1 . Life will probably be very different in 2050. First of all, it seems that TV channels will have vanished by 2050. Instead, people will choose a programme from a “menu” and a computer will send the programme directly to the television. By 2050, music, films, programmes, newspapers and books will come to us in the similar way.

In many places, agriculture is developing quickly and people are growing fruit and vegetables for export. This uses a lot of water. Therefore, there could be serious shortages of water. Some scientist predict that water could be the cause of wars if we don’t act now.

In the future, cars will run on new, clean fuels (燃料) and they will go very fast. Cars will have computers to control the speed and there won’t be any accidents. Today, many cars have computers that tell drivers exactly where they are. By 2050, the computer will control the car and drive it to your destination. Also, by 2050, space planes will fly people from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just two hours.

Some big companies now prefer to use robots that do not ask for pay rises or go on strike, and work 24 hours a day. They are also easy to control. And they never argue with people. They can be easily used in a variety of places — factories, schools, offices, hospitals, shops and homes.

Scientists will have discovered how to control genes (基因). Scientists have already produced clones (克隆) of animals. By 2050, scientists will be able to produce clones of people and decide how they look and how they behave. Scientists will be able to do these things, but should they?

2 . Step into Moving to Mars, an exhibition of the Mars mission and colony design at London’s Design Museum, and immediately you have good reasons for not moving there.

Frightening glowing wall-texts announce that Mars wasn’t made for you, that there is no life and little precious water, that, dressed in a spacesuit, you will never touch, taste or smell the planet you now call “home”. As Lisa Grossman wrote for New Scientist a couple of years ago, “What’s different about Mars is that there is nothing to do there except try not to die.”

It is an odd beginning for such a celebratory exhibition, but it provides a valuable, dark background against which the rest of the show can sparkle(闪耀)—a show that is, as its chief manager Justin remarks, “not about Mars; this is an exhibition about people.”

Moving along, there is a quick yet clear flash through what the science-fiction writer Robinson calls “the history of Mars in the human mind”. A Babylonian clay tablet and a Greek vase speak to early ideas about the planet. A poster for the original Total Recall film reminds us of Mars’ psychological threat.

The main part of the show is our current plans for the Red Planet. There are real spacesuits and models of 3D-printed Martian settlements and suitable clothing and furniture. Mission architectures and engineering sketches line the walls. Real hammers meant for the International Space Station are wall-mounted beside a low-gravity table that has yet to leave, and may indeed never leave, Earth.

This, of course, is the great strength of approaching science through design: reality and assumptions can be given equal visual weight, drawing us into an informed conversation about what it is that we actually want from a future on Mars.

3 . Futurologists are making a lot of predictions about our future life.     1     By 2048, some futurologists foresee that some “talking” buildings will appear in our life.

By the middle of the century, it’s believed that buildings will be able to “talk” to people through various sensors when the heating needs to be turned on.     2     Instead, a lot of networks will appear, which can be compared to a human nervous system. In the next 30 years, buildings will be made from concrete plastics and shape­changing materials. All of them can heal themselves at that time.     3     there will be a need for new kinds of elevators, through which vehicles could even travel into the buildings. German engineers have already started working on such technology called Multi.

By mid­century, scientists believe that buildings will be miles tall. Some of them may be very large and they can function as small cities. By comparison, at present, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, measures 829.8 metres high.     4     their windows will be replaced by virtual screens. In this way, people can choose any view as they like.

At height extremes, a London Spaceport is also likely to come into being by 2048 as the space industry develops very quickly. There is a huge cost advantage going to space from as high a base as possible.     5    

4 . What the future school will look like is difficult to make clear, but most experts agree that the school will be electronic in the future.

“Present-day schools will no longer exist in the next century,” says a report in The Age. “At that time, schools will become community-style centers, which run seven days a week, and 24 hours a day.” At the same time, computers will surely become a central part of the school in the future.

According to The Age, the distance learning will be popular and students will listen to teachers on computers. Going into classrooms on their computers, students will study at any time, which is very easy for them. However, it is necessary for students to go to the actual school in order to develop some social skills.

Seashore Primary School is an imaginary school in the future created by the Education Department of Australia. At this school, all the teachers and students have laptop computers. Teachers check messages and call students back with a special telephone system and students use telephones to search for information or speak to their teachers who give their lessons. Besides, all the lessons are related to all sorts of subjects and all the students have their own learning plans created by teachers.

As one headmaster says, a laptop computer is a student’s library, data storage(数据存储) device as well as the bridge to a wider world. Technology has changed the emphasis of future learning. Thus, we’ll pay more attention to the learning of kids rather than the teaching.

5 . The future home is something that people have talked about for decades. Because the future home idea inspires our imagination, scientists and engineers have been working hard to develop different systems to make houses “smarter”.

The video camera at the entrance recognize visitors using facial recognition. The facial recognition software of the future home will not only recognize friends, but strangers as well. And the software in the future home will run the strangers faces against a database of criminals.

The future home will also have smart application appliances (家电) as well. There will be a vast networking system connecting them. Ovens, microwaves and refrigerators will be controlled automatically, so remote cooking will be a possibility and meals are prepared for your arrival.

There will also be a green systems in place such as saving and reusing washing water and bathwater. Plants and people may receive pure or mineralized (含矿的) drinking water.

If you think this future home idea is pie in the sky or science fiction, then think again. Most of the systems described here are either in development or already out in the market. Future homes may not be standard yet for the middle class but this is not as far ahead as many people would think.

7 . When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note — “Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery” — and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically (魔术般) appear.

All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch (门廊) . Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

8 . We don’t know how different our life will be in the future. We can only try to imagine it.

At first we think about human relationships. In the year 2050, we will use computers almost every day. We will be making new friends through the Internet even our husbands or wives will be met in this way. It will be much faster and easier for us. On the other hand, our relationships with people won’t be as important as they are today -- we will feel a little lonely.

Computers will also help us in many other activities in 2050. For example, they will be used by the children at school to make their learning easier. In addition, there will be much more other machines which will play a similar role as computers, like robots which will do the housework for us.

Spending holidays will also be completely different. Travelling to other planets or to the moon will be available for everyone. Means of transport will, of course, change, too. We will be using solar-powered cars, which will be much more environmentally friendly.

We could expect that the faster technological progress would lead to a more polluted environment. But it isn’t true. We will pay more attention to the environment protection. Scientists will probably find cures for many dangerous diseases, like cancer or AIDS. Therefore, our surroundings as well as our health will be in better condition.

Although we can’t predict the exact changes which will be made in the world, we often think about them. We worry about our and our children’s future; we have expectations, hopes as well as fears. But I think we should be rather sanguine about our future. We should be happy and believe good things will happen.

9 . Margie wrote about it that night in her diary, “Today Tommy found a real book!”

It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper. They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly (皱巴巴的), and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to-on a screen.

“What’s it about?”

“School.”

Margie was scornful. “School? What’s there to write about school?” Margie was always fed up with school. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography. So she said to Tommy, “ Why would anyone write about school?” Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes, “Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had centuries ago.”

She read the book over his shoulder for a while, and then said, “Anyway, they had a teacher.”

“Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.”

“A man isn’t smart enough.”   She added, “I wouldn’t want a strange man in my house to teach me.”

Tommy screamed with laughter. “You don’t know much, Margie. They had a special building and all the kids of the same age went there, learning the same thing from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m. on weekdays.”

They weren’t even half-finished when Margie’s mother called, “Margie! School!” Margie looked up. “Not yet, Mamma.” “Now!” said Mrs. Jones.

Actually the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her. It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday, because her mother said little girls learned better if they learned at regular time.

The large screen was lit up. “Today’s math lesson is on the addition of proper fractions (分数). Please insert yesterday’s homework in the proper slot (插槽).” Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. And the teachers were people. She was thinking about the fun they had.