I was born in the early 1960’s and remembered watching TV shows describing the “fabulous world of tomorrow!”…
I remeber my first 4 function calculator (it cost $40 (today’s dollars about $$90-125)) in 1975, and was a very special present from very understanding parents.
The “digital revolution” changed EVERYTHING…If you were born before it, you just can not imagine how different it was. My Ipod now holds a record collection that would have been 6 feet of shelf space, delicate and non mobile.
What do you think the next “wave” (ie something that changes everything) will be?
My guesses in order of probability are:
Biotech
Nanotech
a combo of Nano-biotech
Cold fusion
Brain Computer interface
Gravistatics (control of gravity/inertia)
Your guess is as good as mine… as long as you can justify how it will change “everything”, and explain why you think it is likely…
I would imagine that the transistor radio had as big a cultural impact as the iPod/MP3 player has had but YMMV. Or, for that matter, the invention of the phonograph. How different were things between “able to record and playback” and “every performance is a live performance”. Digitalisation or whatever you want to call it has changed alot of things but I’m not sure this is a great example. The fact that I can argue that so easily and instantaneously with someone across the globe might be a bigger deal.
Ok, combination of nano-bio that you mention above could possibly lead to anti-aging techs that would fundamentally alter our relationship with our physical environment and ourselves. If someone can be altered to live for a thousand years or even two hundred years perhaps social priorities and structures will be altered beyond recognition.
Be vigilent! The era of nanobiofemtosynthetic biology is upon us!
Seriously, a big tech innovation that (should) come to pass is soft electronics. Whilst electronic engineering has developed at a furious pace, it is still based on fabricating circuits on rigid boards. That’s why your pc sits in that big ugly box over there. It is possible to fabricate electronic components out of organic compounds, and deposit them onto soft materials like textiles or papers. You would then have a technological revolution where people carried tvs in their back pocket, rolled up into a ball of fabric; or everyone reads the newspaper with an interactive PC display on each page.
I don’t know if those last 2 examples are more SciFi than Sci, but the area of soft electronics in general definitely has substance to it as a ‘new wave’ of technology.
I was going to mention anti aging (antiagathics/immortality) as a field.
Imagine how that would change the investment market… the economy would switch from growth to stability… (I don’t want to “make” money, I just want to ensure an annual income. People would no longer “save for their retirement” they would really invest for their future… bionds would bedcome HUGE.
Also it would be really hard to get peopl;e to work in risky fields… (police, fire, millitary) as who wants to risk a life that can last hundreds of yrs?
What would happen to fashion when youth no longer equalled beauty?
We understand more and more about how brain works and related technologies are maturing. I guess we will have working and commercially available brainwave-reading controllers within 5-15 years. And then it’s just small step to cross it with wireless communication. And then we are in era of common technological telepathy, and then… Uh, I guess it’s technological singularity and we can’t predict what will be next.
I’m not sure if we can predict what the next wave will be.
When the first computers started appearing someone at IBM was quoted as saying that they thought the world market for computers was only a dozen or so. I don’t think that even 20 years ago anyone had any idea how big digital music would be or how ubiquitous mp3 players (or cell phones for that matter) would become.
I don’t think anyone can tell what the next big wave will be until it breaks over them. (The ones who can are the ones who get rich by investing early.) I’m sure that 20 years from now the big thing will be something we aren’t even thinking about right now.
Every wave has roots gong back years. The tech boom of the eighties was planted in the sixties, and those seeds date from the forties. And we are still seeing the developments of that tech boom (ref: Internet and iPhone).
So the question is, what’s going on now, but hasn’t made it out of the lab?
I vote for nanotechnology, especially as applied to biology. The role of DNA was discovered in the fifties. The Human Genome Project was in the nineties. I first read Drexler’s Engines of Creation in the late eighties. There have been a number of articles in Analog magazine describing the state of things like nanotechnology and protein synthesis and programmable materials. The tiny robot assemblers described by Drexler are still a long way off, but I suspect we’ll see all sorts of applications before that.
I realize there is some overlap here (it’s hard to keep up with all the buzzwords), but I think many of the following will make headlines in the science and technology sections of newspapers in the next 30 years; which ones change the world, and which ones will fade away is anyone’s guess:
3D Printers (Rapid Prototyping)
Aerogels
Airships (Zeppelins, Blimps)
Alternative Energy (Solar, Wind, Wave, Geothermal, Biomass)
Anti-Aging
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Muscles / Organs
Artificial Neural Networks
Augmented Reality
Batteries
Biodegradable Plastics
Biotechnology
Body Implants (Neural, Retinal, Cochlear)
Carbon Fiber
Carbon Nanotubes
Clean Coal
Cold Fusion
Composites
Computer Recognition Systems (Speech, Gesture, Facial)
Computer Simulations (Computational Modeling)
Dark Energy/ Dark Matter
Einstein-Rosen Bridges (Wormholes)
Electronic Ink and Paper
Energy Efficiency
Environmental Pollution Control (Smog, Oil Spills, Landfills, Heavy Metals)
Evolutionary Algorithms
Fuel Cells
Fullerenes (Buckyballs)
Game Theory
Genetic Engineering
Global Warming Research
Haptics
Holographic Displays
Holographic Storage
M Theory
Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM)
Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)
Nano-Bio Technology
Nanotechnology
Natural Disaster Forecasting (Earthquakes, Volcanic Activity, Tornados, Hurricanes)
Neural Interfaces
Neurochemistry
Nuclear Waste Storage And Disposal
Obesity Research
Genetically Modified Foods
Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED)
Paperless Office
Particle Physics
Performance-Enhancing Drugs
Picoengineering
Piezoelectronics
Powered Exoskeletons
Prosthetics
Proteomics
Quantum Computing
Quantum Mechanics
Real-Time Language Translation
Recycling
Regenerative Braking (Flywheels)
Robotics
Room Temperature Superconductors
Scramjets
Self Driving Automobiles
Space Elevator / Space Fountain
Spintronics
String Theory
Supersonic/ Hypersonic Transport
Supersymmetry
Surface-Conduction Electron-Emitter Displays (SED)
Sustainable Development
Technological Singularity Research
Teleportation
Terraforming / Extraterrestrial Habitation
Theoretical Physics
Theory of Everything
Time Travel
Tissue Engineering
Transparent Metals
Ubiquitous Computing/ Networking
Virtual Reality
Weather Forecasting/ Manipulation
Wind Assisted Transport (KiteShips)
To be fair, that guy at IBM was talking about the market for that model of computer, not the market, in perpetuity, for all computing devices. He was probably closer to right than wrong.
And it’s certainly possible to predict some such things. Heinlein predicted cell phones. He didn’t just predict that communications devices would become smaller and mobile, he actually predicted that people would be annoyed by the constant barrage of an omnipresent communications network in the 1950s.
Of course, people get a lot of things wrong, too. That’s why we’re not all driving jet cars or talking the slidewalk downtown. But you certainly can extrapolate some basic trends to predict some future tech well.
Not a chance. While we know far more about the fundamentals of neuroscience than we did twenty years ago, we have only the most basic understanding of how memory works on the level of individual neuron connections, and we can’t even begin to formulate a practical model for cognition. We have neural communications down well enough to transmit sound very imperfectly via cochlear implants, and images no more complex than a few blurry dots, and then only with a large degree of manual calibration and adaptation by the user. It will be decades before anything like a real neuro-digital interface is practical.
Nano-scale mechanisms sound impressive but there are major problems in manufacturing a true, completely artificial nanoscale mechanism that does anything practical. “Passive” nanotechnology, like carbon nanotubes or fullerines that act as directed delivery systems or cellular energy storage media are more probable.
I think the next biggest wave–and indeed, it is already occurring–are gene modification therapies, antisense therapy, and medical technology based on using modified microorganisms and viruses for targeted delivery of pharmaceuticals will be the next revolution in science that will have a mass impact upon society, particularly in the treatment of cancers, genetic disorders, and other chronic illnesses, as well as traumatic injury and age-related syndromes. Being able to turn on or off individual genes and otherwise control activity directly at the cellular level promises a much wider ability to improve the human condition.