When is the next revolutionizing invention coming?

[Dezerte]

A HUD or AI would be cool.

[tombstoner139]

GPS+HUD+wireless internet+GUI+ motion detection = augmented reality. i can cast spells that can open my lol cat pics.
I curse your data... +5 internet points if you get the reference

[Reeve]

Ahhh guys, comon now. At least try to understand what I am talking about. Viagra isn't a fucking milestone in our lifetime, nor is a god damn Drone Aircraft. I didn't say we stopped inventing things, I am merely saying that somehow I am missing the feeling of something "huge". The internet wasn't invented during my lifetime, it was here before me (even though it became what it is today during my teenage years), and it just seems like it's time for something "huge" again.

As I said... everything new is just something old that's being refined.

So for you, inventions are only huge if the lack of them would threaten our survival? Huge doesn't refer to something that completely changes our way of life and culture, like the telegraph? You don't think unmanned aerial vehicles aren't a big deal? The internet may have been invented before you were born, but you don't think the large scale adoption of it in the world has completely changed the way we live? Hell, even Twitter has enabled entire revolutions in some countries, and that was only developed last decade. And if you don't think Viagra is a game changer when it comes to sex for people over a certain age, you're also nuts. How about mapping the Human Genome, learning about Epigenetics, etc.? How about 4G LTE data giving download speeds comparable to broadband anywhere you go? I can watch the Daily Show while sitting on a city bus if I want to now. These things are ALL a big deal. They ALL have a major impact on our culture. Simply dismissing them as variations on a theme or unimportant diminishes the accomplishments they are, and the impact they've had on all of us. This is only a small list, too.

[Wiyld]

You misunderstood what I meant about the cables, my point is that even if we could cheaply deliver high voltages to the household, the means of transporting them are far from practical. My point is that even though we would need this voltages, right now it's only really possible in the environment of research facilities. Unless it's relatively safe to use, we won't see it in a household.

Regarding the source, we'll yeah, you got my idea. It really has to be something different than we have now. Fusion was a step in the right direction, since it's a highly controlled environment and any failure leads to the dissipation of reaction, instead of volatile outburst, but it's still dirty. And the fact that it can quench if something goes wrong with the structural integrity. Yes it's not a meltdown, but still pretty destructive.

No, you are NOT understanding what I'm saying.

You do NOT need to pump super high voltage to your house simply because there is a generation plant in your back yard. You could send 110/220 that you send now. There would be no reason to pump it up to super high voltage. You aren't distributing it over distance so you don't need to the high voltage at all. It would be a usable voltage that any device now uses, only as dangerous as what you have now. In fact what you said was exactly the opposite of accurate. Delivering very high voltage is very cheap, the lower the voltage, the thinner the wire you can use. Wire diameter is a significant part of the cost of moving electrical energy. That is why we crank up the voltage of our electricity at the substation next to the power stations. It doesn't come out of the generator at that voltage, we step it up in transformers, send it to the neighborhood to be served and then step it back down to a voltage that people can use. If we wanted to save money we could just get rid of the step down and leave it at a few hundred thousand volts, or in the case of the UHV lines, a million. Of course it would be wildly dangerous, with every wire constantly arching to earth ground but hey we could do it if you wanted I'm sure.

I don't know what you want. As I explained before, ANY energy supply will be dangerous. The more energy potential it has, the more dangerous it will be. The earliest power generators were things like rivers and steam engines. Both of which are highly dangerous as they both contain massive amounts of energy. The whole concept of what we do with energy is to take it from a place where it either naturally occurs in large concentration or by unnatural processes. Rivers are incredibly energetic, the heat down inside the planet is incredibly energetic, the sun is our primary source of energy and we know what happens if THAT goes wrong.

We will NEVER find a source of energy that is safe. Its a matter of degrees and isolation. You can use wildly dangerous supplies, that have unbelievable amounts of energy available, then distribute that energy out to the masses. That isolates the potential impact any problems might have but as we've seen with Fukushima that isn't enough in cases now where the sources of our power have become so huge. Or we can break down the supplies into localized sources like I suggested and then each source is much less energetic and has less potential to cause trouble. The energy isn't distributed all over, just to the users right there at the source.

Regardless of what we end up using, it will be dangerous, it will be controversial and some people will not like it.

[LilSaihah]

Regardless of what we end up using, it will be dangerous, it will be controversial and some people will not like it.

OH OH I KNOW

We should install dams in the eyes of environmentalists and use their tears for power.

[zeropeorth]

I started to go on a long rant, but decided not to.

Simply put, OP's perspective of revolutionary is limited to their short time lived. Things that people 10 years or more older will consider revolutionary, the OP will not.

This has to do with them growing up conditioned to how things are. They never lived in a time everyone used pay phones when they were not at home. The times to record video or take pictures both required rather large and cumbersome separate pieces of equipment. They have no real life experience as an adult, without the current conveniences to see just how revolutionary our everyday stuff is, even compared to a couple decades ago.

Just like people today wouldn't think color tv was revolutionary, it sure was when it came out, just as much as the invention of tv itself. FM radio was a revolution in quality to AM/SW. DVDs are a revolution compared to VHS/8mm film, not to mention interactive menus and games on your movie discs.

If you compared safety and technology of vehicles, with all the electronics, airbags, self-parking, lane control, efficiency, power per displacement, etc. Take one of the loaded luxury vehicles back, even 30 years, and jaws would drop.

It all comes down to perspective and what you are conditioned to.



as far as the future, if we knew, we'd be working on it, getting ready to be rich off of it.

To speculate, I'd say energy. Propulsion for space, for daily transportation, for household use. Each of these can have their own paradigm shift in thought, resources, and output.

We are supposedly closer to workable fusion than ever. A clean, safe nuclear power ... sort or how helium is a safe alternative for blimps.

Huge advances on hydrogen power for our vehicles.

Big advances on alternative energy sources for our homes. Leaps in solar tech to be one. Flexible, affordable sheets of solar, able to be rolled onto all the exterior of your house, would take a ton of stress off our deteriorating, faltering power grid.


Magnetic/electric force fields to protect astronauts/spacecraft/satellites.

Once we have a new power source, I see maglev coming into a more common age. Right now, a few select places have it, like Japan and Disney.

A new way to transport power. Current lines are very parasitic.

Holographic and 3D tech will become infinitely better.

Moving away from silicon based tech to the next thing to allow leaps in our computing power.

Carbon tech (nano-tubes and beyond) becoming a part of everything we make, improving safety and reliability (resistance to earthquakes for buildings, crash safety in cars).

Advances in medical fields and techniques.



Revolutionizing inventions are happening everywhere, and will happen. It may affect you, even if you don't realize it. If it doesn't affect you personally, doesn't mean it is dismissible, for you are only 1 of many billion.



One thing for sure, my internet compared to OPs is 200x faster, and my smartphone is >70x faster at accessing the internet as their home pc is [speedtest.net app at time of writing 29 ms 36.99 Mbps 5.57 Mbps on my iPhone 5; 17 ms 91.31 Mbps 5.14 Mbps on my PC (100Mbps connection, test done while streaming Yogscast Minecraft Survival vids @ 720p )]. Sounds revolutionary to me if I were he/she ... or, from my perspective, It would feel like a burden to go back to anything close to what they have, like walking to NYC from LA instead of taking a plane.

[Goatfish]

Funny that you don't see life-changing effects of losing your smartphones but you do with losing GPS, because you use one more than the other. Protip: Not everyone is like you.

Another protip: I attend work meetings on my smartphone. I discuss planning and creation of corporate infrastructure using my smartphone. I answer calls, receive files, and deal with issues that arise regardless of where I am, with my smartphone. My life would drastically change without it.

Ironically, I live within biking distance (and do often ride my bike) to work as well as numerous farms and farmers markets. Although losing my car would be an imposition on me, it would be less of one than losing my smartphone.

What it basically comes down to is that a Smart Phone is a Swiss Army Knife of electronics, nothing more. It is an invention that is easily replaced by other objects, it is just convenient to have all the objects in one place. Instead of a smart phone I could carry my laptop when I need it, keep a gps in my car, and my phone in my pocket.

As far as losing cars not being an imposition on society, perhaps you should just think for a second about how that would affect trade as a whole. Sure, trains and planes can make up for some (but definitely not all) of the long distance travel, But imagine trying to get even just the 8-10 tons of groceries or equipment from a train stop to a supermarket or construction site without a car/truck. This is without even going into the other areas vehicles have become necessary to society such as farming, just getting to work is a infinitesimally small part of their usage. Losing smart phones just loses convenience, but will not crash the world. Losing Television would also eliminate the display market (computer monitors, phones, etc), Losing cars/trucks would completely demolish all big business, Losing the internet would have serious implications on trade, research, and information technology as a whole. If you can tell me even one thing that smart phones do that can't be done with other utensils I might give you some sort of credit, but there isn't one. It's a Swiss army knife of mobile technology and nothing more.

Revolutionary: constituting or bringing about a major or fundamental change.

A smart phone is not a fundamental thing, it is an improvement on a fundamental item. Television, Radio, the Internet, Vehicles... they were all things that didn't have replacements. They changed the very way society lived life as a whole. Like changing from a raft to a Caravel or Frigate.

[Ave07]

Here are some great ideas from a genius.

[StayTuned]

Nanoprinters.

Imagine a printer that takes piles of raw elements and builds whatever you want atom by atom.

Like the Star Trek food making devices?

[Sorrior]

Nanoprinters.

Imagine a printer that takes piles of raw elements and builds whatever you want atom by atom.

See now THIS is my style and what I want to see.