Project Glass
The brave new world of augmented reality may be closer than you think. If it becomes a popular product, Google’s Project Glass may make touch-screen smart phones seem positively old-fashioned. This Huffington Post article describes this intriguing wearable technology, and the video gives you a sense of what it might feel like to spend time behind the lenses of smart glasses.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by bad news and lose hope for the future. In this fascinating and inspiring TED talk, Peter Diamandis makes a compelling case for a bright future fueled by technology, do-it-yourself ingenuity, and a global network of people working together to bring about profound change. Is he right?
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html
3D printers can create solid objects from data. In the near future, you may own one. You may buy products printed to your specifications. Or you may know someone who has an artificial body part made by a 3D printer. In this enlightening TED video, Lisa Harouni shows how this technology works and how it might work for us.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_harouni_a_primer_on_3d_printing.html
What if your smart phone or computer could do routine tasks ten times faster just by doing math differently? According to this Fast Times article, MIT researchers have developed an algorithm that could have a dramatic impact on every aspect of your digital world.
www.fastcompany.com/1810522/mits-math-breakthrough-could-transform-your-phone-tablet-pc-tv-mri-scans
asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-our-forecast-of-five-innovations-that-will-alter-the-landscape-within-five-years.html
As noted in Chapter 1’s Inventing the Future, predicting the future isn’t easy. But when the predictions are backed by one of the world’s biggest technology innovators, they’re worth considering. In this short, clever video, IBM describes and illustrates “5 in 5″— five technological breakthroughs that could reshape our lives within five years.
Here’s a quote from the first edition of Digital Planet (then called Computer Currents), written almost two decades ago:
“It seems likely that, at some time in the future, machines will be able to do most of the jobs people do today. We may face a future of jobless growth–a time when productivity increases, not because of the work people do but because of the work of machines. If productivity isn’t tied to employment, we’ll have to ask some hard questions about our political, economic, and social system…”
Back then, this prediction seemed farfetched to most people. This NPR story about the Race Against the Machine conference suggests it’s not farfetched anymore.
www.npr.org/2011/11/03/141949820/how-technology-is-eliminating-higher-skill-jobs
Wrist communicators were popular in science fiction and comic strips decades ago. Are they going to take off in the real world soon? This Fast Company article speculates about what might happen when a wrist watch connects to a smart phone. Is this the next small thing?
The drones used in Middle Eastern wars may rapidly evolve into tiny flying cameras that can watch our every move and report back to governments, corporations, or crime networks.
Within the span of a few days, Microsoft and Apple demonstrated radically different successors to their current operating systems: Apple’s Lion (OS X 10.7), coming in July, and Microsoft’s Windows 8, due in 2012. Both are departures from traditional desktop OSs, borrowing concepts popularized on phones and tablets. This Wall Street Journal article discusses the different approach these two companies are taking.