"We want to confer life and intelligence on everything. We want to see fairies under trees."

Without a doubt that will happen. The whole body-mod community. I know of one guy, he wears his glasses -- he basically punched a bolt through the upper part of his nose bridge.

Intentionally?

Yeah, yeah, it's very elegant. It's like a little earring stud. And his glasses attach to it with magnets. So they don't have temples. He says that he can sleep with his glasses on.

Wow. And that's the future of cellphones?

The moment you realize that cellphones are fashion, the pressure is to make them look like everything except a cellphone. You could do an earring.

What about our social lives and connecting up to people? Social networking? Are there going to be any big new wants?

The big thing that will be in fashion is being disconnected. Seriously. When being connected is hard or takes a fancy device, being connected is hip. When pagers first came out, if you had a pager it meant you were a cardiac surgeon or an arms control negotiator. Now it means you're a maid at the Hyatt.

So, when connectivity becomes as easy as it is, the hip thing is to be unconnected. It will cost money. We will depend on sort of an electronic concierge that's vigilantly watching our phone calls and e-mail, mediating between you and the rest of the world.

What about energy, climate change, going green? Anything in that?

In an age when pessimism is the new black, solar cells are hip. It's the perfect badge of social consciousness. Solar cells on your house are evidence of virtue, and the price is coming down fast enough. It's home fashion.

This is going to be bigger than granite countertops?

Maybe not quite. This all has to get down to the cost of a car. Right now it's about the cost of three cars.

When does want-to-have turn into need-to-have?

Wants turn into needs when your neighbor gets it. That's what happened with TVs. People wanted TVs. But the moment the neighbor had it and your kids came home saying, "Daddy, Daddy, why don't we have a TV?" -- that's when it becomes a need.