Technology and teh future

[bennybikerboy]

So where do you guys think we'll be in ten years?

Practical guesses, I'll be out of college, maybe I'll be settling down with a girl (hopefully not) and maybe I'll be persuing my dreams.

Technology-wise? Shit, I don't know.

I'm guessing we won't need batteries because we'll be using wireless energy.

Maybe we'll have some people on Mars.

3D TV's will be in full-swing. Maybe it'll be a dying fad.
;)

[Kyonye]

Either dead, or not dead.

[Firefly]

When the zombie apocalypse comes, there will be two sides: nerds who think they own a katana, and survivors.

[Raymac]

I'll be bangin' bimbos 2 at a time at the penthouse suite of the newest casino in Vegas. Of course the women will really be sex robots and the penthouse suite will be some Total Recall virtual reality, but hey, it's the future.

[Rbstr]

I'm guessing we won't need batteries because we'll be using wireless energy.
Oh, lol no.
Inverse square laws man. Unless you're not using some kind of radiation...and pushing that much power though magnetic induction would do all sorts of hilarious stuff. You've have to invent new physics to do it some other way...good luck.

Ten years time:
I'll have my PhD, or have failed at it by that being half over...probably.

If we're in a situation where gas prices don't come back down on us Plug in hybrid (Volt-types) will be a significant market portion though regular cars will still be up there. Having a commuter 50-75mile range car could become fairly common.
I hope we get invested in legitimate bio-fuels technology like biodiesel and cellulosic technologies (no of this retarded corn ethanol) and perhaps fueling stations will start showing up with the stuff.
With fairly stable prices not much will change from the current auto market.

The smart phone will increasingly become the center of people's digital interactions if they've got no reason to have real computing power.

OH AND SPELL CHECKING IN BROWSER SOFTWARE. So people don't type "teh" anymore. Wait....

But this is ten years we're talking about...it's not actually going to change things too terribly much. It'll be mostly mundane improvement.
Sure, things have advanced a long way since 2k...but the fundamentals were all basically there in 1999...cell phones, PDAs, the Prius, broadband internet were all in use similarly to today just less prevalent or less useful.

What truly new things do we interact with or do since 2k?
I'm sure there are some but they're slipping my mind...I'm not sure I really want to count "Social Media" because that's essentially an extension of other online community stuff that was around way back.

[Peacemaker]

Bio Batteries maybe, Rob?

Um... either that or china will invade similar to the way they invade our games.

[Lonehunter]

I think the biggest change in 10 years will be the new climate patters when the North Atlantic Current changes, well Europe will be the screwed ones lol

[Rbstr]

Bio Batteries maybe, Rob?
No reason a bio-battery would be better than something inorganic. That's if it works on electrochemistry. If it wasn't really a battery but did something else to make electricity...sure...but that's also not "wireless power" still gotta plug it in or use short-range wireless techniques (like we've got now) for charging, or put fuel in it.


Lone:
I doubt the change is going to be very pronounced over a 10 year time span. There may be some kind of bifurcation that causes drastic changes...but most earth processes have rather long residence times and don't react quickly.

[TexasRainger]

maby decompositing membranes instead of plastic bags?More and more cheap things from China.More public screens for news.Total electric bulb replacment...And ofc more jams everywhere.

[Evilmp]

China will solve their overpopulation by converting excess Chinese people into bio-batteries and flooding the world market with them - driving down prices on gas. Everyone will have a PHD in girlfriends.

[Rbstr]

PhDs don't help with girlfriends.

It's a fact.

[Crator]

Expect to see more development in the ways of the following in the short to mid term future:

-Nanotechnology: http://www.nano.gov/
-Artificial Intelligence
-Robotics

[GTGD]

If you want to kill a weekend, browse this site:

http://futuretimeline.net/

Really interesting read, and a lot of the things on there are based in some fact. Of course, it's not to be taken without a grain of salt.

[otomotopia]

YouTube - R.U.S.E. Exclusive Trailer

Arcades like this^

RTS games can really take off with the new touchscreen and 3D tech.

[Crator]

^^^ Good stuff. Now think of that but with brain implants. Playing with your hands is so primitive! :P

http://medgadget.com/archives/2011/04/brain_implant_controls_computer_through_thought_sp eech.html

[Kyonye]

I played the demo for R.U.S.E.

It took a little to get into it but not enough for me to buy the game.

[Rbstr]

A lot of people have expectations for nanotech that are well beyond rational.

There's lots of stuff in materials science and chemistry (specifically catalysis...which in some ways is materials science) that you can do with futzing around at the nano-scale. But there's only so much you can really do with orders of a handful of molecules.

For instance "nanobots" in the way we think of a general purpose robot is really not something you can do. Think about a virus...those are roughly nanoscale, they can't really do much on their own, they've got to inject their data into a cell (which would be a collection of microscale and nanoscale objects) to get stuff done.
Does that make sense? You need lots of tiny junk to get much useful done.

[Crator]

Nanorobotics (http://www-lmr.usc.edu/~lmr/publications/nanorobotics/) is an emerging technology. Will be a while before we see anything related to that.

But for instance the most current nanotech related to repairing our bodies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nanotechnology_applications#Drug_delivery

List of other nanotechlogy applications that are current as of today:
1 Medicine
1.1 Diagnostics
1.2 Drug delivery
1.3 Tissue engineering
2 Environment
2.1 Filtration
3 Energy
3.1 Reduction of energy consumption
3.2 Increasing the efficiency of energy production
3.3 Recycling of batteries
4 Information and communication
4.1 Memory Storage
4.2 Novel semiconductor devices
4.3 Novel optoelectronic devices
4.4 Displays
4.5 Quantum computers
5 Heavy Industry
5.1 Aerospace
5.2 Catalysis
5.3 Construction
5.3.1 Nanotechnology and constructions
5.3.2 Nanoparticles and steel
5.3.3 Nanoparticles in glass
5.3.4 Nanoparticles in coatings
5.3.5 Nanoparticles in fire protection and detection
5.3.6 Risks of using nanoparticles in construction
5.4 Vehicle manufacturers
6 Consumer goods
6.1 Foods
6.1.1 Nano-foods
6.2 Household
6.3 Optics
6.4 Textiles
6.5 Cosmetics
6.6 Agriculture

[Firefly]

lolwikipedialol

[Bags]

lolwikipedialol

lolthisisn't2001anymorelol

[Rbstr]

You've failed to see my point at all about nanorobotics. You link doesn't go against that point either.
It, in fact, has nothing to do with nano-sized robots, but nano-manipulation with an STM (Though...something on this scale of single atoms on a surface immediately falls apart at high temps because of thermal diffusion). They make the exact same conclusion I did, "Complex tasks are likely to require a group of nanorobots working cooperatively." with a wide definition of a nanorobot as a small device that performs a task.

As a guy involved in this stuff, "nanotechnology" just isn't some kind of awesomely powerful tool that comes from unexpected phenomenon that spontaneously happens when things get this small.
Sure, some things are novel, like quantum dots, but most nanotechnology is simply making use of nano-sized components of the same stuff we already use. Making them tiny allows us to more finely control structures and certain properties. (http://www.nano.umn.edu/northernnano/Northern_Nano_Talk_Nov06_Debe.pdf is an example of that in fuel cell technology)

Hell, lots of "nanotechnology" has been around for ages as has only really been renamed as such recently to catch on buzz (see catalysis...we've had nano particles forever, we've always known smaller particles = better, in general).

Most of the "Cool" nano stuff is figuring out how to use it at larger-than-lab scales rather than discovering new properties.

[Crator]

I think we are having a tomato/tomatoe discussion :P I'm not arguing any of your points. Reading that Nanorobtics link I put before says exactly that. And the #1 goal in all of it is to eventually get to a point that you are talking about. That's just SciFi right now. But all good SciFi usually gets implemented in some way eventually.

Would be awesome if we could have nanobots in our bodies to repair us. If you want to read a cool SciFi book about nanobots in this way check out Anarchy Online: Prophet without Honor (http://www.anarchy-online.com/anarchy/frontend/files/CONTENT/download/documents/prophet_without_honour.pdf). Neat stuff!

[Firefly]

lolthisisn't2001anymorelol
That hasn't changed a goddamn thing.

[Bags]

That hasn't changed a goddamn thing.

I could edit something completely ridiculous into a wikipedia article and find it unchanged a few days later back in the day. If I do that same edit today it's generally reverted within minutes or seconds. Suffice to say I've never found something in wikipedia to be completely false, as I always check references. I'm sure some stuff has been butchered, but never for me.

Moot point in the end though because I just look up a topic on wikipedia and use the more scholarly references referenced in the reference section. This works surprisingly well.

[Rbstr]

Almost anything on wikipedia in (real) math and science is well cited and factually correct.

Even with politically charged areas, it's pretty easy to tell what's junk because they rarely cite anything peer reviewed.

[2coolforu]

The few things I can see guiding the future

Space travel (or lack of)
Nuclear Fusion (We've nearly got it pinned down, there's plenty of Deuterium out there)
Carbon nanotubes
Magnetohydrodynamics (Ferromagnetic body armor, magnetic-liquid rigidity, magnetic rail acceleration)

Of course the vast majority of science and high-technologists are thrown into military any way, if I was to put a bet on it I'd say the human race is on its way to failure rather than success, especially in Western cultures we think we are hot shit and amazing, that every individual is special and this other bullshit. In reality bacteria kick our ass at surviving and the vast majority of the human race achieves absolutely nothing and rides of the advancements made by a select few genii.

But hey, I'm just a cynic.

[Hezzy]

Didn't we have a thread like this 6 or 7 years ago? It would be interesting to read it!

I think I'll either be a bit higher in the company I'm in now, or probably in the police!

[krnasaur]

I'm guessing we won't need batteries because we'll be using wireless energy.


Didnt tesla try that? Thats why he built the tesla coil I thought, to attempt some sort of "wireless energy"

and computers will have 1 TB of ram :D

[LordReaver]

Didnt tesla try that? Thats why he built the tesla coil I thought, to attempt some sort of "wireless energy"

and computers will have 1 TB of ram :D

You remind me of these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS-R
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-coated_disc

This is shit we have now, but are not doing anything with it, because they want to commercialize the fuck out of blu-ray first.


Here are my future predictions.

Within 25 years, rich people will have cars that fully drive themselves.
Within 10 years Smell-O Vision will be annoying you in commercials, because they are making that shit right now.
Within 15 years, Dell will be a hollow shell of their former selves ala AOL.
Within 3 years, people will realize tablets are just shitty laptops with touchscreen.
In 10 years you will wonder how you ever used your piece of shit iPhone 5
Within 15 years, we will have an electricity problem, because too many people are charging their cars.
Within 8 years there will be a full scale cyberwar between two nations.
Within 12 years, the Japanese will come up with something worse than testicle porn.
Within 13 years, the Chinese will copy the Japanese.

[Baneblade]

Isn't the world supposed to end next year? That would be different.

[LordReaver]

No, the date will get pushed back. They will have forgotten to take into account X, and the REAL end of the world will actually be on X/X/X.

[Traak]

The media in general will experience a backlash from Americans not WANTING to see the token shrieking ****** or bulldyke in EVERY SINGLE SHOW ON TV. They will be stuffed back in the closet. You are less than one percent of the population. We don't need you to be 20 percent of the people in entertainment.

Women will realize that, contrary to programming by idiotic media, men actually DON'T find it appealing when women kiss each other. It's degraded and sick. What's next? Letting dogs have sex with you because the media says it's cool? Get your head out of other people's asses, ladies.

People will realize the whole global smarming crap is not something we can control by forcing everyone to live in caves and breathe their own farts, and people will tell the enviro ******* to shove it.

A woman president.

Americans realizing the two-party duopoly is bull, and elect someone who will actually get rid of the Fed. Having the Fed in control of America's money, a private corporation, is like trusting McDonalds to look out for your children's nutritional needs. How Americans can continue to be that stupid when it is written in their constitution that the Treasury prints its own money, not borrows it from a private bank at interest, FOREVER, is beyond me.

Immersive 3D overlay glasses that will put pertinent info up on the screen, guided by GPS so you can look down the road and see an upcoming traffic jam, McDonalds, or gas station, whichever, instead of just a 2D representation on a map.

Combat armor that is vastly more effective, and one heck of a lot lighter.

Polymer bullets for CQB, so they are hyper-velocity at close quarters, and insanely destructive, but slow down drastically past the first few dozen yards and thus are minimally dangerous to civilians. Also slow down to almost nothing if they impact wall material. When your enemies don't wear body armor, hyper velocity is far more destructive than deep penetration.

New uses for LED lighting, since it has such a low power draw, like dropping millions of them in an area to force illumination, painting targets as never before.

"Mines" that are micro LED infrared emitters that lie dormant until stepped on, look like common dirt or pebbles, but leave a trail for a few seconds or minutes after being stepped on, making it easy to track movements by enemies in remote locations.

More creative uses for weaponized lasers, and smaller man-packable laser systems. May not be able to kill someone at 15 miles with one, but it sure could negatively impact his feelings of security if you could put a hot spot on his cheek from a far, safe distance. Yes, I know that lasers diverge over distance.

Welfare reform that actually doesn't PUNISH a couple by living in the same house and both collecting welfare. We don't NEED to provide MORE motivation for families to be fragmented. "Here, we will let you both collect welfare, as long as the father is absent." And they wonder why the jails are brimming.

Another news network that isn't pandering to one or the other party in the American political duopoly.

Almost all cars using direct injection. With direct injection, you don't need a starter on the car, nor a big battery. Just hit "start" and it will inject and ignite on the cylinders in the right position, and the motor jumps to life.

More exotic electronics for warfare and surveillance, so a bug-sized thing can do stuff you used to have to risk a man's life for.

[Baneblade]

Women will realize that, contrary to programming by idiotic media, men actually DON'T find it appealing when women kiss each other. It's degraded and sick.

Yeah, no, that will never happen.

[Traak]

Yeah, no, that will never happen.

LOL