  I see a lot of predictions about what we'll see in the future. Predictions about society as a whole, technology, medical breakthroughs and so forth. Most of them remain decidedly optomistic to me. I try to think of it a little more pragmatically. For example, since 1950 (over 50 years ago) what has changed? Communications are much faster, but still, a resident of 1950 would certainly be able to figure out how to make a phone call on their own, or send an e-mail with a very short demonstration. They would still be able to drive a car with no problem and navigate to and from where they wanted to go. They would be able to cook our foods and would easily recognize our major appliances. They might be amazed by some of the advances from a curiosity standpoint - a few medical breakthroughs might be somewhat amazing to them (heart transplant for example).
But even this wouldn't be beyond the realm of imagination for them. Even their clothes would still fit in - a little geeky perhaps depending on your clothing choice back then, but still essentially the same. However, if you look at the future that was anticipated by someone in 1950, our world is very different. As someone once said "Nothing is as dated as yesterday's future. " Flying cars, space stations, moon bases, aliens among us, ultra-modern, ultra-efficient cities with monorails and such. Why isn't it here today? We hear people say that we're closer to such things than we ever were in the past, but are we really?
Are we really that close to yesterdays tomorrow? Are we really that close to things like true AI, custom grown organs, quantum computing, hybrid cars in every garage or fuel cell vehicles, space stations, viable genetic clones, designer babies, or any of that type of thing? My guess is, no. 50 years from now (discarding any religious views I may have) will not look all that different from what we know today.
The same advances we've seen over the past 50 years will continue to increase: faster communications, more computing power (possibly by orders of magnitude, but there is also a possibility we will have reached a threshold and can't reliably develop beyond that level by then), more ways to keep a person alive, faster, more efficient transportation options, etc. But we'll still have roads, we'll still have communications bottlenecks, we'll still have disease and death, we'll still die of old age (probably with an average life-span of 110 yrs. ) there will still be 3rd world economies, there will still be wars and national disputes. Basically - it will look to me like a denizen of the 1950's would look at today. It will still be very recognizable and not at all alien in appearance or execution. What 100 years will bring may be more significant - but even then I'm betting it will still be more than 90% recognizable.
I'm just not a hyper-optomistic futurist. The future has never come based on the predictions of futurists (at least not the fanciful ones - the boring, mundain, "that-wasn't-so-difficult-to-figure-out" type of predictions do come true though). What makes people think it will come through this time as opposed to 1950? UPDATE: Some urlLink thoughts on Futurism . 
