Let's judge...

The piece is less optimistic and cornucopian than I'd expected. The first part is pretty light, but it turns a shade dark, especially for. The prediction record includes a few failures but surprisingly more hits than I expected.

men will continue to withdraw from nature Yes and no. Our environments are more artificial, but we're not living in hermetically sealed enclosures.

Electroluminescent panels .... Ceilings and walls will glow softly. It's simply vastly less expensive and more flexible to have light fixtures than to change out your entire interior room skin when you want to change your lighting scheme. Though what's becoming possible with LED lighting is fairly distinctive. Most lamps are designe around traditional bulbs though.

Windows ... no more than an archaic touch. Asimov highly underestimates the desire of people to see the outdoors. We do have glasses with extensive coatings, though most are aimed at UV and thermal radiation. Again, the low-tech approach of blinds or curtains allows for more styling at lower cost than electronically dimmable windows, though these exist (for a price). Asimov fails to forsee photovoltaic cells integrated into window designs, another technology starting to emerge today. His future is apparently energy-abundant.

Suburban houses underground Again: costs, tradition, and views make this a very rare exception, though some high-efficiency homes are built partially below grade.

Gadgetry It turns out that the easiest way to automate meal preparation ... is to centralize the gadgetry at a food-preparation facility. We have TV dinners (which existed in 1964), as well as take-out and other options for food. Though microwaves can be convenient. I wonder how Asimov would have responded to the craze for restaurant-style kitchens in private homes.

Robots They're rather less common or good than Asimov supposed. As with cooking gadgets, it turns out that it's difficult to design something that can navigate a home (including stairs and uneven surfaces), perform tasks, usefully, and not cost a bundle. Especially when competing with low-cost maid services.

No electric cords Well, that was optimistic. Though the variety of cordless power tools now available is fairly impressive. I'm afraid, though, that my home is rather infested with current-feeding snakes of various descriptions.

Fusion power plants. The power plant of the future. And it always will be. Solar power Here I'd say we're exceeding Asimov slightly: we've got large plants, though not as many as I'd like to see, and distributed solar in the form of panels on houses and other extant structures is pretty commonplace, even in less favorable locations such as Germany. models of power stations in space alas, are all I suspect we'll ever see. Perhaps several hundred years out.

The world of 50 years hence will have shrunk further. We certainly do have a great deal more transportation, though our basic modes haven't changed, nor have top travel speeds, from what was available in Asimov's day. The biggest change is the proliferation of high-speed rail systems. Slower than jet aviation of 1964, but more prevalent, at least along covered routes. Which exclude the United States. The first such line had already been in operation for a decade, however, in 1964: Japan's Tōkaidō Line.

Hovercraft: other than military applications, not used to any significant extent. Hoverspeed, operator of the English Channel hovercraft ferries, converted fully to catamaran operations in 2000. Along with land hovercraft, the energy required for lift is excessive, directional control a challenge, and the overall effort not worthwhile.

vehicles with "Robot-brains" In extensive field trials. I'd say we're actually roughly where Asimov predicted we'd be in this regard, not bad.

moving sidewalks Expensive and prone to breakdowns when used outdoors, but heavily relied on in airports and some other regions of high pedestrian traffic. Though without the benches he supposes. As with other predictions, Asimov goes for flair over practicality: it's vastly more convenient to put benches on a wheeled (or tracked) vehicle than it is to move an entire roadbed. Trolley cars are effectively providing the service he describes, and had been for nearly 100 years when he wrote his piece.

Communications Yes, we've got A/V communications, but more comms has actually moved to text for a simple reason: it's asynchronous. And easily storeable and searchable. Asimov is also spot-on for satellites, though that's a fundamental technology whose basic concept is largely unchanged from Arthur C. Clarke's first proposals. Direct-dialing weather stations in remote locations is in fact something I've enjoyed, though generally via a Web browser.

Moon colonies Nope. That gravity toll is a real bitch, Ike.

laser beams Spot on here: communications are carried increasingly by light, not radio waves, though in fibers, not beamed through space or the air. Astronomical telemetry remains radio-based.

television wall screens Also spot on. Pity he didn't call for 3D to be a brief overhyped fad, or I'd have been truly impressed.

Population Well, he only fell short by half a billion, though his US estimate is high (actual is 313 million).

increasing penetration of desert and polar areas Somewhat, though mostly people are crowding into existing cities. Though the growth of cities such as Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas counts as desert growth to me.

Underwater housing Yes. But not in the way he'd intended. Our continental shelves are still largely habitation-free, unless one has redefined New Orleans and certain boroughs of New York City as belonging to the shelf.... And other than the Costa Concordia, bathyscaphe liners are few and far between.

Processed yeast and algae Vegemite and nori flakes aside, not so much. And I really don't see the cultured burger going very far.

Not all the world's population will enjoy the gadgety world Correct. That part of the population will make the gadgets.

They will have moved backward, relatively. That's rather stunningly prescient. Calls to mind the 99%.

Nor can technology continue to match population growth Part of the Zeitgeist. The first rumblings of limits were starting to echo about in the 1960s, though the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth wasn't published until 1972.

Undoubtedly, the world of A.D. 2014 will have agreed on the [lowering the birth rate]. Sadly, not.

lifted the life expectancy in some parts of the world to age 85. Yes. Japan most notably.

birth control by rational and humane methods It exists. Birth control pills were already available by the late 1950s, though formal approval didn't arrive until 1960. And of course, the Catholic Church, GOP, and Tea Party are entirely on board. Sigh.

automation Yes and no. Great strides in manufacturing (really, we've got to come up with a better word than "hand made" to describe, well, other than hand made stuff), though there's still a great deal of manual processes. In other areas, humans are cheaper, more reliable, more adaptable to harsh or adverse conditions, and more easily instructed, than robots. Though automation and labor costs and rates are presenting challenges. Machine tenders isn't a bad description for many of us, and Asimov's comments on teaching and the place of fundamentals of tech are pretty accurate.

And his comments on boredom may also be more accurate than many hear accept. We're seeing the world from a perspective of another 50 years of technological progress and divorce from direct physical labor -- labor which while it can be wearying, is also engaging. And there are certainly a wide range of psychological issues, particularly depression, present in our 2014.