I haven’t heard of these possible inventions anywhere else (I don’t think), but at times I find myself idly wondering whether I’ll see something like the following in my lifetime:
An Ipad like device that you can stretch lengthwise or widthwise to make it either small enough to fit in your pocket or large enough to cover your desktop, with all the functionality of either a cellphone or a full blown computer.
Perhaps in connection with the first device, a virtual physical keyboard that actually rises out of the screen whenever you want it, and then "smooths"back into the screen when you don’t.
Ipad-like devices that offer updating Braille text and other tactile sensations for the blind.
Turning to the bathroom, a device to replace razors: it’s like shaving cream in that you slather it all over your face, but then it sets and the suspended nanomachines mechanically trim your whiskers closer than any razor today: once it’s finished, you peel it off and enjoy the closest shave of your life. Similar things might offer the perfect manicure or pedicure.
A device to let you see things underground in realistic detail. The media will be up in arms about goth teenagers skulking around cemetaries with the device.
On a long ago TV quiz show, Henry Morgan predicted a subminiature personal barber. It would park on your scalp, and periodically cruise your head to compare and trim each hair according to a memory of a fresh haircut.
We have self-directing lawnmowers and floor sweepers. It would be nice to have a device that could recognize and remove lawn weeds while we were doing something else.
Google has been working in tandem with another company to develop a self driving car. It’s now driven over 100,000 miles. It’s supposed to still have a driver in the driver’s seat to do most of the work, but I can see a day when the cars are more like the ones on I, Robot where we can sit and read or nap while the car takes care of the travel.
I want an electronic reverse toll road box. Like the electronic toll tags/boxes you stick up by the rear-view mirror of your windshield, that are scanned at the toll plaza and the toll is automatically deducted from your account…but backwards.
Everywhere a stoplight that was put in so that a real-estate developer could sell houses, but at the cost of adding a potential stop to the people already using the road they’d already paid for with taxes, this device would be triggered whenever I have to stop at that light, and a fee for my time would be deducted from the developer’s profits. That seems like an eminently fair way of sharing the burden created on the rest of us by his decision to impose delays on us for personal profit.
This principle could be extended further. Let’s say it uses radar to measure a box in front of my car that represents my safe following distance, automatically varying by speed and weather conditions. Whenever someone cuts into that safe distance, money is automatically deducted from his account and placed in mine. Doubled if his turn signal was not active for two seconds before he made the move.
We already have depilatories and waxes. But maybe something that gets the job done less unpleasantly.
Something that I see as very possible in the near future – a TV remote function that lets you select a character onscreen, pause the show, and open an IMDB window with information on the actor.
With the advent of cheap solar power and carbon fullerene sheets, I really want to see dirigibles make a comeback. And since the larger you make a dirigible the more efficient it is, I expect to ultimately see floating cities.
This would really annoy my wife. As it is, we’ll be watching TV or a movie and I’ll dash to the computer to check on what else that guy was in, or how old that woman actually is, or whatever. If I could do it without having to go online, watching a movie could take all day!
A national toll-road I-Pass system, so the box you bought to drive on your state’s toll roads will work anywhere you drive. I’m pretty sure they could do this tomorrow.
A device that uses the mobile phone network and is implantable in your brain. You think the kids these days text a lot, wait until they can [del]use telepathy[/del] send text messages and IMs just by thinking about it.
Probably. It’s been in the back of my mind for so long I can’t remember exactly.