicting the future is important for two reasons: First, we need to start to think about what kind of future we would like for ourselves and to pass on to the next generation.     3    

How about the virtual worlds? It might be in the future to experience the sand between your toes, and hear the waves, just lying in your bed at home.     4     So, even if a great invention is there for an affordable price, it’ll never take the place of the common experience if it is not real.

    5     What we’ll see in the next 50 years is the transition (过渡) from an oil-dependent society to a new society. Here there’ll be new medicine, continued exploration of space, challenges in the climate change, and new inventions that make life a little easier.