Out of milk? Send your icebox to the supermarket.
Need food? Ten years from now, you won't have to go to the grocery store. Your appliances will order for you. So-called smart kitchens and smart laundry rooms, today found only in high-end concept houses, will be common in newly constructed middle-class homes.
They'll be equipped with high-tech sensors that will be able to tell when your staples of choice - Tropicana orange juice with lots of pulp, Tide high efficiency detergent, no-fat Dannon yogurt - are running out (or going bad), and will automatically alert your local supermarket to replenish them.
In 35 years, most of your other shopping tasks will be done via personal computing devices. Imagine a phone, laptop and wallet, all in one tiny gizmo, the workings of which - for security reasons - will be placed on a chip under your skin.
Increasingly globalized and more efficient manufacturing will mean that new-and-improved versions of products will be available almost continuously. Shopping will be all about convergence: More stuff, available faster and easier for you to buy (or rent, as the case may be).
Not everything will be automated, though. The joy of a farmers market is not going to disappear, nor will your interest in things local and organic. You'll continue to shop in person, but only when doing so gives you pleasure.
In terms of the sheer volume of stuff you'll be consuming in 35 years - well, that has to drop significantly. Our landfills, our forests and our planet won't be able to sustain Americans' current habit of buying cars, computers and appliances just because they want to upgrade rather than because the products no longer work.
You (and everyone else) will be much more conscious of not creating waste. One result: There will be an explosion of super-efficient secondary markets - the next generation of Craigslist and eBay - where you'll buy, sell, and trade items you no longer want or need.
