Once upon a time, there was just HTML. No CSS and no JavaScript. No sound or video and not even images. The typeface was Times New Roman and the links were blue and underlined.
But Tim Berners-Lee didn't call it the world wide web for nothing. Thanks to the open architecture of "The Web" we got <font>, <blink> and <marquee>. And Java applets and ActiveX controls and Flash. And browser wars. But also something called web standards.
Fast forward to present time. Nobody is yet driving their flying cars to work, but everybody is waiting for the post PC era to really kick in and wondering what will be next, after Web 2.0? Until then, we're right here, right now. We can't be future proof, but we can be future friendly.
The only thing constant is change.