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In the future your automobile will run on water instead of gas! You will be able to buy a supercomputer that fits in your pocket! You might even drive a flying car!

Not all past predictions have been proved wrong.    2    Some great thinkers predicted the arrived of the credit card, the fax machine and even the Internet-years before they happened. But for each prediction that has come true, some others have missed by a mile. Many of these predictions didn’t consider how people would want to use the technology, or whether people really needed it in their lives or not. Let’s look at some predictions from the not-too-distant past.

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Where’s the robot in my kitchen? Nowhere, of course. And he’s probably not coming any time soon. Robots do exist today, but mostly in factories and other working environments.

Back in the 1950s, however, people said that by now personal robots would be in most people’s homes.

So why hasn’t it happened? Maybe because robots are still too expensive and clumsy. And probably the clothes is just too strange. At home we seem to be doing fine without them.

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In 1964 an American company introduced the video telephone. They said by the year 2000 most people would have a video phone in their homes. But of course the idea hasn’t caught on yet.

Why? The technology worked fine, but it over-looked something obvious: People desire for privacy. Would you want to have a video phone conversation with someone after you just stepped out of the shower?

Probably not-it could be uncomfortable! Just because technology doesn’t always mean people will want to use it.

And finally, how about that crazy prediction of the Flying car?    5    But a flying car remains one of the most wonderful technology ideas to catch our imagination. Keep watching the news-or perhaps the sky outside your window-to see what the future will bring.