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Holographic TV? Restaurant recommendations from Google via your car? In today's paper, Wall Street Journal technology reporters guess what 10 years into the future will hold for shopping, games, TV, films, social networks, search, news and privacy. It's been 10 years since the last time the Journal tried to predict the future. In 1998, they predicted electronic books would win "sweeping acceptance" and that online bill payment systems wouldn't gain much traction. Oops. Those errors, it seems, led the Journal to make all-too-cautious prognostications for the near future.

  • Business will bribe customers with discounts so they'll hand over access to private information like shopping history and online activity. Algorithms will help store clerks make better personal recommendations.
  • Spectators at sporting events will be able to order nachos from their seat.
  • Expect more iPhone-esque touch screens.
  • Videogames will become more like movies as new technologies improve animated facial expressions.
  • Motion sensors will take videogames another step beyond the Wii as users control on-screen actions with just their body.
  • Made-for-Internet feature films with budgets around $10 million will proliferate.
  • So will big-budget 3D movies, like James Cameron's 2009 film, Avatar
  • One box will deliver the video you get from satellite, broadcast, cable and the Internet now.
  • Holographic TV.
  • Social networks will keep your friends abreast of all your activities including where you are and what you've purchased. (Apparently the WSJ believes Facebook will figure out how not to creep people out with Beacon.)
  • After tracking your behavior through GPS, Google will give you a list of restaurants you might like for lunch when you get into your car. Directions included.
  • You'll be able to locate where old home videos took place.
  • News will come to you on a mobile device, from multiple sources, based on your declared tastes.