Microsoft's Vision of the Near Future

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

A slick vision of one company's concept of the life in the year 2019.  I sincerely hope they are right but primrose promises have been made before.

I remember when cable television was first installed at my parent's home. We were told that we could read books from the library at our home through the television. Cable television promised to revolutionize our lives. We could actually chose which films we wanted to watch. I just thought I would die before our turn came for the cable line to be installed.

Then, one summer afternoon, late in the day, four beefy guys in sweaty uniforms  practically stormed our home, drilling holes in all the walls. Boom, boom, boom without so much as a smile. Boots and loud voices hollering from room to room.

My mother and I were standing there, looking at the TV screen-here wasn't much else to do- when suddenly a man's face, bloated and horrible, appeared on the screen. He was begging for his life to a guy with a gun. The criminal took no heed and fired point blank into the poor guy's forehead.

My mother, with a  gulp, turned to me and said, "It's so realistic!"  We had  glimpsed the future and  It was so realistic.

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