Technology in ten years...

Where do you see technology in ten years, in 2015? Here are my forecasts:

1. All types of cancer are curable if caught in the early or middle stages.
2. At least one cloned human being has been born.
3. The average world life expectancy is approximately 70, and is increasing at a rate faster than one year per year.
4. $1,000 of computer hardware buys you the hardware (but not the software) equivalent of a human brain.
5. There has been at least one major terrorist attack somewhere in the world using WMDs (nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons).
6. Many computer games (and sex industries) offer full-immersion virtual reality, including visual, audio, olefactory, and tactile enhancement, making a Matrix-like environment feasible.
7. Computers are cheap, plentiful, and ubiquitous. They are in walls, clothing, automobiles, household appliances, and just about everywhere else humans are.
8. New automobiles run primarily on hydrogen fuel-cells.
9. A vaccine has been developed for HIV, but international organizations such as the Red Cross are just beginning to make headway in eradicating the virus.
10. Cures for blindness, deafness, paraplegia, and most other physical handicaps are readily available.

 

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I think in 10 years - 20 years we will have witnessed a nuclear war, probably India and Pakistan. There will have been a US face-off with China over Taiwan. China will be second only to the US in economic output, with India third.

Paper money will be almost obselete. We will talk to appliances and vending machines. Interactive TV/Internet will be in its infancy. Broadband will steadilly increase so that it will take only seconds to download movies. More and more "smart" freeways will be constructed. Chip implants will enhance intellectual activity.

Tens of millions will spend their waking hours playing MMORPG's like EverQuest and World of Warcraft. There will be almost no nead to leave your house as everything you need will be available for delivery online. Hillary Clinton will be President.

Channel 26 will continue to run "I love Lucy" episodes.

 

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I can see all those except for the hardware and human brain. I don't think most people realize how incredibly complex and sophisticated a brain (in any animal) is.


Here are mine in 10 years:


The makings of World War 3 begin to show as N. Korea acquires nuclear weapons, the U.S. invades and things escalate worldwide.

Global warming has increased exponentially, mostly because 85% of old growth forests and rainforests have been cut down.

Legislature regarding automatic auto ticketing (you go to fast, the auto sends a signal and you are automatically ticketed) is being upheld by the supreme court.

The European Union is competing with China as the #1 financial power in the world.

The owner of a large corporation or country produces something (I'm not sure what) that dazzles all of humanity, and "proves" that there is no God. He is killed, and succedeed by a second person who idolizes him signifying the begninning of the end of the world.

*the last one is a bit out there, but I'm pretty convinced the biblical end as described in Revelations will beging to manifest itself soon

 

I have to disagree with you on this ... N Korea is controlled by China and there is NO WAY the US or anyone else will attack them. The Chinese every now and then like to yank the US's chain and let Kim II go of on a lunatic binge ... but if they wanted China could swat Kim like a fly, and he know's it. He's merely useful at the moment.

The US and S Korea know this too of course, and play the game ... but it's only a game in RealPolitik. International politics is a large game of chess, and always has been.

N Korea does not figure in the equation.

 

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I would LOVE to see most cars run on hydrogen fuel cells, but I still think that your 10 year outlook is still a little bit optimistic.

Right now we do have the technology to produce those kinds of cars, but the real challenge lies in producing & distributing hydrogen fuel.

You're looking at building an entire new infrastructure just to get it into our cars.

Hopefully though, i'm wrong.

 

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cant ya just see people implanting cell phones and an info/bankcard stuck in the back of there hands. cars that almost drive themselves and small personal plains. (I've given up on ever seeing my flying car though ) elections held over the internet, and a subsaquent release of info on issues and canidates prevasly unabtanable, this will cause a backlash of govermentel cover there ass and make it tougher for us to do anything about it.

 

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I hope by 2015 technology will be gone and we'll be back to the caveman stage.

 

I find it interesting that no one here has mentioned wearable computers in depth, I think if done right they could become huge. with the advancements in wireless internet you could have e-mail cell phone and maybe a limited form of full emersion internet eventually sort of a technological versoin of the collective unconscious all people connected at all time.

 

I'd say you're being quite optimistic regarding most of these things. While the speed in which technology is advancing is quite astonishing - I doubt numbers 1,2, 6, 8, 9 & 10 happen anytime soon

 

Technology isnt the reason thay aren't going to be out sooner. They exist, admitidly they look rather ugly but they exist and they perfrom well enough (speed, safety and endurance are all good) to go on general sale.

 

I sceptical about 1, thats a huge problem. The shear number of different casuses mean its very hard to come up with a universal cure. Its like trying to come up with a cure for all bacterial diseases. The best hope is to stop it spreading from tis starting site, but the chemical reactions involved are only so subtly different from regular ones, indeed often they're they same process just faster. This makes designing traditional drugs almost imposible as they target chemical processes. I think we may have to wait for nano tech and devices able to measure and calculate.
Also dont agree with 4, that would require and huge increase in the rate at which processing power is incresing ( at the qurrent rate of increase its 2060ish i think). Given that Moores Law is about to give upon us, I dont think the next 10 years are going to be a renasance for preocessor designers, something new has to come along and I think the development time maybe greater than 10 years.
8 should happen but with 'W' getting another 4/5 years I don't see oil companies letting it happen anytime soon, but go Iceland, the one place where they are going ahead with it.

 

itll be basically the same, in the 1960' people emvisioned the world of the 2000's to be like the jetsons, its basically the same except the growth of computers.