kurzweil predictions

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	A	B	C	D
1	What is your name?	Eric Herboso
2	What is your age?	31
3	What is your gender (if you choose to specify one)?	Male
4	How did you hear of this project?	Less Wrong post
5	Had you heard of Kurzweil before this project? If so, how?	Yes, but only second hand.
6	What are your opinions (if any) about Kurzweil before starting on this project?	I am aware that he has spoken about singularity topics, but am not aware of what he has said. Since I have not had conversations longer than a sentence with anyone about Kurweil, and know nothing in particular about him, I do not have an opinion about him yet.
7	What are your opinions (if any) about Kurzweil's predictive accuracy before starting on this project?	I am not aware of his predictions and have not heard anyone comment about his predictions up until I came across this project; ordinarily, I would look have looked them up at that point, but Armstrong's post specifically said not to, so I've not yet looked at anything he's said yet. Thus I have no feelings one way or the other yet.
8	Do you have any other relevant comments, thoughts or ideas?	n/a
9
10	Prediction number:	Prediction:	Correctness rating (1=True, 2=Weakly True, 3=Cannot decide, 4=Weakly False, 5=False):	Comments:
11	1	Individuals primarily use portable computers, which have become dramatically lighter and thinner than the notebook computers of ten years earlier	2	"Primarily" is a stretch, though tablets are owned by 30% of internet users.
12	2	Personal computers are available in a wide range of sizes and shapes, and are commonly embedded in clothing and jewellery such as wristwatches, rings, earrings and other body ornaments.	5	It is not at all common yet.
13	3	Computers with a high-resolution visual interface range from rings and pins and credit cards up to the size of a thin book.
14	4	People typically have at least a dozen computers on and around their bodies, which are networked using "body LANs" (local area networks).	5
15	5	These computers provide communication facilities similar to cellular phones, pagers, and web surfers, monitor body functions, provide automated identity (to conduct ﬁnancial transactions and allow entry into secure areas), provide directions for navigation, and a variety of other services.	5
16	6	For the most part, these truly personal computers have no moving parts.
17	7	Memory is completely electronic, and most portable computers do not have keyboards.	1	Among portable computer
18	8	Rotating memories (that is, computer memories that use a rotating platten, such as hard drives, CD-ROMs, and DVDs) are on their way out, although rotating magnetic memories are still used in "server" computers where large amount of information are stored.	2
19	9	Most users have servers in their homes and ofﬁces where they keep large stores of digital “objects,” including their software, data-bases, documents, music, movies, and virtual-reality environments (although these are still at an early stage).
20	10	There are services to keep one’s digital objects in central repositories, but most people prefer to keep their private information under their own physical control.
21	11	Cables are disappearing.	2
22	12	Communication between components, such as pointing devices, microphones, displays, printers, and the occasional keyboard, uses short-distance wireless technology.	2
23	13	Computers routinely include wireless technology to plug into the ever-present worldwide network, providing reliable, instantly available, very-high-bandwidth communication.
24	14	Digital objects such as books, music albums, movies, and software are rapidly distributed as data ﬁles through the wireless network, and typically do not have a physical object associated with them.
25	15	The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition (CSR) dictation software, but keyboards are still used.	5
26	16	CSR is very accurate, far more so than the human transcriptionists who were used up until a few years ago.	5
27	17	Also ubiquitous are language user interfaces (LUls), which combine CSR and natural language understanding.	3
28	18	For routine matters, such as simple business transactions and information inquiries, LUls are quite responsive and precise.	5
29	19	They tend to be narrowly focused, however, on speciﬁc types of tasks.	5
30	20	LUIs are frequently combined with animated personalities.
31	21	Interacting with an animated personality to conduct a purchase or make a reservation is like talking to a person using videoconferencing, except that the person is simulated.	5
32	22	Computer displays have all the display qualities of paper—high resolution, high contrast, large viewing angle, and no ﬂicker.	2
33	23	Books, magazines, and newspapers are now routinely read on displays that are the size of, well, small books.	1	Tablet usage of internet users is 30%; this qualifies as "routinely".
34	24	Computer displays built into eyeglasses are also used.	5	The technology exists, but is not yet used by the public.
35	25	These specialized glasses allow users to see the normal visual environment, while creating a virtual image that appears to hover in front of the viewer.	4
36	26	The virtual images are created by a tiny laser built into the glasses that projects the images directly onto the user's retinas.
37	27	Computers routinely include moving picture image cameras and are able to reliably identify their owners from their faces.
38	28	In terms of circuitry, three-dimensional chips are commonly used, and there is a transition taking place from the older, single-layer chips.
39	29	Sound producing speakers are being replaced with very small chip-based devices that can place high resolution sound anywhere in three-dimensional space.	5
40	30	This technology is based on creating audible frequency sounds from the spectrum created by the interaction of very high frequency tones.
41	31	As a result, very small speakers can create very robust three-dimensional sound.	5
42	32	A $1,000 personal computer (in 1999 dollars) can perform about a trillion calculations per second.	5	$1400 in 2011 money will buy about 20 gigaflops, which is shy of the teraflop range.
43	33	Supercomputers match at least the hardware capacity of the human brain—20 million billion calculations per second.	1
44	34	Unused computes on the Internet are being harvested, creating virtual parallel supercomputers with human brain hardware capacity.
45	35	There is increasing interest in massively parallel neural nets, genetic algorithms, and other forms of “chaotic” or complexity theory computing, although most computer computations are still done using conventional sequential processing, albeit with some limited parallel processing.	3
46	36	Research has been initiated on reverse engineering the human brain through both destructive scans of the brains of recently deceased persons as well as non-invasive scans using high resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of living persons.
47	37	Autonomous nanoengineered machines (that is, machines constructed atom by atom and molecule by molecule) have been demonstrated and include their own computational controls.	5
48	38	However, nanoengineering is not yet considered a practical technology.	1
49	39	In the twentieth century, computers in schools were mostly on the trailing edge, with most effective learning from computers taking place in the home. Now in 2009, while schools are still not on the cutting edge, the profound importance of the computer as a knowledge tool is widely recognized.	2
50	40	Computers play a central role in all facets of education, as they do in other spheres of life.	1
51	41	The majority of reading is done on displays, although the “installed base" of paper documents is still formidable.	1
52	42	The generation of paper documents is dwindling, however, as the books and other papers of largely twentieth-century vintage are being rapidly scanned and stored.	1
53	43	Documents circa 2009 routinely include embedded moving images and sounds.
54	44	Students of all ages typically have a computer of their own, which is a thin tabletlike device weighing under a pound with a very high resolution display suitable for reading.	3	This is common in some limited private schools, but not for most students.
55	45	Students interact with their computers primarily by voice and by pointing with a device that looks like a pencil.	5
56	46	Keyboards still exist, but most textual language is created by speaking.	5
57	47	Learning materials are accessed through wireless communication.	4	Siri exists, so this is not fully false, but it is mostly false.
58	48	lntelligent courseware has emerged as a common means of learning.	4
59	49	Recent controversial studies have shown that students can learn basic skills such as reading and math just as readily with interactive learning software as with human teachers, particularly when the ratio of students to human teachers is more than one to one.	5
60	50	Although the studies have come under attack, most students and their parents have accepted this notion for years.
61	51	The traditional mode of a human teacher instructing a group of children is still prevalent, but schools are increasingly relying on software approaches, leaving human teachers to attend primarily to issues of motivation, psychological well-being, and socialization.	5
62	52	Many children learn to read on their own using their personal computers before entering grade school.
63	53	Preschool and elementary school children routinely read at their intellectual level using print-to-speech reading software until their reading skill level catch up.
64	54	These print-to-speech reading systems display the full image of documents, and can read the print aloud while highlighting what is being read.	3	Such devices do exist, but they are not widely used in schools. Does this make the claim true or false? The use of "these" makes it unclear.
65	55	Synthetic voices sound fully human.	5
66	56	Although some educators expressed concern in the early ’00 years that students would rely unduly on reading software, such systems have been readily accepted by children and their parents.	5
67	57	Studies have shown that students improve their reading skills by being exposed to synchronized visual and auditory presentations of text.	3	I am unaware of such studies, and a cursory google scholar search found nothing relevant, but the existence of confirming studies would not surprise me.
68	58	Learning at a distance (for example, lectures and seminars in which the participants are geographically scattered) is commonplace.
69	59	Learning is becoming a signiﬁcant portion of most jobs.	3
70	60	Training and developing new skills is emerging as an ongoing responsibility in most careers, not just an occasional supplement, as the level of skill needed for meaningful employment soars ever higher.
71	61	Persons with disabilities are rapidly overcoming their handicaps through the intelligent technology of 2009.	4
72	62	Students with reading disabilities routinely ameliorate their disability using print-to-speech reading systems.	5
73	63	Print-to-speech reading machines for the blind are now very small, inexpensive, palm-sized devices that can read books (those that still exist in paper form) and other printed documents, and other real-world text such as signs and displays.	5	Apps exist that do this, but it is expensive; at the minimum, a smart phone must be purchased first.
74	64	These reading systems are equally adept at reading the trillions of electronic documents that are instantly available from the ubiquitous wireless worldwide network.	2
75	65	After decades of ineffective attempts, useful navigation devices have been introduced that can assist blind people in avoiding physical obstacles in their path, and finding their way around, using global positioning system (GPS) technology.	5
76	66	A blind person can interact with her personal reading-navigation systems through two-way voice communication, kind of like a Seeing Eye dog that reads and talks.	3
77	67	Deaf persons—or anyone with a hearing impairment—commonly use portable speech-to-text listening machines, which display a real-time transcription of what people are saying.	2	Apps for this exist, but are not yet that common in the deaf community.
78	68	The deaf user has the choice of either reading the transcribed speech as displayed text, or watching an animated person gesturing in sign language.	5
79	69	These have eliminated the primary communication handicap associated with deafness.	4	It is nowhere near eliminated, though some iphone apps exist that serve this purpose.
80	70	Listening machines can also translate what is being said into another language in real time, so they are commonly used by hearing people as well.
81	71	Computer-controlled orthotic devices have been introduced. These “walking machines” enable paraplegic persons to walk and climb stairs.	4	These exist in a preliminary form, but are not yet available to the public.
82	72	The prosthetic devices are not yet usable by all paraplegic persons, as many physically disabled persons have dysfunctional joints from years of disuse.
83	73	However, the advent of orthotic walking systems is providing more motivation to have these joints replaced.
84	74	There is a growing perception that the primary disabilities of blindness, deafness, and physical impairment do not necessarily impart handicaps.	5
85	75	Disabled persons routinely describe their disabilities as mere inconveniences. Intelligent technology has become the great leveler.	5
86	76	Translating Telephone technology (where you speak in English and your Japanese friend hears you in Japanese, and vice versa) is commonly used for many language pairs.
87	77	It is a routine capability of an individuals personal computer, which also serves as her phone.	3	This technology exists, but is not yet "routine".
88	78	“Telephone” communication is primarily wireless, and routinely includes high-resolution moving images.
89	79	Meetings of all kinds and sizes routinely take place among geographically separated participants.	1	Wasn't this also true in 1999 with teleconferencing?
90	80	There is effective convergence, at least on the hardware and supporting software level, of all media, which exist as digital objects (that is, ﬁles) distributed by the ever-present high-bandwidth, wireless information web.
91	81	Users can instantly download books, magazines, newspapers, television, radio, movies, and other forms of software to their highly portable personal communication devices.	1
92	82	Virtually all communication is digital and encrypted, with public keys available to government authorities.	5	While this type of encryption is moderately popular, it is nowhere near "virtually all communication".
93	83	Many individuals and groups, including but not limited to criminal organizations, use an additional layer of virtually unbreakable encryption codes with no third-party keys.	3
94	84	Haptic technologies are emerging that allow people to touch and feel objects and other persons at a distance.	4
95	85	These force-feedback devices are widely used in games and in training simulation systems.	4
96	86	Interactive games routinely include all-encompassing visual and auditory environments, but a satisfactory, all-encompassing tactile environment is not yet available.	5
97	87	The online chat rooms of the late 1990s have been replaced with virtual environments where you can meet people with full visual realism.	5
98	88	People have sexual experiences at a distance with other persons as well as virtual partners.	4
99	89	But the lack of the “surround” tactile environment has thus far kept virtual sex out of the mainstream.
100	90	Virtual partners are popular as forms of sexual entertainment, but they’re more gamelike than real.	5