Oh My Stars and Garters

Over at Maggie's Farm they're tossing up oooooold predictions of "technology of tomorrow" type stuff. I remember seeing/watching the same kind of thing when I was a kid (albeit the stuff I watched was more flying cars and giant holograms / circa 1990s don'cha'know). Still, amazing to see how far off the mark predictions can be, or how close to the future they can be.
(H/T Captain Capitalism)

Still, kinda makes me wonder, with the increasing amounts of red tape and gov't bureaucracy involved in getting patent rights these days (and the increasing amount of frivolousness allowed with some patents)... I wonder what, if any, future technology is gonna come about by, say, 2050. Obviously the incremental decrease in size of transistors and increasing use of high speed fiber-optic technologies are going to continue, but what about entirely new devices, or ways of doing things?

Don't really want to sink into paranoia (oh noes, net neutrality!) but I think the looks of things in a general sense leave me somewhat cynical, at least to a certain extent. Will say the allosphere project looks damn cool, though. On second thought, maybe I'm not all that pessimistic that technology will advance, but I am pessimistic about the pace. C'mon people, let's get our priorities straight: Socialism in the name of helping the poor (and ultimately only increasing the # of poor) or eliminating the corporate tax and letting the sky be the limit on technological investment and innovation?