Ask HN: What sort of technology do you envision in 2050?

# Optimistic:

The primary computing devices are wearables; watches, AR+VR glasses, clothing with displays embedded throughout temperature-regulating fabric that can change its look just as we change the face of our smartwatch now.

People still apprehensive of invasive implants but they have begun making inroads.

Home appliances with no physical controls anymore but a universal software interface accessed wirelessly via your computing device.

Everything and everyone connected to the Internet, which is more decentralized and tasks like serving content or AI or search engines are distributed across the billions of personal devices.

Permanent human presence on the Moon. Manned trips to Mars occurred at least once.

Smart beds/sleeping pods that perform a full diagnosis and inject necessary nutrients after putting the occupant into a perfect chemically induced sleep, making you good to go for several days before needing sleep again.

Number of centenarians increasing throughought the world as technology brings us closer to medical immortality.

# Conservative/Pessimistic:

The primary method of computing remains entrenched in Windows, macOS, iOS and Android with a mix of keyboard, pointer and touch input.

The internet is heavily regulated and only accessible through a handful of megaportals: People can no longer buy universal "internet service" but individual access to Google, Facebook, or their equivalents, and pay for them separately.

I'd rather not think much further in that direction, to be honest. :)

Improvements in AI, but no "general AI" or "human-equivalent AI", and no real clue on how to get there.

No singularity.

Human-equivalent or better speech recognition.

Display resolutions have stopped increasing, because they're as good as needed. (For example, audio topped out at 44.1 ksamples/second x 16 bits, stereo. That was enough for almost everyone, even though a few fanatics say they can hear the difference. Video will top out at something like 4000 x 6000 pixels, 48 bits/pixel, 60 frames/second.)

Self-driving cars may be so dominant that you will need a special license to disengage the autopilot.

DRM will be clearly recognized as a failed idea.

Privacy will be in your own home only, and not even there for your online actions.

Moore's Law will be stone-cold dead.

Solar energy will supply at least half of electrical load, at least in the US and Europe (maybe a quarter of world load).

In 2050, someone will resurrect this thread so that people can laugh at all our mistakes.

Every company knows more about you than you will know about yourself. Every device and online service will have so many security holes that everyone, every organization, every government will be an open book. Nanodrones will target and execute people on a daily basis and everyone will own them - terrorists, freedom fighters, governments, corporation states, corporate cities, megacorporations. Victims will be selected by geographical area, ethnicity, skin color, sex and metadata. Corporations will also have their own military divisions.