Technology

Climate Change Prevention Efforts
Global warming had come close to crisis point. The outbreak of U-2025 ensured that CO2 emissions were cut drastically, and despite the ill effects of the virus, from the position of climate change, it may have been humanity's saving grace. However, as a result of being so close to the brink of weather-related mass extinction, humanity has finally gotten together to reduce carbon emissions and save the planet.
 * E-Readers are now commonplace, and nearly every household has at least one. Most households have an E-Reader for every person in the family. Books are considered a luxury, and the vast majority of books that are being produced today don't even come out in print.
 * Recycling has been made much more efficient. As a result, not recycling is considered weird. Many households have compost machines built into their sinks (where a garbage-disposal might go) and compost is collected once a week alongside recycling. Materials that really can't be recycled or composted are rarely produced these days; as a result, trash collection is biweekly in most communities.
 * Rather than notebooks, most people use electronic notepads that connect straight to their laptops.

ZXR 1000
When U-2025 broke, the video game industry suffered tremendously, and most companies shut down entirely. The only companies that were able to remain afloat did so because they pooled their resources, bought up the competition, and simplified. As a result, the ZXR 1000 was born.

The ZXR 1000 plays all new video games. However, it also plays all video games from previous centuries and makes bank off of selling remastered retro games and retro game controllers.

The ZXR 1000 retails for about $1100, though you might find a refurbished one for as low as $800. Controllers cost about $60 a piece. Video games retail for about what they do now. They are exclusively sold as digital copies which connect to a user's ID. The ID is cloud-based, so even if a console broke down, a user would still be able to download all of their old games on a new console.

Transportation
Fear about CO2 Emissions ensured that public transportation became the norm a long time ago. Though recent advents in technology have made it so that solar-powered motorcycles, at around $300 each, are available to people with disposible income, public transportation is by far the most common mode of travel outside walking or cycling.

Public transportation can mean a myriad of things. Automated flying vehicles were perfected about 100 years ago, and between those and self-driving cars, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone outside an engineer who actually knows how to drive a motor vehicle. More rural areas tend to have buses, and trains are the most popular mode of transportation between towns. Popular cities rely on aerial subway systems. And almost all public transportation is solar-powered by default with backup battery power if the solar power should fail.

This change in transportation technology has led to advents in city planning as well. Towns & Cities often have thinner streets, wider sidewalks, and more bike paths.