As part of our “Screen Wars” series, Daniel Kibblesmith and Sam Weiner offer their predictions for the screens we use every day. Kibblesmith and Weinter also wrote “How to Win at Everything: Even Things You Can’t or Shouldn’t Try to Win At.”
We all know that by 2015, every American will own a touch screen refrigerator, two smart-watches, and virtual reality goggles that replace your family and friends with characters from your favorite TV shows. But in the future, we’ll be even more surrounded by helpful, distracting screens.
By 2016 your car’s windshield will be a flexible LED display that blocks out your boring commute with a grid of 25 music videos playing simultaneously. And forget Google Glass – by 2017 everyone in the world will be wearing hip, computerized contact lenses.
Because they’ll be mandatory!
With these convenient, painful surgical implants, you’ll never miss another text message, status update, or non-skippable advertisement – because you’ll still see them even if you close your eyes.Soon, you’ll be able to scroll through hundreds of vacation photos just by swiping your finger across your cornea.
By 2019, we’ll all be enjoying interactive screen sodas that cool your insides with the latest Netflix original series.
By 2020, even the money in your wallet will be made of screens. You’ll be able to put your own face on the $20 bill, in between displaying even more non-skippable advertisements.
But the future of the screen doesn’t end there. It ends ten years from now, when every human on the planet will be safely ensconced in their own full-body screen-suit.It’ll place you in a virtual environment so indistinguishable from reality that there’s no way of proving you’re not inside of one right now!
In fact, who’s to say that everything you’ve ever seen on a screen hasn’t been a simulation inside of a larger screen that’s quietly replaced our own reality.
Regardless of whether we exist or not, the future of the screen is looking bright.
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