MetaFilter posts tagged with Technology and future

Bruce Sterling's 2010 State of the World

brianstorms — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:16:29 -0800

Acclaimed writer Bruce Sterling is back for his annual State of the World interview in The WELL's inkwell conference. It's a must-read. The first question comes from Cory Doctorow who asks him to help him plan for the future now that Cory has a kid, etc. Sterling's answer is hilarious, biting, and brilliant all at the same time. And that's only the beginning...

The Future Gets Closer, Again

StrikeTheViol — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:39:05 -0800

Interesting developments in med-tech: gene testing machines for doctors, a plan to engineer stem cells to kill HIV, a new way to repair damaged nerves, the next generation of retinal implants, and the first bionic fingers up for sale. (Bonus for those uninterested in medicine: the newest take on a Minority Report-style interface, courtesy of MIT.)

The Future Gets Closer, Part II

StrikeTheViol — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:14:51 -0800

Practical gene therapy treatment emerges. Prosthetics that feel. Circumventing paralysis with brain implants.

transcendental numbers rumble in the technium

kliuless — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:00:48 -0800

Extropy
How did life arise? What is information? In his recent dispatches from The Technium, Kevin Kelly would say extropy (cf. negentropy & Prigogine). [previously 1|2]

The Future Gets Closer

StrikeTheViol — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:02:31 -0800

The practical possiblility of augmented reality contact lenses. Contact lenses that reshape the eye. Bone-anchored hearing aids. Voice box transplant plans.

Yesterday's Energy of Tomorrow...and more

Miko — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:05:33 -0800

Peak Oil, 1925. In 2000, 20% of new buildings will be solar equipped. By the late 1990s, 90% of the world's energy will be nuclear-generated. These and other erroneous projections are being collected as part of the Forecast Project on the website Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America.

WSJ - Thinking About Tomorrow

sjjh — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:52:00 -0800

Predicting the Future WSJ - "We look ahead 10 years, and imagine a whole different world." Plus, review of predictions from 1998 -

Robots: Where Are They Now?

StrikeTheViol — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 23:44:53 -0800

Bots've come a long way, baby. So everybody knows about Honda's flashy ASIMO, and the sadly canceled QRIO, but now Wakamaru, Mitsubishi's entry into the field, seems to have been first among semi-autonomous humanoid robots to find a job. I wish it luck, but it might need to grow up a little. Maybe it can learn from Domo, son of Cog, robot of yore.

Touch Me Baby One More Time

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:08:49 -0800

Jeff Han, shows advances in his multitouch interfaces a year later. YT video 1. YT video 2.

Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years

MetaMonkey — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 23:24:03 -0800

Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)
Some more up-to-date predictions: science, invention, space travel, colonisation, immortality, water shortage, flooding, nanotech, techno-apocalypse, extinction, mental health, smart machines, robots, mind uploading, AI, Asia, economics, demographics, goverance, cities. What is your prediction?

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

sourwookie — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:44:46 -0800

Timeline of Trends and Events (1750 to 2100). Large image, lots of info. Via digg

The Simulacrisation of Technology into Life

0bvious — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:09:26 -0800

As the Pentagon ousts plans to turn insects into cyber war machines you'd be forgiven for asking the question: Where does the real digital end and the faked life begin? Are we simulating life synthetically? or just speeding up an entirely natural process? Technologically engineered life is here to stay. Its not far fetched to speculate that simulacra may become all there is.

The concept of the Transhuman: human, the self, consciousness and their effects on the law

0bvious — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:43:01 -0800

The first Transhuman Conference On the Law of Transhuman Persons: Whether or not you believe humans are set to evolve into gods, or AI is destined to achieve self-awareness the idea of the Transhuman is a thought provoking concept. Philosophers have debated the nature of the self, of the human for millennia. Is it time to start drafting new laws to govern all possible sentient beings on this planet? or is it all just a science of fiction? a comfortable humanist illusion?

Clothes of the Future

Hands of Manos — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 08:00:00 -0800

Flexgrid. A flexible LED display developed to be imbedded on a dress for the Milan Triennial 2005.

CATGee.com

crunchland — Mon, 01 Sep 2003 15:48:11 -0800

the world's first personal DNA storage & sampling kit ~ Save, share, and celebrate your DNA. ”Your very being, saved on a swab, for all eternity”

blueshammer — Mon, 16 Sep 2002 14:10:17 -0800

Robots vs. bunnies! Dust bunnies, that is. Roboticist Rodney Brooks, who you should know because you should have seen Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, co-founded iRobot, which is releasing its first consumer model this week: Roomba, the vacuuming robot. Even once you've seen it in action (which, of course, I haven't), it's probably not going to convince that the future has arrived or get you thinking about the moral rights of robots, but every consumer tech movement has its watershed, and maybe this will turn out to have been a Big Step for getting robots in our daily lives. The author notes that iRobot "hopes that one day Roomba will do for vacuuming what dishwashers did for dishwashing."

putzface_dickman — Fri, 23 Aug 2002 07:22:40 -0800

The emerging internet operating system. Tim O'Reilly has seen the future. "It's just not evenly distributed yet." Alpha Geeks know things we'll all be learning soon: the Internet is an operating system. And they're busy building applications for it. Bonus:the article is heavily annotated for further reading!
Yes, he's talking to Apple developers, and applauds OS X, but this is not an Apple post. If you prefer, he makes the same points and applauds Sun in a speech to their developers.

neu — Sat, 17 Aug 2002 07:17:13 -0800

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce sponsored a workshop in 2001 December and released a 405 page document recently. Several journalists then commented on the report. Recently What utopia can technology deliver? on zdnet, earlier When brains meet computer brawn on cnet and Unfogging the Future on techcentralstation. Was there any public debate following these predictions or was it too much to absorb?

Voyageman — Tue, 29 Jan 2002 06:43:47 -0800

I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so Someday, the cell phone will be the only contraption I use. (Hopefully in this century.)

endquote — Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:57:59 -0800

Anyone else remember Wired's theory of The Long Boom from 1997? I guess they were wrong.

RylandDotNet — Sat, 02 Jun 2001 03:01:27 -0800

Miracles of the Next Fifty Years -- a reprint of an article from the February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics. At times laughably naive, other times pretty accurate (the author predicts that cancer won't be cured by 2000, but it won't be far off), it's a fun piece of George-Jetson-meets-Ozzie-and-Harriet gee-whizness.

CRS — Fri, 30 Mar 2001 07:18:42 -0800

Critical review of the U.S. military. As someone with an interest in the military (my brother is a fire-controlman on the guided missile cruiser Vella Gulf), I like to see someone taking a serious look at what the future will bring on the warfare front. Maybe it'll help us avoid things like this(1) and this(1).

(1): Mogadishu, Somalia
(2): Sinking of H.M.S. Prince of Wales and Repulse

PaperCut — Tue, 06 Jun 2000 20:36:11 -0800

Human Evolution Will the next significant steps be biological, technical or both?