Since the early nineteenth century, scientists and authors questioned the present and attempted to predict the future. Often times their efforts fell upon deaf ears and were mostly rooted in imagination and not the actual reality of what might be possible in the foreseeable future. Up until the mid-twentieth century, these self professed “futurists” failed to gain much ground or creditability outside of their peer groups, but with the public becoming more and more concerned with what was to come, they began to turn to these scientists and authors’ theories for a glimpse into the future. Our presentation will detail exactly what these futurists did in the early years and who the leading professionals were in the field. In addition, it will outline their views and actual visions of what was to come. Then finally concluding by comparing the reality of today’s world with their views.

Chris Kitching : Chapter 1: Defining what Futurists Do, Who they were,
The term futurist can first be attributed to the german professor Ossip K. Fleichtman, who in the 1940's developed the science of futurology.
This new field of study was intended to make predictions about future developments in society and technology by looking at yesterday's changes how they impacted the current state of the world. This field was first known as Forsight--termed a decade earlier by science fiction author H.G. Wells who sought to establish a network of early futurists called "Departments and Professors of Forsight." The first institutions of futurology were RAND and SRI who, in the mid 1940's were contracted by the government to make visionary estimations of the future for World War II intelligence, and later contracted by companies to make economic predictions. Some early important published works in the field were Bertrand de Jouvenel's "The Art of Conjecture" written in 1963 and Dennis Gabor's "Inventing the Future" which came a year later in 1964.


Ian Chrzanowski : Chapter 2: The views of Leading Futurists http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddxqg2z7_1gh6cx3cj
Now that we have discussed the question of what it is a futurist does, we will discuss leading futurists of today and what they feel lies ahead for us in the ever growing technological field.  On this page we will discuss individuals such as Daniel Burrus who has published several books and has successfully predicted the rapid development of several ground breaking technologies in 1983, including digital electronics and wireless networking.  Companies such as IBM, Microsoft, and AT&T are all clients of Burrus. Along with Burrus’s views on where we are heading technologically in the future, we will cover the studies of futurists from distinguished universities across the US and their views on where we will be technologically. Some questions we will answer will include; How far can we take miniaturization? Will we become a paperless society? Will e-books ever become more popular than paperbacks?  How many wireless devices will connect us across the planet? Among others.


Mike Hall: Chapter 3: Today's Harsh Reality vs. the Futurists
In previous section, we made note of the ways in which various scientists and futurists such as Burrus and others have accurately predicted the ways the future will be shaped by technology and advances in science. For every author like Burrus has made acute predictions, there are a dozen scientists and authors who unlike him have greatly misjudged what the future will be like and what is to come for the planet Earth. This chapter will take a detailed look at how different theorists have viewed the boom in technological advances in the late 1970's and early 1980's as a detriment to our society. Authors who predicted that by the year 2000 America will resemble a prison state ruled by technology and how the internet would be the catalyst for this dystopian civilization. View essay HERE!


Group Effort: Chapter 4: their Ideas and their implication on technology in decades to come/conclusion

This is very well done, all of you!  TG