What new technologies are ya lookin forward to in the future

[Dreamer]

Me, personally, I'm looking forward to genetic alteration, where hopefully you won't have to be in-vitro to use it. Not just for real lycanthropy, but for all sorts of things. But the only thing I'm worried about is that itll turn out something like Gattaca, or that the poor will be turned into a permanent underclass because of their lack of enhancements needed to funtion in that new world. But, ohter than that, I really hope it happens before I die. That is, If I die, with all those new medical technologies available. So, what new technologies are you looking forward to for the future?

PS. Hopefully we also get global warming under control, or else we risk living life in a bad Kevin Costner bomb

[RedEye]

The future? It's so contrary you wouldn't believe it. Take a look at what was predicted for the year two thousand, and what actually came to pass.

Technology is usually market driven, unless there's war, or it's some disease. Look at where the market is headed and take a guess...
I'd say that electronics are likely to get smaller and smaller while doing more and more-viv-a-vis the I-Phone. There's a benefit here: smaller uses less power, and power (energy) is going to be a biggie in the next few decades; along with food production.
As for Pick a Mutation (tm), there will more likely be human mutations to make us more efficient and less needful of what are currently dying resources. A human camel comes to mind.
Since we took over one hundred fifty years to get where we are, Carbon dioxide-wise, I'd say use Kevin Costner and all the other "on the edge" stories as a warning of things to come.

Technology isn't a magic lamp, although it sometimes seems that way. I suspect that there are going to be a lot of Ocean-Harvesting technologies developed in the near future. We will most likely lose a lot of our coastal stuff, since the Sun is on an increasing output cycle right now, and losing our Ice caps is gonna be the least of our problems.

But then, I'm gonna be the dreaded six-oh next month. Thank you for the Gasoline, the food and the energy (I'm using yours right now...)

[Kaebora]

There are some new magnetic plastics they are experimenting with that can create new "firmware" chipsets for motherboards. These will be able to load a BIOS and entire operating system insantly. Hence the name "instant-on technology". Tired of loading the system every time you turn it on? Say no more, because your desktop will be loaded before your monitor even warms up.

[Anubis]

I'm looking forward to technology that'll allow me to "jack in" into my video games like the matrix.

Holograms will be kinda cool.

Artificial Intelligence

Internet technology that'll allow you to down load the entire library of congress in a instant.

Hydrogen fuel cell technology in cars. (think 5 cents a gallon and it's friendly to the environment to!)

Space elevators (sounds far fetched but highly probable!!)

[Shadow Wulf]

I want flying cars and gene splicing!!

[lone-wolf]

I thinking holographic projectors, sooo much more fun to play games on

[*nagowteena*]

hover Cars!!!!

or cars that can fly!!!


Car Plane!!!

[JoshuaMadoc]

Well, here's one real piece of tech that i think ALL of us are all looking forward to. Back to the Future Part 2, anyone?

But the tech that I specifically want is:


The Wanzer.

The "Demon virus".

And...

A 15-foot version of the HAL-5.

[RedEye]

How about the "old" concept of an Immersion Suit (not a swim-suit)?

It's essentially a "suit" that can provide interactive physical sensations for things generated on the Computer. Wear 3-D glasses and sound cancelling earphones, and you're there-wherever "there" is-in not-so-"Virtual" reality.

I remember there was a splash about them a few years back-then nothing. How would you like to actually BE in, say-HALO 3 ? Perhaps you would like to do the "Le Mans" race-feeling every bump and shift as you turn and try to take the lead?

With that-who needs flying cars? You could fly "Superman-style" with the help of Google Earth for scenery.

Now that would be fun...although you'd have to force some Forumites out now and then to eat, etc.

[JoshuaMadoc]

How about the "old" concept of an Immersion Suit (not a swim-suit)?

It's essentially a "suit" that can provide interactive physical sensations for things generated on the Computer. Wear 3-D glasses and sound cancelling earphones, and you're there-wherever "there" is-in not-so-"Virtual" reality.

I remember there was a splash about them a few years back-then nothing. How would you like to actually BE in, say-HALO 3 ? Perhaps you would like to do the "Le Mans" race-feeling every bump and shift as you turn and try to take the lead?

I can do well as Master Chief in real environments, thanks.

[Lukas]

Artificial Intelligence

hopefully not to a crazy extent

[Dreamer]

Well, here's one real piece of tech that i think ALL of us are all looking forward to. Back to the Future Part 2, anyone?

But the tech that I specifically want is:


The Wanzer.

The "Demon virus".

And...

A 15-foot version of the HAL-5.

What are those last three things you mentioned?

[Xiroteus]

The technology I would like to own is hundreds of years away, and if it ever exists much of it would either not become public or take many more years to do so.

[Scott Gardener]

Predicting the future is so tricky; the error margin increases exponentially the further one projects. It's almost a sure thing that in 2008 we'll see cheaper flat big screen TVs, and it's more likely than not that we'll see a lot of HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray movies finally moving towards mainstream this Christmas season. But, a thousand years from now, it could be anything from global mass extinction to evolution into pure energy beings and the obsolescence of linear time.

I've had some interesting dreams over the years, imagining strange stuff that I would later learn could in fact be plausible. Here's some of them...

I once dreamed I got to ride around in a flying car. It was first referred to as a "helicopter," but it basically consisted of a two-seater vehicle housed on top of a giant fan, with safety covers in place so you could get in and out without worrying about the spinning blades, and computer-controlled center of balance. A few days later, I saw a documentary showing a "flying device" that worked on the same principle. And, a few months later, the movie Terminator 3 showed some flying machinery employing a similar principle. There are concept models of flying cars that work with this principle, but they're limited to only a minute or two of flight. However, anticipated advances in nanotechnology project lighter weight strong materials and advances in battery tech make this a very plausible premonition.

I dream frequently of buildings with very bizarre, seemingly impossible architecture. One example in particular that I recall is a building that was mostly a very large cylinder sitting upright, but held up on a very narrow stilt. It was an apartment complex with a garage underneath, but very little holding the building up. I've also dreamed of buildings that seemed suspended in mid-air by very thin support structures. Again, learning about developments in nanotechnology have shown these things to be plausible. I about fell over backwards when I saw this Discovery Channel documentary about the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid:

http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/3D87D357- ... 98715B7C0/

It's almost straight out of some of those dreams, and it's considered a plausible concept.

I dreamed I was in the 25th century, wandering around a futuristic mall and stopping to look at a "retro" tabletop "radio," designed to look like a (modern) desktop radio. It downloaded out of the air any song ever recorded; whatever you wanted to hear, it could play. I had this dream when Wi-Fi was still 802.11b, but it was hardly an Earth-shaking prophesy, as iTunes and the legal, subscription-based Napster were already in motion. It was basically a matter of pairing Wi-Fi with Napster or iTunes and throwing in a social revolution that resolves the free music but paid artist dilemma of today, and you've got it. This year, the iPhone added Wi-Fi access to iTunes, making a range-limited, price-limited version of my "radio" a reality, though the iPhone is hardly retro. (I suspect that 20 or 30 years from now, though, we may see "retro" appliances designed to look like iPhones.)

A few months ago, I dreamed I jumped ahead 200 years and flew over Dallas and Fort Worth. The two cities and the surrounding Metroplex had grown to take up half of Texas. But, advances in energy efficiency and green technology made for better climate conditions and a very beautiful city landscape, with curved and rounded buildings surrounded by forests and water features. Plausible, but it requires a sustained ecology-minded movement--and not just brief fads in which people drive hybrids and swap out light bulbs one year and then go back to Hummers and incandescents the next. The look and feel of this dream may have been influenced by watching the development of Dubai, a futuristic city landscape going up in the United Arab Emirates, as well as plans for Kuwait's future. (Contrary to popular belief, many in the Middle East are interested in building the world's tallest buildings rather than blowing them up.) Though they may not have the green technology foreseen in the dream, they've got the look of the dream down pretty good. (No paranormal claims on this one; I saw these pictures before having the dream.)

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/c ... dise2.html
http://www.designbuild-network.com/feat ... image1355/
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/278077 ... 6599Rftmzi
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/228984 ... 6599YShDAY
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/280835 ... 6599cLnUXG

I've harped and ranted and posted, and blathered on and on about transhumanism, so I'll save you the details on that topic. Suffice it to say, I see life today as a race between our aging and the development of technology that can transcribe consciousness. I'm really hoping the neccessary breakthroughs happen in my lifetime, as I'd hate to die of old age only a few years before the technology exists to live forever. If I could survive and outlive this human lifetime, there's some pretty ambitious ideas I have of what I'd like to do in the coming millennia. I am very encouraged when I see people like the guy who first hacked and unlocked the iPhone, talking about becoming a neurology scientist, planning on doing the same thing with the human brain. I am equally depressed when I hold conversations with everyday people about this kind of technology and their response is either how God wouldn't approve or how the whole idea is just too far-fetched. Some people question the ethics of doing away with death and suffering; I question the ethics of allowing it to exist any longer than can possibly be avoided.

As said before, I fear that werewolves aren't exactly a top priority of biomedical research, and the "moral" hurtles of genetic engineering will likely stall out a lot of important steps between today and the first real-world physical shifters. But, I do hope that advances in artificial intelligence as well as advances in our own intelligence will make it possible some day. Along the way, we'd develop a cure for about everything--except, oddly enough, lycanthropy.

In the more immediate future, here's some things to which to look forward:

1. Cleaner cars: Necessity has forced the issue of fuel economy and emissions. Clean diesel and hybrid-electric cars are already on the market today, and they're becoming increasingly mainstream. From the $100,000 dream cars like the Lexus LX600h-L (a hybrid luxury sedan) or the Tesla Roadster (an all-electric sports car that rivals Ferraris but mathematically is twice as clean in terms of CO2 emissions as a Prius) to ultimate economy cars like the Smart fortwo, driving greener is gaining ground. Hybrids are showing us that one can actually boost power and performance while improving efficiency at the same time. All-electric is not yet feasible for the mainstream, but it's moving forward amazingly quickly. In the next ten years, expect to see diesel hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and even some all-electric niche cars. Expect to see all the cool gadgetry that goes with it--silent movement at low speeds, touch screen displays that can either show the hybrid power plant at work or give elegant interfaces for other controls such as air conditioning.

2. More car tech in general: Luxury cars of today are mainstream cars of tomorrow, and what's in a Lexus today is a good predictor of what a regular Toyota will offer five or ten years down the road. Hard drives with GPS navigation and extra storage for mp3s, bluetooth hands-free mobile phone connectivity, and push-button start (with a wireless key that stays in your pocket or purse) are showing up already. Some luxury cars and even the Nissan Altima can download traffic information to the GPS navigation system and advise you of traffic jams and ways around them. Over the next ten years, expect to see broadband wireless connectivity, probably at first using the same standards as mobile phones but later some of the newer standards that don't exist yet. This will allow cars to function as wireless communications nodes to advise you of traffic conditions, continuously update your GPS navigation map databases, provide streaming Internet radio, VOIP telephone, and so forth. Expect your car to help you drive or advise you when you're not up to the task; "lane departure warnings" and parking assist technology already exists, and backup cameras are already showing up on mainstream vehicles like the Toyota Highlander. As GPS tech and networking improves, we may in 20 years or so see sections of road in which cars are allowed to drive themselves. In 50 years time, it may be safer to let the cars do the driving for us, with auto accidents becoming as rare and news-breaking as plane crashes are today.

3. The Internet isn't going away: Mobile phones, iPods, digital cameras, PDAs, and camcorders as stand alone devices may be a thing of the present. As one iPhone commercial likes pointing out, there is a growing convergence, and all-in-one tech is likely to put a hand-held computer that does all of the above in all our pockets in ten years' time. Telephone service is in the long run an endangered species, as there's a lot of disruptive technologies just waiting to render it obsolete. So far, no one has yet offered free VOIP; they've offered free Skype-to-Skype or This Instant Messenger-to-This Instant Messenger, plus cheap calls to the outside world. But, all it will take is someone to develop an open standard VOIP or VOIP equivalent. Then, include it with hand-held devices with broadband wireless, and cell phones are obsolete. Land lines are already endangered. Google is already threatening to be at work on something along these lines. I suspect that by 2015 or 2020, most of us won't have a phone service so much as a log-in account to a "phone" account, accessible through web browsers on both mobile and notebook computers. (Or even desktops, game consoles, or whatever replaces them.) Expect the phrase "web 3.0" or something like it to describe transitions to tech services like this, which will make the "web 2.0" of today look like little more than a buzz word to describe MySpace and YouTube. Web 3.0 will also include the above-mentioned cars that network, as well as other gadgets that we'll wonder how we got along without.

4. Don't expect high tech to replace old fashioned methods that are simple, easy, and efficient, or that bring emotional comfort: I think eBook readers will bomb. My convertible tablet PC can do the same thing, and tablet PCs are gaining ground. It's likely that a lot of laptops will swivel around and fold down into handy little digital pads by 2015. Electronic word processors didn't replace typewriters, because by the time they were readily available, the desktop computer was already replacing typewriters. But, there's another reason why eBook readers are doomed. People like reading actual books. Sure, if you're looking up a word in the dictionary, you can't beat typing in a Google search applet sitting on your desktop rather than the old "lycanthrope: see werewolf; werewolf: see lycanthrope." But, if you're reading to enjoy a story, it's quite possible that you'd rather have an actual book in your hands. Reference books, textbooks, and phone directories may be rendered obsolete by 2020, saving a lot of trees, but don't expect the demise of paperbacks, deluxe hard-back first editions, or the paper edition of the New York Times any time soon. Likewise, if a technology is overly complicated, don't expect it to catch on. I've read about ideas for Internet-connected refrigerators that keep an inventory of their contents; you scan the UPC code of the food product as it goes in, and it lets you know when you're running low. Would you use this? Is there anyone you know who would? Don't expect it to be around in 2020.

5. Tech that does things more efficiently in a way that's unobtrusive will be almost inevitable: As I type this, my desk lamp has an LED light bulb. I actually removed a compact fluorescent to put the LED light in. That compact fluorescent in turn will soon replace an incandescent somewhere else. Right now, LED bulbs run about $35 and are only available online. But, I'm getting about the equivalent of 40 Watts of light using a 1.5 Watt bulb, and the bulb itself will likely be around in 2020 or even 2050. Expect LEDs to go down in price and to start showing up in places where people can find them. In the short term, 10-15 years, expect compact fluorescents to become the mainstream, and expect the familiar incandescent bulb to be to your kids what the typewriter is to you. "I remember..." For old nostalgia's sake, expect a "retro" bulb that looks like an incandescent but contains a tiny but really bright clump of fluorescent coils or LED pimply things to appeal to us old codgers, or for the luxury market in order to create a certain quaint look.

[JoshuaMadoc]

What are those last three things you mentioned?

- The Wanzer is a fictional term of mecha in the Front Mission game series, made common somewhere in the 2080s. However, unlike most other mecha, such as Gundams, Dreadnoughts, and those freaky MechWarriors, Wanzers are actually one of the few mecha that's trying to combine plausibility and aesthetics at the same time. On average, a medium-sized wanzer is about as big as 3 cars, as seen in this video.

Here's a few more videos of Wanzers in action..... Note that these things are invented in the late 21st century. That's about 50-90 years of research. Judging by the rate technology is progressing right now (We've recently built a nanoscope the size of a bloody huge corporate building. That's saying something.), That should be enough research time. I just hope Japan wins first place in the race, though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5mVVmra296I
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJOLQYnVes
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3M2f-TmHX8c


- The Demon Virus is... Uh... something like this.


- The HAL-5 is the picture i just posted.

[Kzinistzerg]

Well, except for the fact that bipedal or legged vehicles are a dead-end technology...

And it's Battletech, not Mechwarrior.

[Aki]

I imagine most technologies will be moving towards solar, hydrogen, etc. energies soon. Oil's on the way out and more and more people know it. After all, why waste money on gas at the pump when you can take it from the sun? Hell, might help take some of the burn off that thing if we start using it's energy.

I imagine nanotech will likely help us come up with and implement more lightweight, stronger and even self-healing materials. Such stuff is being developed for the future "space planes" that will be replacing the aging shuttle. Make them less vulnerable in an incredibly hostile atmosphere. Similarly, they seem to be designing a planetoid-friendly spacesuit, as our current ones are designed for space itself and won't fare well on, say, the moon's surface. Bulky.

They're likely to eventually be, as Scott mentioned, some sort of transhumanistic type stuff going on eventually. It's only natural. With that, medical tech will likely advance too.

Internet and all kinds of communications gadgets will likely become more intertwined.

AI will likely be developed eventually. I'm doubtful it'll ever reach human levels (we have a hard enough time understanding each other - let alone making a machine that'll act like us) but it'll probably be smart enough to react to commands and such.

The immersions stuff has some merit - recently someone made a vest that simulates the impacts of bullets and such in video games. Enough so that when shot in the back, many testers have turned around as if they expected an enemy to be there, heh. Only works for a small number of games currently, but they're working to expand that. People like that sort of stuff. Not enough that they're willing to dish out lots of money, so it won't likely catch on until the prices drop some.

PostPosted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 1:15 am Post subject:
The future? It's so contrary you wouldn't believe it. Take a look at what was predicted for the year two thousand, and what actually came to pass.

Some said that PC's would never take off, that no one would want them in their homes, heh. Or that the lightbulb was a quaint, but useless invention, or that the "horseless carriage" was a novelty and would never see wide spread use.

Will it's true some technologies are never reached, it also true that some take off when experts think they won't. Always in motion, the future is.

[vrikasatma]

Therapeutic cloning, and its cousin, stem cell therapy.

Yes.

Otherwise, nothing specific, refinements on flex fuel, solar and hydrocell power. Imagine a truck with a 10,000-pound tow cap and gets 2000 miles to the gallon! One can dream...

[Ink]

Full bionic knee replacement... After being laid up from knee surgery, my posterior is growing into this lounge chair. I dislike it.

I need me a bionic knee!

[MattSullivan]

I want low-tech. An army of trained Meerkats. ( Ive been watching too much MEERKAT MANOR )

[Scott Gardener]

I'm fearful that much of what I'm wanting to see won't happen until after I die of old age. I think that transhumanism is an inevitable eventuality unless humanity wipes itself out first--in which case, the biosphere of Earth may have one or two more shots at evolving to the threshold we're fast approaching, before the sun's stellar metabolism makes Earth too hot to host life. It's just that socially conservative movements could insert decade-long delays of critical developments neccessary to pull it off, and generational wide-spanning ideas of morality can create delays spanning twenty or thirty years. Thankfully, not all nations are subject to the same notions of morality. If the U.S. continues to backslide, there's always the forward-thinking Scandinavian countries socially, or the high-tech far East, like Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, to push the technologies through. Heck, there's always the idea of a covert underground movement.

The fools! They said I was mad! Cry havoc! Let slip the Meerkats of War!

[Dreamer]

I'm fearful that much of what I'm wanting to see won't happen until after I die of old age. I think that transhumanism is an inevitable eventuality unless humanity wipes itself out first--in which case, the biosphere of Earth may have one or two more shots at evolving to the threshold we're fast approaching, before the sun's stellar metabolism makes Earth too hot to host life. It's just that socially conservative movements could insert decade-long delays of critical developments neccessary to pull it off, and generational wide-spanning ideas of morality can create delays spanning twenty or thirty years. Thankfully, not all nations are subject to the same notions of morality. If the U.S. continues to backslide, there's always the forward-thinking Scandinavian countries socially, or the high-tech far East, like Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, to push the technologies through. Heck, there's always the idea of a covert underground movement.

The fools! They said I was mad! Cry havoc! Let slip the Meerkats of War!

Wondering though, do you know if there might be any possible ways to change all the genes in a persons body instead of just select ones like in gene therapy? Also, what are your thoughts on the issue of only the rich and the middle class being able to afford this, leaving the poor unable to compete and buy the better abillities that are needed to get by, thus becomign a permanent subclass and the other issue of things turning out like in GATTACA?

[John Wolf]

2070, lycan footsoldiers with human level lntelligeance and very similar to Itimber Wolf's Icon, are used as Special Forces Soldiers.