[title]
Hewden
So, we've finally reached Back To The Future Day – a whole 26 years after the 'Back To The Future Part II' came out, where Marty McFly fires up his flux capacitor and travels to the future on October 21, 2015. But it turns out the future ain't all that – the closest thing we've got to a hoverboard has recently been made illegal on London's streets and we still haven't got self-tying shoelaces or pizza-hydrating contraptions. Luckily, a futurologist (yep, that's a thing) has been looking a bit further ahead so we can all get excited about what might happen in the next 30 years. Ian Pearson has tracked developments in technology, business, society, politics and the environment to predict what London could look like in the year 2045. He reckons that in 30 years, the city will be filled with 18-mile-high buildings complete with a spaceport, which will make The Shard – a mere 0.2 miles high – pale in comparison.
Who's going to build these giant skyscrapers? Robots, of course! Well, sort of. Builders of the future will wear super-strength exoskeletons which mean they can lift huge weights, making them half human, half robot. Oh, and cyclists will have an easy ride as the pavements are going to pull bikes along automatically, which seems slightly pointless – but who are we to argue with the future? Other predictions include driverless cars, house robots and 3D-printed buildings - but it looks like we'll still be left waiting for that magical pizza hydrator.
Hewden
Meanwhile, in the present, this new app tells you how (un)safe London's pollution levels are.