There seems to be the beginnings of a turnaround in the economy. With the latest job numbers, Christmas spending etc. What's next?

I'm usually not inclined to believe a futuristic prediction from Microsoft. But this six minute video seems really credible. Called Productivity Future Vision 2011, it gives a down to earth realistic vision of the future.

What do they predict? Flat screens pretty much everywhere; some the size and depth  of business cards. All controlled by hand movements. Maybe as a joke,  there's one keyboard in there. What I found interesting was one scene had a young girl using a pencil like device to hand write letters and numbers. So the only question is, will babies who are born today, look at this video in 20 years and laugh at how silly our predictions were.

According to the U.N., the world's population is expected to hit seven billion on October 31st. After growing very slowly for most of human history, the number of people on Earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years.

Where do you fit into this story of human life? Fill in your date of birth to find out. 

According to this neat app from the BBC, I was the 2,698,395,253rd person born on Earth. When will we hit eight billion? 2050.