What does the future hold?

By the end of this decade we will be sending orgasms by e-mail, within 25 years fully functioning artificial eyes will be available and by 2040 we could all be part of a race resembling Star Trek's Borg - a cybernetically enhanced collective with a single consciousness.

This is the vision put forward by futurologist Ian Pearson, whose job it is to predict what and when technological advances will occur.

Futurology is a much-maligned discipline and not without good reason. Predictions in the 1960s from TV shows such as Tomorrow's World were woefully inaccurate and have discredited later attempts to foretell what society will look like in years to come.

The BBC told receptive 1960s audiences that, by now, there would be mind-reading pot plants capable of judging people's intentions and that we'd be living in domed communities on polar ice caps or in underwater hotels.

But according to Ian Pearson, who works for BTexact Technologies, futurology has grown up. He claims an impressive 85 per cent success rate on predictions he has made since 1991, and he's been spot on with certain developments. He said: 'Ten years ago, we predicted evolutionary software and hardware that would use processes pinched from nature. People laughed at us then, but now it's industry standard practice to use these techniques.'

Having foreseen the coming of Internet chatrooms and search engines well before they materialised, Pearson does appear as a Nostradamus of technology. He even anticipated the development of robotic pets, which Sony has already started making. But while some of his predictions would make our lives easier and possibly more enjoyable, certain aspects send shivers down the spine.

Getting an orgasm by e-mail would certainly brighten the day on a Monday morning, but Pearson says it would involve putting chips into the body. 'We've been working with the idea of sticking chips in people for some time now and there's been success with it.

'It's now possible to get nerve fibres to grow on chips and soon you'll be able to put the sensations felt in a given environment into your body as well, so you should eventually be able to send someone an orgasm over a network.'

The idea of linking people to networks does have serious downsides though, and certain nightmare scenarios might come true - such as the assimilation of everyone into a Borg-like collective.

'You'd reach the stage where the link between you and the machine is so strong that 99 per cent of your thoughts happen in cyberspace. The ultimate is that you move totally into cyberspace and take up a different evolutionary niche.

'People might try to resist, but they'll find they're fighting a losing battle. If the guy next door is intellectually superior, never gets sick and always gets the girls, then you'll want the upgrade - we might end up with completely voluntary extinction.'