1) 3D Printing.. being able to buy a basketball online and then your home computer layers materials on top of each other to produce your purchase
2) While it already exists it will be interesting to see how/if they take over... fully vertical farms
3) I think about nano technology a lot... the good: fighting illnesses and cleaning sky scrappers and the bad (taking over the world lol)
4) Being able to 'freeze' or shutdown a human with the ability to revitalize them... they could be useful for long distance space travel
5) The ability to read minds.. As neuroscientist learn more and more about how the brain works could they eventually recognize exactly what the mind is thinking
6) And my biggest wish since I was probably 5... teleportation!
WittyHandle
quote:
Originally posted by Intangible
5) The ability to read minds.. As neuroscientist learn more and more about how the brain works could they eventually recognize exactly what the mind is thinking
Most people can't handle the truth as it is now, reading minds would be the end of life as we know it.
Intangible
I also once read that in our life time we may see an invisible cloak
smuncky
everything that they have in star trek, like a food replicator.
infinity HiGH
ok here goes:
1: Space Elevators. Number 1 reason why it's so hard getting to space? Fighting off gravity to get off the planet. Over 60% of the payload that goes up doesn't come back down. Most of it is fuel and the tanks. Space elevators would easily solve this, and many other problems. Theoretically possible, but we don't have the money and materials to build something of this magnitude just yet.
2: Nanotechnology. Very broad term, and there's already quite a few examples of our journey in this direction but I'm waiting for advances such as nanobots that are injected into people's bloodstream to monitor their health, solar cells inside windows that you can barely see or nearly indestructible materials that are the wide of a string (carbon nanotubes).
3. Fusion reactors. Maybe 20 years away or so but it's estimated that first generation reactors would be able to power roughly 20-30% of a continent like Europe or North America. Later models could be even more powerful.
4. Backing up your memory. It's only a matter of time before we reverse-engineer the brain, at which point I think we'll open up pandora's box. Connecting our brains to computers, sending our consciousness over the ocean and across the galaxy to another body (aka avatar) would be something that goes beyond even science fiction.
Then there's stuff related to Quantum mechanics and entanglement. Quantum computers, etc etc etc.
The company making the most promising attempt at making flying cars a reality, Terrafugia, says it is incorporating some big improvements in its design.
At AirVenture, the big private aviation confab in Oshkosh, Wis., flying-car maker Terrafugia showed off a model of its next-generation design. This one will have improvements on the automobile, not aircraft, side of the equation. They include an energy-absorbing crush structure in the nose, a rigid safety cage to protect the occupants and touch-screen controls in the cockpit, um, driver's seat.
Just as rocket ships and robots before it, the flying car is poised to be the next childhood dream come true.
Started in 2005 by five MIT students, Terrafugia -- Latin for "escape from land" -- has been slowly designing and assembling a real, honest-to-goodness flying car.
The Federal Aviation Administration recently allowed the Transition to add an extra 110 pounds and still retain its Light Sport Aircraft classification. The Transition is scheduled to go on sale in late 2011. Already over 80 have been pre-ordered, totaling over $16 million in sales.
The company says that the flying car will help people use what they consider an underutilized resource -- small airports:
With the Transition, people could drive to the airport, fold out their wings and take off. Fill it up with standard gasoline and keep driving/ flying as long as you'd like with no worries over where to keep your unused car or plane. "The Transition isn't designed to replace anyone's car," the company's website says, "but it could replace your airplane."
The Transition will fly at 115 mph and has a range of 490 miles in the air. It gets 35 miles per gallon on the road. It has a continuously variable transmission and independent suspension. The Associated Press reports the price as $194,000, although the company's website says the price has not yet been determined.
Also Tara for teleportation there are HUGE HUGE philosophical implications for this.
Namely, are you the 'real you' after you're reassembled?? Is your soul if there is one still there?
Remember in essence you're being killed by be disassembled into a billion pieces then reassembled somewhere else.
Sly_Guy
I think that if you're gonna predict future technology, you've gotta look at future problems. Right now I'm seeing the environment as being the big issue, so I'm going green:
call me crazy...but I dont think we will ever truly develop teleportation as a technology. Its one of those things that was dreamt up in movies and television but in reality its lightyears away from ever being conceived as possible.
cammaxwell
Some comments about what's been said:
-cars fuelled by water won't happen, it's too much a of precious resource. The wars in the future will be fought over water, not oil. Plus, they already have cars fuelled by hydrogen which actually produces water as the by-product (rather than carbon dioxide). I know BMW has had them on the roads in Europe for years, there's just no infrastructure in place to provide the hydrogen.
-reading people's mind is already a very big reality. They're already been able to scan someone's brain and know if there are thinking positive or negative thoughts about what they are seeing. This will probably have a huge impact on marketing and product advertising relatively soon.
-humans won't be evolving past their physical bodies in the next 2000 years. 200,000,000 years MAYBE, but still pretty unlikely. Although I agree this is the probable future if we survive, evolution just doesn't move that quickly. It took us millions of years to just stand up, 2000 years is nothing. How much have we evolved since Jesus Christ? We haven't, and that was 2000 years. So unless we start using technology, like being able to download our memory/personality into a computer, this will take quite a long time.
Couple things that come to mind that would be cool:
Teleportation- it would be amazing to see the world without the travel time. You could go scuba diving in Bora Bora for the day and be home for dinner. Awesome. They have actually been working on this too, but not with living creatures and not how you would in vision it.
Space Travel- I think the human race needs to start exploring the rest of the universe and this is inevitable. I would just love to see the space flights they do now become more accessible to everyday people too.
Future Video Games- I would love to see more virtual reality type games, like a the "holodeck" from Star Treck. Where you are completely inside the game. Not sure why this technology died so quickly when it seemed to have such potential.
cammaxwell
They've already designed a flying car that has recently received FAA approval as well:
this is a plane though, i'm talking about a regular car that flies as i posted in previous responses using a jet. regarding water, posted previously that i meant using ocean water instead of fresh water we use for drinking..
