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by Josh Baltzell.
Original Post: My mad vision of the future
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I love thinking about the possibilities of the future. I think that is why I chose a career in the computer industry. If you haven't read it a good book of ideas on what the future may be like is Ray Kurzweil's “The Age of Spiritual Machines”. In that book he give a breakdown that is nearly decade by decade about how he sees society evolving that is really worth reading whether you believe him or not.
I don't want to go overboard so I will just try to sum up a few trends I see starting now that I think will happen this century.
Government. Every year governments around the world get larger and larger to keep up with and control all aspects of life. It's hard to think that anything will change in the future. The only real change I see anytime soon is a new level of involvement by the citizens. Look at the Democratic Presidential Nomination race. Dean and several others post updated news on a blog on a regular basis to let the people know what they stand for and to create a means of feedback by the public. The whole point of electing people in power is to choose people with similar morals and belief compared to yourself so that the citizens don't have to vote on every complex issue. I think that the more information a political provides about himself the more trusting the public will be. I hope it will be harder and harder to get elected if you are a crook.
Home. Our homes are the fun place to have technological innovations. Since at least the 50's there have been ads and shows about the homes of tomorrow. Realistically I think that the cheap stuff has the highest chance of getting in to homes. So even though things like Plasma TVs the size of large paintings and multi-monitor computers have been around for some time it will still be a little while before they are commonplace.
I recently read an article about Xerox designing a ink-jet spray on display that could be the future of the wall mounted displays we see in futuristic movies. Just imagine being able to conceal that within a roll away or behind a pane of glass within a wall. No wires hanging out, the display is subtle and fits anywhere, and repair is like putting up a new poster. See how good cheap electronics can be?
Right along with built in displays will be other little pieces of technology that will blend in with your home without making it look like a pyrotechnics setup for a 1987 Hairband Concert. Subtle and cheap are key, these things will go in to the aging baby boomer's homes and not clutter things up more than our lives already are.
In the kitchen I am sure there will be a variety of innovations to food, but I don't see tiny dehydrated anything becoming popular. I think that engineering of our food supply will lead to healthier foods that taste just as good. We will get more from a single harvest (or slaughter) and it will be better for us.
Portability. It is becoming easier and easier to bring work with you wherever you go. That way you never get a break no matter what! Regardless of whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for us it is on the rise. Technology like Bluetooth networking is (and has been for some time now) promising us personal area networks to connect all our devices. That is fine and dandy, but I don't want to wear the bat belt around just to hold all my gizmos. I see single devices taking control of everything we want to do when on the go. This device might play your music, connect you to friends, let you surf the web and organize you life the way your PC does now when at home or work. I am not talking distant future here either, you can already get Pocket PC based Phones and T-Mobile Side kicks that do all of this. What I am talking about is an inexpensive, very high storage capacity, broadband wireless connected tiny computer that you use some much you will decide to name it.
That is all I have for now. I may decide to cover a few more topics like medicine, poverty and advertising later. I really have big hopes for being unable to open my eyes without seeing an ad.
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