Futurist Magazine reveals the future of flying cars, undersea habitation, teleportation, and artificial intelligence

In a special report for THE FUTURIST magazine, former White House adviser Marvin Cetron, former International Space University Dean Joe Pelton, and FUTURIST staff editors Aaron Cohen, Rick Docksai, and Patrick Tucker survey the myths and realities of popular science-fiction scenarios. They explore the present-day realities of flying cars, teleportation, artificial intelligence, and undersea habitation.

"In the 1960s, television productions and movies like The Jetsons, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Star Trek infected the American psyche with images of a glittering tomorrow where people commuted to work via flying car, lived under the sea or in space ships staffed by disembodied AI programs, and even teleported. Forty years later, like it or not, these sci-fi clichés have formed our cultural expectations of the future," write the editors in the introduction.

Among the ideas addressed:
* Where flying cars will—and will not be—available in the decades ahead.
* The new "competition" to build ocean habitats.
* DARPA's plan to turn a Star Trek vision into a reality.
* The connection between neuroscience, quantum computing, and making an artificial intelligence than can perform 10 to the 18th calculations per second.

This special section of the September-October 2008 edition of THE FUTURIST can be obtained online at www.wfs.org/futurist.htm . Exclusive interviews with Seasteads head Patri Friedman, "Skycar" creator Paul Moller, and others are also available for free from THE FUTURIST Web site.

Individuals can pick up the September-October issue of THE FUTURIST for $4.95 at bookstores and newsstands, or write the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814. Order online at www.wfs.org .

THE FUTURIST is a bimonthly magazine focused on innovation, creative thinking, and emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological trends.

Among the thinkers and experts who have contributed to THE FUTURIST are Gene Roddenberry, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Richard Lamm, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Vaclav Havel, Hazel Henderson, Margaret Mead, Robert McNamara, Betty Friedan, Nicholas Negroponte, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Lester R. Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Rushkoff, Joel Garreau, William J. Mitchell, and U.S. Comptroller David M. Walker.

Editors: To request a review copy of THE FUTURIST magazine, contact Patrick Tucker, 301-656-8274 (ext. 116), or ptucker@wfs.org. More information about the World Future Society may be obtained from the Society's Web site, www.wfs.org