Science Forums 2

[Boerseun]

...and no, this is not a Leonard Cohen song.

But talking about the future, technologically speaking, what's in the pipeline?

My grandfather saw the first cars and airplanes. They were such profound innovations that now, barely a century after their invention, the world will completely and utterly grind to a halt without them.

My father saw similar innovations, amongst them colour television, microwave ovens, people landing on the moon, etc.

The only groundbreaking things to happen in my lifetime, so far, has been cellphones, and the advent of the Internet. Linking together a bunch of computers over phonelines to create this global spider's web of connections and information. But was that really so profound? I mean, both computers and telephones existed before the internet.

...and that's my whole point. The internet is 'physically' nothing new. The novelty lies in integrating existing technology in new ways, and I'm sure without the internet, plenty companies will go down and "Life as we know it" simply won't be possible.

But what lies in the future? Renewable energy sources to power cars won't be groundbreaking nor earth-shattering, because we've had autos for more than a century, and powering them is simply a technical matter. The concept of a "car" won't change. I don't see flying cars anytime soon, because instead of only using energy for propulsion, they'd need energy to keep aloft as well, making them more energy-inefficient than existing cars.

So how would "integration" revolutionize our world?

I think the "next big thing" will be biotechnological integration. Imagine, for a second, that they can perfect neuron-to-metal connections, and the brain's wiring can be mapped to the extent that its possible to implant electronic devices straight into your brain. There's enough space between your two brain hemispheres to house quite a few gigs worth of RAM, plus possibly a processor to make mental calculations a breeze. They can possibly be powered by directly tapping into your bloodstream. Taking the integration thing a little further, wireless connections like bluetooth would be perfectly possible, once the details of implanting these units are sorted out. With the result that two people can communicate without saying a word, or you can download movies to watch in your mind. You can lie in bed with your eyes closed, surfing the web at the same time. Remembering reams and reams of data will become a cinch, and technical training would take a few minutes of flash download instead of years and years at college.

With advances being made in prostethics, where physical connections between nerve endings and actual wire is being made, the technical side of this would probably be quite possible within a few years. The biggest hurdle would be mapping the brain so that the connections are made to the right nerves. But technically, this would be quite feasible within the next two to three decades, I guess.

But coming down to Earth for a while, and leaving these heady dreams for a while, what do you see as the next "big thing", and with "big", I mean something that'll revolutionize the world, and be indispensible within a very short time?

Things that did this in the last hundred or so years, which became indispensible very quickly, would be, amongst others, the following:

Automobiles,
the Radio,
Television,
Airplanes,
Electronics,
The telephone,
Cellphones,
Computers,
Handheld calculators (!)
Desktop publishing

(AND TOBASCO SAUCE!!!)

Any thoughts? Is there a specific need in the world that can only be addressed by some completely new technological marvel? Or are we bound to be integrating what we have for the next hundred or so years, without coming up with something fundamentally new?