He covers eight broad subject areas, looks at where the technology is today and a year or two from now. Then he takes on the futurist role and expands the subject to the near future (present to 2030) followed by mid-century predictions (2030 to 2070) and ending with speculation on the far future (2070 to 2100).
The book looks at the future of:
The Computer
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Medicine
Nanotechnology
Energy
Space Travel
Wealth
Humanity
He ends the book with a bit of creative fiction; a day in the life of a regular office worker which brings all the technology discussed and shows how he interacts with it.
I liked the book but I did not love it. But that's not really a flaw of the author or the book, it's just that some areas, like nanotechnology and space travel, are either in their infancy or have been so neglected that it's difficult to believe some of the changes predicted. Some of the topics lent themselves to believable extrapolation while others felt like pure guesswork.
Each topic is its own entity and does not lead into the next, meaning you can pick and choose which chapters to read without losing anything by skipping one or reading them out of order.
The strength of the book is that it will give you a sense of wonder and hopefulness for the future.
Now if only we can get humanity to just get along with each other we can get down to the business of creating the future depicted by Kaku.
You can find the author's website here:
http://mkaku.org/
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