Top Tech in 2010s?
Downloading thoughts? Put down the spliff
Aside from the emerging technologies we know about, it will be fascinating to see where we end up at the end of the Oneders.
3D is bound to develop into our front rooms probably without all the paraphernalia required to observe it just now.
The Apple Tablet looks set to breach the divide between the iPhone and a laptop and could well be mainstream – or obsolete – by the time we hit 2021.
A household robot could be likely in the commercial market and who knows what domestic technology there will be to glean from the space flights that Virgin has just commissioned.
Here for my money are seven inventions which follow from trends already set in stone by the tech-doctrine of the last 60 years.
Some may see the light of day and become retailed for general release. Others will cease to be and live on only in the depths of my imagination.
Monitor-cum-brain
I’m remembering the Riddler from Batman Forever (the alright one with Jim Carrey and Val Kilmer as Batman) who could extract and download images from the mind, bringing them to life.
Recording memories, downloading your soul onto a microchip.
It’d be a great technique in crime fighting – did you rob this store? No? Let’s hit the playback button – Woops there you go, 15 years. Next.
Having images and data pumped directly into and out of the mind is probably light years away but, ach I dunno. You just wouldn’t rule anything out would you.
If you’d been told 300 years ago you could reach any other human being on the planet in 0.01 seconds via an electronic memo would you have been burned as a witch? Computer says yes.
Taking Virtual Reality to the next level
Does anyone remember Knightmare? I think they screened it on ITV after school and involved a team of school-age kids guiding their friend wearing a VR helmet, completing quests and fighting off evil dudes.
With MMORPG games you can reach, speak, collaborate and make friends or enemies in a virtual universe involving millions. Surely the next logical step is to download yourself in there.
Has anyone seen Futurama? I’m not a visionary – people way smarter than me have dreamt up this twaddle.
In saying that, we’re underway with the concept we just haven’t figured how to transport human matter into a digitally acceptable programme. I bet we get there.
If you’d been told 300 years ago you could swing a pretend baseball bat in your living quarters and hit a home run in a virtual universe that lives inside a magic box would you have been stoned as a heathen? Reverend Ian Paisley says…
Taking Augmented Reality to the next level
AR has started to make inroads. For those of you who don’t know, a smartphone is used to display local services plastered across a map of the area showing you where everything is and, in some cases, offering reviews and guides to those services, advice on the local nightlife and the history behind local landmarks.
I’m reckoning that progress going where it is, we’ll have the ability to talk to officials at the landmarks, bar staff at these night spots and restaurant managers.
We’ll say to them, “alright buddy, your restaurant has been given a crap review on my AR programme, why is that?”
He’ll say, “that was the old management we’re new, come in and have a seat we’ll give you a free glass of bubbly.”
You’ll say, “Whats the special?”
He’ll say, “The swordfish”
You’ll say, “oh good heavens no.”
And move onto the next place.
This will all be done as video chat aided by AR access apps take off. Mark my words.
If you’d been told 300 years ago that you could simulate sex with a partner in Brazil who was holding a toilet brush would they have drowned you as a cat? The man from Del Monte says yes.
The end of the cinema
It pains me to say it but if home cinema kits come down in price and become as socially necessary as a suped-up HD home set it could be that Hollywood and film companies will see the light in planting their films straight to our living rooms at a similar price as going to the cinema.
It’s taking the OD film section of your set top box to the next level and it’s a reasonable idea.
How much more likely are you to stay in of a cold evening and pay for the latest blockbuster on your home cinema kit – invite the neighbours over and have a blast?
That may well mean that sales of popcorn machines go up. I’m putting my money in home popcorn kits or maybe popcorn vending vans. In fact ice cream vans may very well come back into fashion.
If you’d been told 300 years ago you would be watching footage of a Ukranian folk band covering a song by a 20 year old pop princess (awesome) would you have been imprisoned as a madman? Churchill the dog says Oh Yes.
Pneumatic Tubes to the next level
I seem to be borrowing a lot of these from Futurama but it’s really not intentional. Remember the old mailing tubes in a workplace before email and fax used to send memos over short distances but what’s to stop people getting involved?
I’m sure the technology is in place to make this fairly safe; alls we need is an appropriately sized section of tubes running the length and breadth of the world. Doesn’t seem like an awful ask does it?
It would be the end of emissions, the end of air travel and the universe would thank us for it. It’s like putting yourself in an email and sending yourself to Australia. I would conquer my fear of flying knowing the inevitable safety of the tube.
If you’d been told 300 years ago you’d have the ability to pet a pretend dog in your house and when he gets too boisterous just to press the off switch would you have been fed to the pigs? Macho Man Randy Savage says OOOOH YEAAAH
Pausing reality
Sky bots and clever types from other network television technology department have found a way to freeze frame real time events and play them back.
Maybe (probably not) just maybe we could employ the same precedent to reality and people can start pausing their lives. How convenient would that be?
You haven’t had enough sleep, pause the clock.
You’re having mind blowing sex and need a minute to recover, pause the clock (and invite your mates round).
You’re eating in a restaurant and you have a fart, pause the clock and go round and get the air freshener.
A little less likely this one I feel.
If you’d been told 300 years ago you could virtually walk through the streets of Prague looking at all the landmarks the city has to offer from a seat next to a shiny box would you have been cast into the fiery cauldron of hell? Arnie says Affirmative.
