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  1. #41
    Real holograms are going to be awesome. I can imagine chilling with my friends from America while I am actually sitting in my home in Germany... Would lead to even more basement dwellers and empty cafes, though ^^

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wiyld View Post
    We already have improved ways of distributing energy, no one wants to take on the investment.

    At this point folks in the developed world are comfortable with the concept of electrical power being delivered to their homes the way it is. Anytime you try to suggest any changes to that we freak out and imagine all the terrible things that will happen to cause us to go without power.

    For example, a while back there was a company who had designed and was making mini nuclear reactors. They were good for 50 years of power, 100% self contained so there was no leaking and no concern about people taking the fuel out. The design was all in one and self sufficient so you could literally drop one in the middle of the desert and plug in to 50 years worth of power. The design called for them to be buried underground to avoid tempering and damage. So just imagine that, all your power comes from the little reactor at the end of the street, or if your rich, the private one in your back yard. The power company now just supplies and maintains reactors, every 50 years they pull em up and refuel em. Storms would need to literally open up the ground to break em, if the power to your house is knocked out its an easy enough diagnosis and fix.

    That's just one idea, using current technology to change how we do things. It removes a massive infrastructure in exchange for localized work. It removes the massive market of energy dealing.
    The thing here is that idea was a mere improvement on what we already had. Basically having many small power plants instead of having to distribute the energy from a big one, it would of been the same for the end consumer. Yeah, way cheaper, but the same never the less. And even if you had one yourself, what use it would be?
    Dragging a superinsulated high voltage cable through your living room is not really an option.

    And I can't see future of energetics being in nuclear energy, it's just a way too unstable and just a brute design. Just the problems of transporting the generated heat are huge, not to mention low conversion efficiency in the end. And even if we were to produce that energy and convert it to something we can actually use, the use part is still unreachable. We can't safely and practically transport this voltages, and the act of producing such energy is way to dangerous. And here's the question: how do you produce so much energy without it going catastrophically bad if something fucks up.

    My speculation would be that we have 2 options that will allow future development of household electronics: either a solution to exclude energy storage from the equation, i.e. transporting energy without wiring everything up. Or a compact way to produce it. And I don't meant a reactor in a back yard, rather something that will fit in a pocket gadget. But then, what will fuel it?

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-29 at 04:48 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Chickat View Post
    okay... how about.. um fusion power there.
    As I've said, too unstable and low efficiency. It's like using a explosives to fish: bad for the environment, dangerous, detrimental to the product and nets are still more efficient.

  3. #43
    Immortal SL1200's Avatar
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    Microchips wired directly into our brains that let us use the internet with thought. When will this happen? Probably in our lifetimes.

  4. #44
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    Neuroscience is getting close to a breakthrough in mind reading technology, that's pretty cool. They can use their machines and the brain lights up when it sees something familiar, so something like a murder weapon or scene would light up differently for someone who commit the murder vs someone who was innocent. We watched a video about it in a psych class I took, but I can't remember the link.

    and of course, after mind reading comes mind control...

  5. #45
    the fact the scientists have in the last 2 years made reality out of science fiction, predicting anything at this point is shaky.

    but my best guess would be gene-therapy splicing coupled with synthetic augmentation.
    aka "we can make him stronger, we have the technology".

    case in point, we have:
    made wholly synthetic organic life.
    made a tractor beam.
    found the higgs boson.
    found out there is negative kelvin, and its hotter then anything else.
    Last edited by mordale; 2013-01-29 at 04:57 AM.

  6. #46
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    The space industry seems like a good bet.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=pIY_fmvFDhM

  7. #47
    The Normal Kasierith's Avatar
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    Probably the next one is going to be further innovations in robotics and artificial limbs extending into other areas. Neuropsychology in general is progressing rapidly

  8. #48
    I have a device, in my pocket, that can access nearly the entirety of collected knowledge of mankind. I use it to look at cats. Do you really think that isn't innovation?

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by obdigore View Post
    I have a device, in my pocket, that can access nearly the entirety of collected knowledge of mankind. I use it to look at cats. Do you really think that isn't innovation?
    That's a nice quote you got there. Also, it's how you use it.... that doesn't mean that others use it for cat pictures only. And yes, that isn't what I see as ground breaking innovation. You can do the same on your computer at home.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    That's a nice quote you got there. Also, it's how you use it.... that doesn't mean that others use it for cat pictures only. And yes, that isn't what I see as ground breaking innovation. You can do the same on your computer at home.
    Yea, and I could spend months copying a book, but a printing press seems to be quite an innovation. Or a cotton gin. I could get around on a horse, but an internal combustion engine seems to be innovation.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by obdigore View Post
    Yea, and I could spend months copying a book, but a printing press seems to be quite an innovation. Or a cotton gin. I could get around on a horse, but an internal combustion engine seems to be innovation.
    Do I really have to explain to you why you can't compare these things?

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    Do I really have to explain to you why you can't compare these things?
    You can fail at your own ideas all you want. Implying that a handheld device that can access the internet at 4G speeds isn't innovation is a foolish position to take, and I think you should feel bad for taking it.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by obdigore View Post
    You can fail at your own ideas all you want. Implying that a handheld device that can access the internet at 4G speeds isn't innovation is a foolish position to take, and I think you should feel bad for taking it.
    Do you even try to read what I write or do you just argue for the sake of argumentation? I said it isn't an innovation of the scale I am talking about. So just stop your usual blah over semantics, okay?

  14. #54
    I'm hoping it's fast food that tastes good and is actually good for you.
    The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    Do you even try to read what I write or do you just argue for the sake of argumentation? I said it isn't an innovation of the scale I am talking about. So just stop your usual blah over semantics, okay?
    Because you don't understand what went into those other innovations. How they were built upon other knowledge, other innovations, other inventions. I mean, it's cool that you think some random guy just pulled the internet, along with computers, fiber optics, and everything that goes along with them out of his ass, but that isn't what happened.

  16. #56
    Merely a Setback Reeve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    I'm talking about something that will make our life fundamentally different.

    Inventions of the same category as printing press, cars, trains, planes, lightbulbs, internet, television, GPS...


    If I think back in the last 10 years we haven't seen anything really new. Everything just got smaller and faster, some things became hybrids like phone-cameras. However, both were nothing new; phones and cameras both existed before...

    I think we've reached a point in which we cannot really invent something completely new which has never been seen before. All we can do now is to work on what we have and refine it to the point that it somehow becomes revolutionizing (Like, hardcore fast 1TB/s internet for example).

    I think the next big thing is the self driving car and the 3D printer... but again that's nothing 100% new.

    Have we already reached our limits? Your thoughts?
    I think it's very telling that people here are thinking that we've reached our limits because nothing Earth Shattering has changed our way of life in the last decade or so (though an argument could be made for app-phones). The development of the Internet is a HUGE thing that has happened more or less in our lifetimes. Just how many earth-shattering discoveries do you expect to have in a 30 year period? How about the ability to transplant arms from a dead guy to a double amputee? How about the sequencing of the Human Genome, or the ability to clone, or fecal transplants, or Viagra, or Drone aircraft? New tech is coming at us so fast these days that people don't even notice when the big things hit anymore.
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by obdigore View Post
    Because you don't understand what went into those other innovations. How they were built upon other knowledge, other innovations, other inventions. I mean, it's cool that you think some random guy just pulled the internet, along with computers, fiber optics, and everything that goes along with them out of his ass, but that isn't what happened.
    Who even cares? What matters is the end result and how it benefits society as a whole. Smartphones are nothing that revolutionized society. I know many many people who do not even own one. I actually have no idea why I even have one...

    Also, I am not your random bloke whom you can put words into his mouth... I never said that I think the internet came out of nothing, along with everything else. But whatever was used to create the "internet" doesn't even matter that much. It's the internet that made all those things actually useful.

  18. #58
    Scarab Lord DEATHETERNAL's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Syld View Post
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyOtIsnG71U
    I want that weaponized so badly.... Giant floating aircraft carriers (yeah, I’ve watched The Avengers way too much in the past month) that travel along a series of magnetic rails places throughout the world would perhaps be the greatest earthly sight I can think to behold.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tomatketchup View Post
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGSVYgcy24Q
    And here I was hoping I would never see that video again lol.

    I would have to imagine that the next super advance forward is some sort of method of direct neural interface. Not the things we have now that respond to muscles or are very limited in responding to nerves firing just by detecting that they fired without interfacing with them, I mean a full on neural interface that could be used to operate complex machinery (think a prosthetic arm capable of all the ranges of motion of a normal arm able to be controlled entirely by neural impale and no muscle reading garbage) or fully operate computers by thought alone. An advance like this would be like the microchip, it would alter absolutely every aspect of life. Work, recreation, and everything else would be changed.
    And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
    Revelation 6:8

  19. #59
    Merely a Setback breadisfunny's Avatar
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    well scientists are working on a material that could turn people invisibile.
    r.i.p. alleria. 1997-2017. blizzard ruined alleria forever. blizz assassinated alleria's character and appearance.
    i will never forgive you for this blizzard.

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by smelltheglove View Post
    if we keep finding wars to fight my money is on some major breakthroughs in prosthetics and biotech
    Agreed on this, as someone who wears a prosthetic leg, I'm seriously excited to see what kind of breakthroughs come from the war where soldiers come home missing limbs. still waiting on integration into the nervous system!

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