By and large, the people who are supposedly "in the know" are terrible at predicting the future. Remember last year, when the hot video game console was supposed to be the new XBox--or maybe Playstation 3? Techies derided the Nintendo Wii as simplistic and behind the times. This year, you can find Xboxes and PS3s on shelves everywhere. But the much maligned Wii? It's been continuously sold out for more than a year.

To be fair, video game reviewers (who aren't necessarily techies) often gave the Wii high marks precisely because of its simple mechanics. Most of the time, however, reviewers aren't much more in-the-know than anyone else. They know what they like and don't like, and the good ones are able to explain why. Prognostication skills? Only the lucky few.

I've been looking around, and lately I've seen three things that do look like the future. One of them is the early arrival of a long-awaited technology, one is a subversion of market forces by folks who have talked that talk in the past, and one is next leader of our country. I think thinking about the future is cool.

The new technology is the fuel cell car, an automobile powered entirely by compressed hydrogen. Even when you factor in the energy used to produce the hydrogen, this puppy kicks out less than half the greenhouse gasses of the average car today.

The Honda FCX Clarity looks cool. And you can drive it--if you live in an area where you can readily purchase compressed hydrogen and you're willing to pony up $600 a month for the next three years. Recent reviews I've read say the most impressive thing about the car is that it doesn't seem that much different than cars available today. In other words, the revolution is, in fact, "merely" evolution. You don't have to reinvent the wheel in order to create a car that's significantly better for the environment.

But you do have to make it cheaper. The cars will cost Honda a good chunk more than the $600 a month the company is collecting. Honda seems to be betting that the limited availability of these cars will spur the creation of a national hydrogen fuel infrastructure--and that by the time said infrastructure is built, the technology within the cars will cost much less. Looking back through history, this seems to be a safe bet.

Hydrogen cars. Very cool. And very good for the future.

The music industry has been struggling to figure out how to survive in a downloadable world. CD sales are dropping faster than online sales are rising. Major record labels have massive corporate staffs that managed to keep the music playing for more than 50 years. Not anymore. Something has to change.

In October, Radiohead released its new album In Rainbows on its own web site. Anyone could download the album--and the cost was up to the consumer, or as the band put it: "Pay what you want."

This is a revolutionary concept, and it would only work for a band like Radiohead, one with a proven track record and a rabid fan base. A number of famous artists have ditched major labels in the last couple of years, and that trend will continue. "Pay what you want," however, takes that embrace of online marketing and nimble, independent maneuvering and turns it up to 11. At the time, it seemed like a huge risk.

But the guys in Radiohead aren't stupid. They know they make about $1.50 for every album sold by their old label, EMI. And that buck-fitty comes only after the label's overhead has been satisfied. So even if people, on average, paid a just a buck for the album, the band would basically break even.

Radiohead says it won't release stats on the downloads or payments, but lots of folks are paying attention to this. Online survey company ComScore says that about 60 percent of downloaders scored In Rainbows for free, but that on the whole the band made $2.26 per album.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's at least a 50 percent (if not better than 100 percent) increase in cash flow. Not bad. I'm thinking more folks will try this idea at home.

And that third bit, the one about the leader of our nation? It seems pretty likely that the next Prez will either be a woman or a black guy. And if you think white guys are likely to have a lock on the White House back in the coming years, don't be so sure. We are a pluralistic society. Pretty soon, white folks won't be in the majority. Slowly, but surely, people who aren't white guys have been moving up the political ladder. More and more women are getting elected to higher and higher posts. In case you haven't received your GOP hate mailer this week, the Speaker of the House is a woman.

The future of America is polyglot. There will be plenty more Chinese-Mexican-American diners just like the one that sits out on Highway 98 east of Durham, N.C. The high-falutin' restaurant crowd got hip to diversity years ago, but by the time my kids are in high school--or even middle school--grabbing a bite at the local taqueria will be the norm, not an exotic (and cheap) treat. You can see our future in our food, and soon you'll be able to see it in the appearance of our Prez as well.

Hey, I could be wrong. Maybe all these harbingers are pipe dreams. I dunno. After all, I'm a reviewer. I'm not in "in the know." But I know what I like. And most of the time I can explain why.

Jon Worley likes a good Thai iced tea. Sometimes he dive bombs it with a charge of sake.