ADVANCED BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE COMMENT

Depends on how advanced the BCI is, but if it is an advanced enough BCI should be able to activate any area of the brain and elicit any physiological response.

If combined with genetic engineering physiologically normally unsustainable states should be possible to safely experience such as intense continuous happiness or fervent indefinite mad love.

The danger is that not only could an advanced enough BCI elicit any visual sensation, auditory sensation, touch or smell, etc, but also any emotion or thought, it is conceivable it could also suppress memories or elicit memories.

Even beyond that cause desires or wants, and even the initiation of action whilst activating the areas that give the sensation of free will. Theoretically you could get into scripted experiences where you do not have access to your full memory or even any control, yet feel fully in control despite following the script. A living movie if you will where you may act with the grace and excellence required of the character you're experiencing, bound by fate but feeling free.

Reply over at kurzweilai regards virtual reality.

In the short term, desktop and mobile VR aren't even competing products, in the medium term, the mobile paradigm will probably win out, and in the long term we'll have nanobots in our brains.

I agree nanobots are likely if no solution is found for noninvasive vr ala sword art online. Could something like sonogenetics work, scale with future tech? that'd require genetic modification, but theoretically you could put larger custom special purpose proteins combined with complementary molecules to better aid an interaction with a device outside the skull.

But in terms of nanobots, I think what's likely is negligible senescence synthetic biology cells using unevolvable molecular elements such as complex antennas, and perhaps fiber optics, molecular electronics, etc.

It's room scale or don't bother

An advanced neural interface, brain computer interface, can shut down signals to the muscles, enabling you to control a virtual body, while an automated ai agent controls your real body. Allowing you to freely explore the current real world environment in a ghost like out of body experience or it could also allow you to move about freely even with a body of the opposite sex, and even with nonhuman bodies.

Theoretically if enough computing resources are available, it could instantiate fantasies upon the real world, by overimposing virtual photorealistic changes based upon your virtual body's actions, and being able to control all agents in the scene within this fantasy scenario. Effectively allowing any thought or fantasy to take place indistinguishable from real within your mind and without need of anyone's consent, all while your physical actual body's controlled by an advanced software system.-source

Century breakthroughs comment

The 3 most important breakthroughs that can happen, AI, VR, Immortality are likely to take place this century. I'm confident the human survival curve can be squared by lifestyle, nutraceuticals and drugs. We will know what works and what doesn't in the coming decades but if the curve is squared that would mean most can reach 100-110 that's ignoring more radical breakthroughs.

For example it may be possible to analyze telomeres, dna, and genome wide gene expression on a large group and check on them in 5 to 10 years determining mortality over that period and increases, decreases, etc. Some centenarians can eat red meat like abaddon, others smoke dozens of cigarettes a day for decades others don't exercise often yet some remain independent dementia free surgery free cancer free. That's 100+years. Exercise gives about 5 years(and helps square survival too), but if we knew the expression pattern of such centenarians and used drugs, lifestyle or nutrients to replicate it we could very well obtain 20+ years over the average lifespan... that's happening in the coming decades, so I think adding 20~years over average lifespan is safe bet(which should buy plenty of time for radical breakthroughs in case they arrive somewhat later than expected).

UPDATE:

Regards immortality, our ability to analyze and modify genes, will allow us to perfect the naturally occurring phenomena of negligible senescence.   It will be applied to our bodies through organ and cellular transplants, cells and organs massively genetically modified, our immune systems will also be modified to be compatible with any novel protein produced by these new tissues.    This is the power of advanced synthetic biology, applied to the design and operation of human cells, tissues, and organs.  The creation of super cells, tissues and organs.   Muscles and bones for example could be designed to synthesize and utilize novel molecular structures such as carbon nanotubes in novel ways, greatly enhancing strength, and potentially speed.

As for AI, true AI, it will allow for full automation, and the ability to accelerate the rate of progress beyond anything that's ever been seen.  If digital physics is true, then eventually the perfection of the science of mind design, will allow for the summoning of  the 'true' individuals from any time period or location real or fictional, past, present, or future.   Effectively, it will be like teleportation or time travel of minds, such that minds distant in time or space can be brought near.   And if all is digital, this will be the exact truly the same individuals, a true version of them instantiated.   

VR, or advanced VR-AR(virtual reality - augmented reality), will occur with the advent of advanced brain computer interfaces.  This will allow for any sensation to be experienced at any time, and the perfect recall of any experience or sensation, including those which could be shared by others from their personal lives(say how a traumatic experience felt, vividly and perhaps indistinguishably from one having lived it, so as to relate more).    This will allow for collective shared mass multisensory 'hallucination', in essence the brain will become partially divorced from the physical world and will become subject to the mental world manifesting in ways indistinguishable from physical reality.   Man's art, dreams, will permeate experience, and it will be collectively shared.