The world in 2020 - looking back from the future!

FutureWorld's weekly electronic MindBullets: News from the Future are written “in the future” - and this week's edition is dated 31 December 2019. It sets out to review the “key commercial catalysts” of the decade 2010 - 2020. A copy of the MindBullet is enclosed below.

So what are the big ideas? Here's a taste of the future!

• Good news for the West - the US economy booms again as innovation in bio-, nano- and “social-tech” reshapes global markets. “Everything is now driven by our ability to harness complex information and turn it into products and services” comments a US tech magazine in 2019.
  
• On the other hand, heavy manufacturing has fled the West, and China now dominates the world auto industry, catering to booming demand for green vehicles.
  
• On the technology front, the “laptop” has been relegated to a stay-at-home device as new generations of paper-thin smart-phones and free hot-spots making computing on the go simple for anyone. Moreover, few young consumers even remember Microsoft, as Apple's new policy of making its operating systems available across all hardware platforms dominates. The timing was perfect -just as mobile media reached 100% penetration of world population, with more mobile devices than people on the planet.
  
• But while there is no shortage of smart phones in 2020, trust is in short supply. Ongoing scandals have shattered trust in religions and governments, resulting in a global crisis of confidence in the establishment.
  
• In keeping with this, the tide has turned for Google. Its unbridled success has turned it into a gargantuan global corporation seen by many as the epitome of inflexibility and “evil”. The new refrain: “Google is SO uncool!”
  
• Governments too, are facing new challenges, and voters continue to demand ever more transparency. X-Factor and Big Brother have joined forces in a new TV hit, “xGovernment”, with hard-hitting presenters telling MPs to quit when they under-perform. “Mass popularity” is the new democracy.
  
• Longer life is a reality - for those who can afford it, as the first new pancreas and liver are grown inside patients. But even as the stem-cell miracle cures become more widely available, a backlash from extremists threatens hospitals and research facilities.

And that's just a taste of 2020! To read FutureWorld's full MindBullet from the future, visit www.MindBullets.net anytime from 12:00 GMT on Wednesday 30 December, and register for a free subscription, to get access to this and the full data base of future scenarios in MindBullets: News from the Future!