Prediction on future technology

Just exactly what it sounds; how do you think some of the technology around us will change and what kind of new wonderful toys would we have?

My prediction: By 2020's, we would have...

• Super slim desktop monitors, around a half inch or smaller
• Computers that don't need all those different types of cables but rather just one or two wires.
• Ubiquitous Internet and phone connection.

You guys' turn.

Card games will be played on motorcycles.

In 2060 we will have computers implanted in our heads with a constant line to the cyberspace and Augmented Reality, switchable to full Virtual Reality and stuff.

At least I like to think that. But by then, I'm probably so old that I constantly bitch about it and talk about the time where you had actually look at a physical screen and read text, which was so much better. And tell young people to get off my SynthoLawn.

edited 14th Sep '11 5:43:23 AM by Nyarly

Back in my day we had to type on a keyboard! With our hands! In fifteen feet of snow! UPHILL BOTH WAYS!!! AND WE LIKED IT!!!!!

edited 14th Sep '11 5:48:44 AM by MasterInferno

Electronic food.

That is to say.

Nutrients that are downloaded electronically.

My, admittedly rather arbitrary, predictions:

• Biological immortality will not happen any time soon. If you are reading this, you are probably gonna die.
• By 2020, telepresence will have become extremely commonplace and advanced.
• Tiny wearable computers will cease to relevant within the next ten years, perhaps less. Instead, we will have near-ubiquitous, fixed computers which relay information to hand-held terminals. Eventually, the terminals will go away altogether, and these computers will react simply to gestures and words.
• (This one is tricky) Artificial intelligence will be discovered relatively soon, perhaps by 2030, but it will not cause any sort of singularity. It will turn out that increasing a AI model's intelligence is almost as difficult a problem as creating it, and progress will slow. The first AI will, in fact, be significantly less intelligent than a true human being, but there will be some gradual progress, and eventually it will be possible to reach and surpass a unaugmented human's intelligence.
• On the other hand, research on human augmentation will progress rapidly, through a mixture of biological and technological means. The intellectual faculties of the average 2050 person will easily surpass those of most unaugmented human beings.
• On the physical side, rather than engaging in heavy modification of the natural body, most humans will prefer to own a number of artificial "bodies" and pilot them through some sort of interface (perhaps direct neural connection?).
• Addictive forms of media will be recognized as a potentially dangerous substance, and their use will be regulated.

edited 14th Sep '11 5:51:44 AM by Carciofus

@Car. onto point number 1.

Technically speaking, that could be wrong.

I doubt that immortality will ever be possible.

If someone happened to stumble in this archived forums in 18,000 years or something, you mean? Yeah, perhaps. I dunno.

And if that's the case — hello, intelligent entity from the far future! Has GNU Hurd been published yet, or is it still under development?

I meant biological immortality, as in "no getting old, ever". True immortality would be way, way harder — in effect, I think that it would require a some sort of reworking of the very nature of the universe.

edited 14th Sep '11 6:03:34 AM by Carciofus

I'd rather wonder if Episode 3 has been released there.

Fully functional prosthetic arm by 2030.

@d Roy.

What do you mean by fully functioning?

You know, ones that feel so natural that there isn't much distinction between a real arm and a prosthetic. Okay, 2030 is too early, maybe by 40's or 50's.

Also, by 2025 all desktop computer hard drives will have over one terabyte.

edited 14th Sep '11 6:23:23 AM by dRoy

How advanced are they already?

Nanotechnology by 2037 will have evolved to the point that a patient can be injected with them and have the nanobots destroy things like cancer cells. Like a beefed up white blood cell.

You know, I have no idea. Not as functional as my suggested versions are, that much I can be sure.

Nanotechnology by 2038 will kill us all.

But it will be a pretty sweet ride, up until that point.

Don't google image grey goo. You get a different kind.

x4 It's closer than you think.*

edited 14th Sep '11 6:42:39 AM by Maralinga

Laptop and desktop computers will cease production. We'll use cloud-based smartphones for most of our computing needs, with the occasional professional programmer and developer using tablets.

Phone companies will stop charging for calls and texts. Instead, they will adopt subscription-based VOIP as the standard telecommunication technology.

Television will be deprecated to an extension of the web. Instead of TV channels, we'll subscribe to some service that lets us watch a package of shows on the web via streaming video whenever we like. These will be supported by ads, and while no show will have as big an audience in any given country as they did up to the 90s, they will have a very big, global audience that watches at their leisure, thus making up the numbers.

Everybody will be assigned an ID code at birth. This will take the place of phone number, email, Skype ID, etc; thus, instead of calling someone's number, you'll enter their ID code into your phone, and then select their name from a list of contacts when you want to call.

As laser eye surgery becomes more and more reliable, effective, and cheap, contact lenses will become obsolete, and spectacles will only be given to children whose immature eyes cannot be moulded by laser.

Nuclear power will become the default source of electricity within 20 years. It will then be phased out in favour of wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal power; I predict electricity will be drawn entirely from renewable resources by 2100.

Also by 2100, meat artificially grown in a lab will be cheap and tasty enough to compete with livestock as a source of meat. Being more environmentally friendly and free from ethical problems, it will become the default source of protein in the human diet, and the only vegetarians will be people who don't like the taste of meat or have particular medical conditions.

Judging by past futurism, I predict that most predictions of the future will

• Be too optimistic *
  ^{e.g., if someone says we'll have something by 2030, it'll be more like 2080}
• Overestimate the impact on society, both negative and positive*
  ^{we don't live in utopia yet, nor are we completely brainless hedonists, despite massive tech advances since the 19th century}
• Miss major paradigm shifts*
  ^{Vannevar Bush predicted that we'd all have tiny, personal cameras... which use film}

Now apply this recursively!

That's a weird thing to look forward to!

By 2020.

Half Life 3 will be finally released.

Seriously though, I don't like thinking about future technology D: Mainly because most of them will somehow benefit trans humanists xD

Star Trek!

-I do say, what is that?-

-It's a tiny portable device that acts as a communicator-

-Oi, So it's like one of dem phones... but you carry it around on you?-

-Yes sir!-

-I do say, my dear boy, that magic surely is frightening-

Eh, it's just the first vaporware that came to my mind. That, and when I first got into Linux, fifteen years ago or so, I got very interested about Hurd and was assured that it "was going to be ready for use Real Soon"...

And yes, I agree, trying to predict the future is basically hopeless. But it can be a fun pastime, as long as one does not take it too seriously.

edited 14th Sep '11 8:48:29 AM by Carciofus

Artificial intelligence will be created long, long before it is actually recognized as such.

Purchasing things individually will become less common, while subsciption-based services will become moreso.