1 . In the near future, IOT （Internet of Things） will drive huge innovation （革新）in the way our food is grown. Plants will have a "voice"， not a human voice, but a voice based on data that can tell people, computers, and machines when, for example, they are thirsty, or need more sun, medicine, etc.

Take vertical （垂直的）farms, for example. Farming is moving indoors where the growth of plants can be monitored and controlled. The facilities are built vertically, so growing areas can be put in piles. This greatly reduces the amount of land needed for farming.

From an IOT point of view, vertical farms are connected in two ways. First, small sensors （传 感器）in the soil or connected to plants tell a control system exactly how much light, water, and nutrients are needed to grow the healthiest crops. Sensors will also tell vertical fanners when crops are nearing their peak for harvesting at just the right time to make sure it's still fresh when it reaches its final destination.

Second , vertical farms will be connected to other networks and information systems, including databases that track local demand. For example local restaurants may input when they need fresh food supplies. And vertical farmers could get that information so they know which crops to grow in what quantities. This type of IOT system would have been unimaginable a generation ago.

Today, vertical farms are being experimented. Yet, the numbers point to a bright future for the industry especially as the world's population continues to grow. For example, Green Sense Farms in Chicago is able to harvest crops 26 times a year using 85 percent less energy, one-tenth the water, and no pesticides. A side benefit of lower energy use is lower C0₂ output of two tons per month, with the added benefit of creating 46 pounds of oxygen every day.

3 . Bridging the gap between simple automation(自动化)and robots that can communicate with humans naturally is a big challenge, but major progress has been made in the past few years.

Research into social robots has shown that machines that respond to emotion(情感)can help the elderly and children, and could lead to robots becoming more widely socially acceptable.

Milo is both a robotic teacher and a student. Developers RoboKind created Milo to help children with autism(自闭症)learn more about emotional expression and empathy (共鸣) while collecting data on their progress to target learning and treatment. Milo's friendly face makes himself kind and the children are able to read his expressions.

Robots can also reduce stress in hospital settings. Expper Tech's Robin was designed as a robot to provide emotional support for children with medical treatment. Robin explains medical details to them, plays games and tells stories, and during treatment draws their attention away to reduce their feeling of pain.

Expper's robot uses Artificial Inteligence(AI) to create empathy, remembering expressions and conversations to build conversation for follow-up sessions. In trials at the Wigmore Medical Pediatric Clinic in Yerevan. Armenia, the team found that Robin led to a 34% weakening in stress and improve happiness of 26% in the 120 children who interacted(互动)with him at least once.

Today's simple systems are being trained to meet that demand. This includes ProxEmo, a little wheeled robot that can guess how you are feeling from the way you walk, and ENRICHME who helps older people to stay physically and mentally active. The problem is the fear that human jobs may be lost as robots become better at dealing with social situations.

7 . Life in the future will be different from the life today. Between then and now many changes will happen. But what will the changes be?

The population is growing fast. And most of them will live longer than people now.

Computers will be much smaller and more useful, and there will be at least one in every room. And computer studies will be one of the important subjects in schools then. People will work fewer hours than they do now and they will have more free time for sports, watching TV and travel. Travelling will be much cheaper and easier. And many more people will go to other countries for holidays.

There will be changes in our food, too. More land will be used for building new towns and houses for all the people. Then there will be less room for cows and sheep, so meat will be more expensive. Maybe no one will eat it every day. Instead, they will eat more fruits and vegetables. Maybe people will be healthier. Work in the future will be different, too. Robots will do dangerous and hard work. Because of this, many people will not have enough work to do. This will be a big problem.

8 . Among the annoying challenges facing the middle class is one that will probably go unmentioned in the next presidential campaign: What happens when the robots come for their jobs?

Don’t dismiss that possibility entirely. About half of U.S.jobs are at high risk of being automated, according to a University of Oxford study, with the middle class disproportionately (不成比例的) squeezed. Lower-income jobs like gardening or day care don’t appeal to robots. But many middle-class occupations — trucking, financial advice, software engineering — have aroused their interest, or soon will. The rich own the robots, so they will be fine.

This isn't to be alarmist (杞人忧天的). Optimists point out that technological upheaval has benefited workers in the past.The Industrial Revolution didn’t go so well for Luddites (反对技术进步分子) whose jobs were displaced by mechanized looms (织布机), but it eventually raised living standards and created more jobs than it destroyed. Likewise, automation should eventually boost productivity, stimulate demand by driving down prices, and free workers from hard, boring work. But in the medium term, middle-class workers may need a lot of help adjusting.

The first step, as Erik Bryn and Andrew McAfee argue in The Second Machine Age, should be rethinking education and job training. Curriculums — from grammar school to college — should evolve to focus less on memorizing facts and more on creativity and complex communication. Vocational schools (职业学校) should do a better job of fostering problem-solving skills and helping students work alongside robots. Online education can supplement the traditional kind. It could make extra training and instruction affordable. Professionals trying to acquire new skills will be able to do so without going into debt.

The challenge of coping with automation underlines the need for the U.S. to revive its fading business dynamism: Starting new companies must be made easier. In previous eras of drastic technological change, entrepreneurs smoothed the transition by dreaming up ways to combine labor and machines. The best uses of 3D printers and virtual reality haven’t been invented yet. The U.S. needs the new companies that will invent them.

Finally, because automation threatens to widen the gap between capital income and labor income, taxes and the safety net will have to be rethought. Taxes on low-wage labor need to be cut, and wage subsidies such as the earned income tax credit should be expanded: This would boost incomes, encourage work, reward companies for job creation, and reduce inequality.

Technology will improve society in ways big and small over the next few years, yet this will be little comfort to those who find their lives and careers upended by automation. Destroying the machines that are coming for our jobs would be nuts. But policies to help workers adapt will be indispensable.

9 . It’s possible that interstellar space explorers could come across problems communicating with previous and subsequent arrivals, as their spoken language has changed in isolation along the way.

Regarding the issue, two American scholars, Andrew McKenzie and Jeffrey Punske, co-authored the article “Language Development During Interstellar Travel”. What has been discussed in the article is the concept of language change over time. They wrote that given more time, new grammatical forms can completely replace current ones.

In a recent interview, McKenzie gamed it out.

“If you’re on a spaceship for 10 generations, new concepts will emerge, new social issues will come up, and people will create ways of talking about them,” McKenzie said, “and these will become the vocabulary particular to the spaceship. People on Earth might never know about these words, unless there’s a reason to tell them. And the further away you get, the less you’re going to talk to people back home.”

So if we have Earth English and spaceship English, and they become different over the years, you will have to learn a little Earth English to send messages back, or to read the instruction manuals and information that come with the spaceship.

Also, keep in mind that the language back on Earth is going to change, too, during that time. So they may well be communicating like we’d be using Latin—communicating with this version of the language nobody uses.

The authors concluded that if a study of the linguistic changes aboard a spaceship could be performed, it would “add to its scientific value”.

10 . Welcome to your future life!

You get up in the morning and look into the mirror. Your face is firm and young-looking. In 2035, medical technology is better than ever. Many people at your age could live to be 150, so at 40, you’re not old at all. And your parents just had an anti-aging(抗衰老的) treatment. Now, all three of you look the same age!

You say to your shirt, “Turn red.” It changes from blue to red. In 2035, “smart clothes” contain particles(粒子) much smaller than the cells(细胞) in your body. The particles can be programmed to change your clothes’ color or pattern(样式).

You walk into the kitchen. You pick up the milk, but a voice says,“ You shouldn’t drink that!” Your fridge has read the chip (芯片) that contains information about the milk , and it knows the milk is old . In 2035, every article of food in the grocery store has such a chip.

It’s time to go to work. In 2035, cars drive themselves. Just tell your “smart car” where to go. On the way, you can call a friend using your jacket sleeve. Such “smart technology” is all around you.

So will all these things come true? “For new technology to succeed,” says scientist

Andrew Zolli ,“it has to be so much better that it replaces what we have already.” The Internet is one example—what will be the next?