For me, i am thinking that direct interfacing between humans and their computing/communications systems will become reality eventually. I cannot possibly anticipate the when, but i think that humans will essentially become a hub of interlacing networks between the human and the devices the human uses in everyday life.

In effect, our brains will be extended by our gadgets. Who needs an AI when you can effectively control and compute anything man-made straight from the brain?

Bear in mind, the time span for this may be extremely long term (centuries, maybe? A human is a complicated machine to safely interact with), but i anticipate significant advances towards this goal in the next 50 years.

On the other side of things, genetic engineering. How do you deal with massive environmental problems, space radiation, lack of food and/or drinking water in certain areas or even the fact that your country is now under 2 metres of sea water in winter? The answer is simple: change yourself to suit the environment! Stay young for decades rather than years, give yourself a set of gills, deactivate those pesky cancer genes or just give your children the IQ of a Tesla or an Einstein!

This is another area in which i anticipate major steps will be taken in the next 50 years, especially amongst more environmentally conscious societies. We may be able to influence the development or inhibition of certain genetic interactions in order to produce desired outcomes on a regular basis. Done properly, this should extend humanity's ability to stay on planet earth long after its current depart-by date has been reached. It is also, after all, less traumatic to the environment than having to terraform the planet again.

Which brings us to my final idea of what the near future will look like: terraforming will become THE big thing. Not in the "1000 years later, Mars looks like Earth" way, but in the "hey, that space station is full of trees!" way. In essence, what i am talking about is creating artificial environments capable of sustaining a human population as well as themselves, artificially engineered to produce either the complete package for supporting earth-based organisms in deep space/on barren planetary bodies or for supporting other tasks, such as supplying raw materials to space-based industrial processes (food, wood, chlorophyll etc...). Space farming may be another factor too. This hinges on our ability to generate and/or manipulate magnetic fields in a continuous manner, though; if we cannot do so, the only protection for an artificial environment such as this one would be a bio-dome, a major no-no if you are looking for a procedural and flexible biosphere.

TL;DR: Direct Human-machine interfaces, major advances in genetic engineering and "terraforming" aka the creation of sustainable human-capable artificial environments in otherwise extremely hostile environments. This is what i think the future could yield, as long as those damn fundies don't screw too much with the next generation of scientists.