Your "photo album" analogy is ridiculously wrong because the cloned brain, whether digital or biological, is animated, not static like a photo album or journal. The cloned brain could be given a robotic or virtual body, and it could behave like "you", and it would have no choice other than to feel that it IS "you". As far as it and anyone other than the original "you" is concerned, the clone IS "you".

Perhaps it goes without mentioning, but along with virtual environments, realtime telepresence will make all meetings, gatherings, and live events of all kinds a mouse-click away.

As VR steadily improves, goes completely wireless and proliferates, and as as more and more virtual environments of real and imagined places are created, there will be a lessening of all modes of travel. VR and autonomous vehicles will be a one-two punch for auto accidents, and ubiquitous VR itself will maintain or lessen traffic congestion and parking difficulties.

Everyone seems to be focusing on building AI based on how the brain works. I don't think this is entirely all of what Kurzweil has in mind. Technology to duplicate the brain neuron-by-neuron (connectome) will arrive much MUCH sooner than knowledge-derived AI. This is already evidenced by current synthetic retinas and cochleas. Duplicating the function of neural devices, even entire brains, will prove to be much less difficult than completely understanding them and building them from that understanding. Expanding their capacity from that point should allow them then to be smarter than humans. The U.S. is working on the mapping side while Europe is working on the understanding and synthesis side. By 2029, I suspect great headway to have been made along both pathways.

As the silicon era closes, the era of graphene, other metals, and optical will ensue. At least that's been the buzz in the materials and computing sciences over the last several years.

In conjunction with an automated (wirelessly controlled), standard-constructed receptacle atop the roof, drone delivery could really... take off. Amazon (or other delivery company) would send a special code via the Internet to the intended receptacle at the intended address. The drone flies out to the location, the drone signals the receptacle, the receptacle signals back with the code, the drone says "package ready", the receptacle opens, package dropped, lowered, or inserted from the drone, receptacle closes, drone flies off, package accessible from interior shoot or attic.

I said: "Each mind exists and is experiencing all moments in time simultaneously as "now"." That should be: "Each mind exists and is experiencing all moments in time simultaneously across all quantum possibilities as "now"."

But the Many Worlds interpretation is also the one that works best with Special Relativity which directly implies that all of time, thus all of the branching possibilities of QM, exist simultaneously. The passing of time is then an illusion perceived as real by the function of human memory. All of time is "now". We each presume that we are in a stream of time because at any given instant, the contents of our perception and memory give us the illusion that we have progressed here to this "now", when in actuality, this "now" and all "nows" are pre-existing, as if the universe along one given pathway is a 4-D crystal, and infinitely dimensional across all possible pathways. (The evolution (entropy) of the universe has all played out in a frozen instant.) The really difficult part for a human mind to realize is that there is no "now" pointer causing them to perceive that this is "now", nor is the pointer moving forward to the next "now" to produce the passage of time. Each mind exists and is experiencing all moments in time simultaneously as "now". That one feels that ONLY this moment IS "now" is completely an illusion, as all moments are in the same timeless instant giving one the feeling of "this moment is 'now'". So, strictly deterministic, yes, but infinitely varied.

I see a great comedy TV series and/or movie coming within a year.

Death is ingrained in the evolution of the genes of all species to help promote change in an environment of limited resources. Death helps to assures that the next generation of genetic experimentation is NOT born into an environment of depleted resources. Yes, most of us would like to slow or completely eliminate aging. However, before we do, we better solve other problems related to resources (food, housing, etc.); otherwise, we'd eventually get to the point of massive genocides and cannibalism.

Paranoia will certainly expand to include motherboards as Chinese motherboards own the market, and similar back door access might be burned into any brand cooperating with the government. Advancement in business and personal computing will take a HUGE hit when this happens.

I believe that de Broglie-Bohm theory also puts things similarly.

I recall watching Hurt Locker for free on Hulu well before its release date. I wonder if Hulu had negotiated rights or if one of the Hulu consortium backers made it available as part of a buzz marketing campaign.

...centers of children's brains. To paraphrase the original article: This is concerning because religious evangelists (including religious parents) tap into those portions of the brain long before children develop self-control, and most religions--nay, all religions--marketed to kids are high in lies and manipulation.