IBM announced its annual “Next Five in Five” last week – a list of innovations that are suppose to change the way we live and work over the next five years (sorry, no jet packs or hover boards). After the jump check out the youtube video, a brief description of each innovation, as well as a few fun ‘popular mechanic’ type covers of ‘innovative’ predictions from the past…

Here’s a link to the youtube video about these five innovations. Among them are ’solar technology to be built into asphalt, paint and windows’, a “crystal ball” to see into your health (further, personal, genetic mapping), OMGWTFWEBBERNETS! (you’ll be able to carry on a conversation…. with the internet?), digital shopping assistants, and better (brain) memory.

The Genetic mapping and solar technology ‘innovations’ seem the most plausible. Who wouldn’t want to live longer and healthier? Who wouldn’t want to help the environment with clean and renewable energy? I, personally, don’t see having a conversation with the internet as if “having a conversation with your mother” as a very applicable technology – annoying isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind. The last thing I need is the net ‘talking’ back to me. I also place ‘digital shopping assistant’ in the same category as a ‘talking internet’.

The ‘enhanced’ memory via ‘reminder’ appliances and applications sounds the most entertaining if only for the new and innovative excuses we can look forward to. “Sorry, I don’t remember meeting you, some nano-bugs ate that sector…”, “I forgot to log out of my rdp session because my backup memory replicator over-wrote my daily tasks with my grocery list. I’m seeing a member of the geek squad about it later this week; as a side note, help me drink this milk before it spoils”, or perhaps “a solar-flare flashed my ‘time to wake up’ application and that’s why I was late for work”.

IBM is far from the only company to make such innovative predictions – here’s a few vintage ’space age’ illustrations from Popular Mechanics and Popular Science. Yes, there are jetpacks.

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