Food, homes, climate; there are so many aspects of our ordinary lives that are currently going through a huge revolution with new disruptive technology. As such, families in Charlotte can expect future Christmases to be very different from those that we enjoy today. The company Viessmann wanted to find out how Christmas might look thirty years from now and they spoke to a futurologist, Dr. Ian Pearson, about some of his predictions. From robots to smart homes, his predictions point to a future that is not entirely dissimilar from science fiction.
Gone are the stressful hours spent cooking Christmas dinner, predicts Dr. Ian Pearson; families both in Charlotte and across the world will have plenty of help around the kitchen in the Christmas of the future. He told Viessmann that one of the major transformations we can expect by the year 2050 is virtual assistants, essentially robots, which will help families cook at Christmas. Self-timers, 3D printing and automatic chopping are just some of the things which robots will be able to do.
“There is going to be a rise in tissue-cultured meat,” Dr. Ian Pearson continued, “a food source that is created painlessly by harvesting muscle cells from a living cow, so that we can still enjoy the taste of meat without worrying about the animal or the harm on the environment from our food production.” This is going to be another huge change to how we enjoy Christmas dinner, reflecting the popularity of veganism which is sweeping the world – including here in Charlotte where its popularity has increased by 168%.
The homes in which we spend our Christmas are due to go through a major change by 2050 too, according to the futurologist. Living spaces are expected to become more advanced with everything from “smart fabric that will allow furniture to change appearance, colours, patterns and textures” to “devices that helps us gain better control of our energy usage”. Smart home technology is already in existence, but it is only likely to get more advanced and become increasingly commonplace over the next thirty years.