<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>Commuting in the future will be efficient, eco-friendly and easy to use<br><br><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>2015 </strong></span><br><strong>Hybrid cars will account for 30 per cent of the new car market </strong><br><br><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>2020</strong></span><br><strong>Sea travel will involve the use of hydrogen-powered yachts and ships. The ships of the future will look vastly different. Giant cruise ‘mother ships' will be able to launch fleets of smaller vessels.</strong><br><br><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>2030</strong></span><br><strong>Intelligent cars will auto-drive. Exclusive automated highway networks will allow such cars to self-pilot across cities and even continents. The networks will interact with the onboard computer, sensors and actuator systems in the car.</strong><br><br><strong>Space tourism will be common. (There are plans to build multi-purpose, commercial space stations that will include hotels, research facilities and venues for zero-gravity sports)</strong><br><br><strong>Automated flying drones will transport humans. Developing a well-functioning delivery drone network will pave the way for confidence in it. Unmanned aerial vehicles will be safer than those prone to human error (such as 2D vision)</strong><br><br><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>2040</strong></span><br><strong>Production of cars run by water will start</strong><br><br><strong>First manned trip to Mars</strong><br><br>The predictions are compiled from the writings of futurists Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and The Third<br>Wave; Ian Pearson, a futurologist with Futurizon who is credited to have an "85 per cent accuracy at the 10 year<br>horizon"; Patrick Dixon, business consultant and head of trends forecasting company Global Change; Ray<br>Kurzweil, author and inventor with interests in optical character recognition and speech recognition; and Thomas<br>Frey, executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute; among others<br><br>(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 12-12-2011)</p>