Twenty years ago cell phones were in their infancy, the smartphone as we know it today was ten years away.

Twenty years before that, forty years ago, personal home computers were in their infancy. Laptops and tablets were practically unimaginable.

What will exist in twenty years that few can imagine now?

Designer babies, lab-grown organs, chemo-free cancer eradication, and large advances towards curbing or ceasing aging--the latter of which is far less likely, but possible.

Not sure the next "killer tech" will be electronics at all. Perhaps neuro-integration of our mobile devices, straight into the visual cortex for discrete monitoring? Interaction might come decades later, but we can already output video into a blind person's brain, albeit at a very limited resolution.

Robotic sandwichmakers.

mmmm sandwiches

https://techcrunch.com/video/bistrobot-the-sandwich-making-robot/

These sound great but the long term consequences from these things will not be. Just wait until the Earth’s population growth rate increases even more due to the reduced mortality rate. An Earth with 20+ billion people will be here much sooner than we think.

Ah, now they just need to work to improve the asthetics and overall functionality.

The electric fork with built in Wifi and a 3,000 Pixel camera.

It's too bad Barbara Eden doesn't look like that NOW.

Ah, but see, only the wealthiest will be able to afford these technologies, while the majority will be priced out. I could go on from here but this isn't PWEC, so politics aside... Years will pass and the discreet, pseudo-immortal ruling class may find other ways to curb population woes due to impugned profits--genetic measures to increase subservience and reduce caloric need, or worse, systematic sterilization--done so in such a patchwork manner that suspicions will not be aroused, so only a few here and a few there at first have fertility issues. The genetic editing agent could even be tailored to reach an upper-bound, where half the population would be spared due to possessing certain genes which would de-activate the protein machinery and turn the recipient into a carrier instead of an afflicted.

I think that the foldable phones could be a big thing. The doubled real estate of screen could be Yuge!
Especially if they can break free of the Snapdragon processor and go to a Intel?? processor that will run Windows.

Doing a quick Bing Image search on Barbara Eden, I think she looks lovely for her age, assuming the elderly pics are somewhat recent (born: Aug 23, 1931). If she looked like that pic above it'd be creepy for an 87 year old woman. I know that you mean, that it's too bad she had to age, as we all do.

This had me thinking about Mick Jagger, recently (Dec. 2016) becoming a father with a 29-year-old ballerina. "Hey baby, let me caress your soft smooth skin with my wrinkly rough old hand." I get it and I can't say I wouldn't do the same with his means and especially his circumstances (no life-long commitments). But to me it would be somewhat embarrassing, no matter how good I looked for my age.

++++++++++

More on topic, if we ever 'cure' aging and dying of old age, imagine how much worse funerals are going to be? Hate to sound sappy but if fate is kind, my wife and I will go around the same time. And even if we don't, hopefully we'll meet up somewhere on some other side. Being in our 50's, the time gap can never be *that* huge.

Now it's the future and aging/all diseases are cured, but there's a fatal accident. How do you deal with possible eternity without the one you really want to be with?

Too deep for me, going back to Metal <slips headphones back on at painfully low volume>.

LOL (the ad pic, I won't blow it up)...

Well....whatever algorithm the ad engine is using on SimHQ, it definitely knows the correct demographic composition of the site!

naturally sourced antibiotic medication
internet of things devices
AI integration with everything
robots will become fairly common in many menial jobs where customer interaction is not required

and some other stuff.

"Big thing" for whom?

• Well-off people in the west? Maybe foldable cellphones, augmented reality glasses, self-driving cars. AI will shape certain things more than people expect, and much less so in other areas where people have unrealistic expectations.
• Poor people in the west? Improvements in medicine, eventually. And same as above, just later.
• The average person in Africa? "Mobile everything". M-pesa and cellphone technology has revolutionized life for farmers out in the sticks. More of that will come. Renewable energy might create local power grids where it was just not economically feasible before. With electricity comes clean water and countless other amenities, including electric light and electronic entertainment. Which seems to be the most effective tool to reduce fertility rates. People watching TV boink less often.

Then there's always the off-chance that it'll be something entirely different that very few people paid attention to. There's a good chance we're too focused on electronics, and what will truly revolutionize might be biotech, possibly in very mundane applications. CRISPR-CAS has just make gene modification soooo much easier, more people will try it out. Maybe that'll kill us all, or lead to bioengineered gasoline that is more effective than electric cars.

Something to do with everday wearable VR. Google glass type deal, it can only be so long before it happens and becomes commonplace like smart phones.

^ Oh, please no!

Whatever the next big thing will be, I bet it will...

1. Encourage us to become even more sedentary (you won't have to get off the couch).

2. Require a monthly subscription.

I'm looking forward to the day when i can wear VR goggles so powerful and advanced that it will be just like being in the holodeck in Star Trek.

I can then fulfill my dream of being Julius Caesar at his Triumph in 45 BCE.

Yeah,I'm gonna use mine for porn.

Oh, mine will have plenty of porn too. It just will occur after the Triumph.