two years from now it will be possible

[Happy Iris]

She promised that two years from now it will be possible to send 3D images of yourself anywhere in the world.
(I found it in an English-learning textbook.)

Can I use "after two years" or "two years later" to replace "two years from now"? Are there any differences between the three phrases?

 

[Keith Bradford]

No.

• "Two years from now" relates to September 19th 2023. (It means in fact "In September 2025 it will be possible to send 3D images..."
• "After two years" or "two years later" relate to another date which is not September 19th 2023. That could be in the past or in the future.

 

[lingobingo]

She promised that two years from now it will be possible to send 3D images of yourself anywhere in the world.
(I found it in an English-learning textbook.)

Can I use "after two years" or "two years later" to replace "two years from now"? Are there any differences between the three phrases?

No. An expression such as “two years later”, or “two years previously”, does not relate to the present and so only works if you use would instead of will.

More importantly, if you’d given us at least the sentence before the one you’re asking about, we’d have known why the mismatch of tenses works in this example of reported speech: because both what was said “yesterday” (which only ever makes sense in direct relation to “today”!) and the report of it very soon afterwards both belong to the same “now” time frame.

Dr Miriam Jameson … held a press conference yesterday to announce a major breakthrough in hologram technology. She promised that two years from now it will be possible to send 3D images of yourself anywhere in the world. ​

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But I should point out that this is from an item in a fictional future (2042) science journal created solely for use in a 2016 English textbook (Think 2B Student's Book and Workbook Quick).