Articleabout tech predictions by IBM along with a video.
The one that really surprised me were the batteries that can run on air or devices that work without batteries using static electricity. I had no idea this technology even existed. Given our increasingly sophisticated and power-hungry mobile devices, it will be a godsend if it ever happens.
The 3D holographs look very cool and there have been some breakthrough experimentsin this area just this year at the University of Arizona.
The smart traffic systems definitely looks feasible from a technological point of view and will be enormously useful but will probably require a government push to make them work.
I doubt any of these technologies will be widely used in just five years; probably it will take more like 10-15 years. Still very cool stuff.
A few disappointments. First of all the first and last sentences of the article are as follows: “For five years now, IBM has been making a yearly Five in Five set of predictions about technology’s future. […] Make a note on your calendar to check back in five years so you can confirm the quality of their foresight.” Think about that, they basically said “do as we say, not as we do.” I was so looking forward to hearing how the first batch of predictions turned out, since this is the fifth anniversary of them. Even a sentence or two!
Secondly, the “communicating via hologram” thing was described in the article as “a variant of Star Trek’s ‘Beam me up Scotty’ as a viable way of communicating with friends and co-workers” but the pictures and video make it look a lot more like the holographic communication from Star Wars (think “I need you, Obi-Wan”) than any communication in Star Trek, and has nothing to do with “Beam me up”, which is more about transportation over long distances than communication.
Personally, I don’t see that one catching on as much. 30 or so years ago everyone was convinced that by now we’d all be using videophones, but that never caught on (it would lend a whole new aspect to dirty calls!), this is just another form of videophones.
Batteries that “run on air” have been around for years. They’re still batteries, though - not magic. Devices that use “static electricity” (more likely motional energy-harvesting) are currently in production, but they are only useful in exceptionally low-power cases, like remote light switches. Don’t plan on running your smart phone with “free” power.
The Lithium-Air battery will totally revolutionize the electric car. IBM is talking about cars that can go 500 miles between charges. Once we get batteries that store than a Kilowatt Hour per Kilogram of battery then it is a whole new ball game. Not only a car with a 500 mile range, but a inexpensive car with 200 mile range would overnight make electric cars into a acceptable way to get around.
IBM is hardly the only company working on the technology. They may have the technology working in 5 years, but it probably won’t be commonplace.
I dunno about that. My brother-in-law’s job sent him out of the country for an extended period and he uses a webcam every single day to talk to his family “face to face”. Not quite a video phone, no, but still the basic premise is used by a lot of people.
This does indeed sound cool. But if I read the article right, you still need a screen of sorts to view the video hologram – as I would expect.
Princess Leia, though, was basically projected onto thin air, and that looks like what IBM’s little cartoon depicts as well. How would such a thing work?
A lot of people yes, but the predominate means of communication is still picture-less. In other words, our phone conversations were supposed to be straight out of the Jetsons by now (have they ever used a non-video phone anywhere on that show?)