According to Richard Seymour, founder of design agency Seymourpowell: "The future's a secret". And if he told us anything that he has learnt from the companies he has worked with, he would have to kill us.

Speaking at Wired 2011, the veteran designer stated: "The future's here, it's just packed away in places where the majority can't see it." How many of us in the audience, for example, know Apple's plans for the next seven years?

Companies are pathologically guarding their plans, and Seymour is one of the people who gets to see what they think the future will hold.


Siri (Apple's new voice-controlled software in iOS 5) is one of the developments that he lauds but adds that if such "proxies" are going to rise, they need to be with their "owner". "I want it with me, not in the cloud. It doesn't live behind the glass, it lives with me," he says.

But, it is genome sequencing that is set to have the biggest impact on design in the coming decades, says Seymour. Pulling from his pocket a slide containing "an entire human" (pictured), he explained how this one slide has gone from costing thousands to hundreds of pounds; and could, in the next couple of years, "be available on the back of a cereal packet". Already, he said, we have DNA-based cosmeceuticals, and the subsequent scrum to buy these products is evidence of their potential.

We may also need their powers if we continue to live longer and longer. "The first person to live for a thousand years is possibly already alive", says Seymour. And, of those of us sitting at Wired 2011 aged between 20-30, there "will certainly" be some who reach 130 years old. This, he says, "will have an instantaneous and catastrophic effect on the world population".

To solve the space problem, we could take to the skies in the Aircruise airship concept -- a clipper for the clouds that Seymourpowell showed Wired.co.uk in February 2010, and which Seymour says could become a reality. "I try to maintain an altitude in what I do," he says, adding that much of the technology to create the Aircruise was available 80 years ago. As Seymour states, bringing us back down the ground with a bump, "Technology doesn't hold us back, it's our lack of imagination".

Follow the rest of Wired 2011's talks in our live coverage at the Wired 2011 hub. You will be able to watch a video of this entire talk on Wired.co.uk next week.