Immediately after I wrote the last post I thought, “All I really want from the future is to live to be at least 150 and be healthy, weigh what I weighed when I was 30 and never have any more wrinkles than I have right now.” And of course for all my family to be there with me to enjoy it. That’s the main thing but then I thought of some other things that might be nice…
What about those thin, flexible, paper-like displays like we saw in Firefly? Then we could have an e-book reader that looked and felt like a real book with pages you could turn but what was on the pages could change so you could have a gazillion books in one.
A small, lightweight, affordable, super battery that could power cars, our houses, everything, and last at least as long as the average watch battery. It wouldn’t have to be as small as a watch battery of course; maybe the size of a lantern battery or, to power cars and houses, I guess something the size of one car battery wouldn’t be bad at all.
Star Trek style medicine. Just lay on a bed and the computer tells what’s wrong with you; the doc waves a little hand held device over the affected part and you’re cured.
The ability to design any product (shoes, appliances, etc.) and have it created exactly as I want it and have it delivered. I guess I just described the replicator but it wouldn’t even have to be instantaneous. Just to be able to get exactly what I want, even if I have to wait a week or two, would be enough.
A really big space station, spin for artificial gravity, with comfortable hotels, restaurants, and other tourist facilities. Even if I never went there myself it would make me happy just knowing it existed.
What about you? What’s on your technology wish list?
October 23rd, 2012 - 11:24 am
The flexible paper-like displays are not far off. The reason a kindle is so bulky is to protect it’s paper-thin display.
The battery you describe won’t happen in our lifetime, or my children’s lifetime, or his children’s lifetime. If ever at all. You can see the problem with batteries when looking at a nice shiny new smartphone. The battery doesn’t last long. Mine is rooted, with all the bloatware nonsense removed, and I keep it running at a minimum level, and I MIGHT get two days out of it. The phones have advanced quite a bit, but the batteries reached the limits of their chemical makeup 15 years ago. The next step with stored energy will be cheap, small fuel cells, I *think*. I wonder if sometime in the future there will be molecular-distortion batteries – batteries that store energy by changing the shape of a molecule like a spring. (we already have molecules that change shape when heated, to see one, get a scanning-tunneling microscope and observe some off-the-shelf multiweight motor oil.)
Star trek style medicine? I don’t know about you, but when I don’t feel right, I use a computer to figure out why. Google is your friend.
You don’t need a replicator, but there do exist 3d printers. I myself have designed products and cut them out of metals in a few seconds.
I’d like to see the space station myself. More than that, I’d like to see commercial exploitation of near-earth asteroids. It’s easier to build big things in space when you move everything downhill.
October 23rd, 2012 - 3:04 pm
I dunno. When I’ve paged Dr. Google in the past, I’ve wound up convinced that I either had lupus, or my eyeball was going to fall out, or something equally awful.
What I’d like would be a rechargeable battery that actually continued to hold a charge as it aged. Or, better yet, one that was solar-rechargable and good.
And I’d like my own personal 3D printer and a powerful computer plus the software necessary to make up my own stuff. I’d probably mostly make toys with it, but still, it would be fun to have.
What I’d really like? Teleportation technology that wasn’t horrendously dangerous or expensive – it would make visiting family so much easier, it would make travel so much easier.
October 23rd, 2012 - 11:49 pm
Agh. Teleportation. I’m going to have to side with Doctor McCoy on that one. A transporter would work by scanning you, taking you apart down to your component atoms, turning you into energy, and then re-assembling you somewhere else.
But lets go back to the beginning – The whole “taking you apart down to your component atoms and turning you into energy” thing. There is no way I can say that that doesn’t equal death. Perhaps if you could make a complete copy of yourself somewhere else, and download that copy’s memories to your own. (I recommend “Kiln People” by David Brin) So in short, I don’t want a teleporter, no matter how safe, because my motorcycle is less likely to kill me.
The 3d printer would be too much temptation. I’d make everything. I’d take over the world with it. It’s bad enough having CAD software at home, and having a TLZ-510 at work.
October 24th, 2012 - 8:02 am
Yeah, no transporter for me either. A transporter to deliver stuff I order from Amazon might be okay. I’d have to think about that though. Would want to make sure the cat didn’t get into it.