"...unbelievable technology...."

[Occulus]

Let's "geek out" for a moment. Have you ever stopped to wonder at how astonishingly far our technology has come in the past century and a half?

Take a look of some notable moments/discoveries of 1860 and thereabouts, this via Wikipedia:

* The First Transcontinental Railroad in the USA was completed.
* The Suez Canal in Egypt is opened in 1869.
* The submarine is invented in 1869.
* Alfred Nobel creates dynamite in Germany
* James Clerk Maxwell publishes his equations that quantify the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and shows that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation
* Gregor Mendel formulates Mendel's laws of inheritance, the basis for genetics
* Dimitri Mendeleev develops the modern periodic table
* Helium was first detected during the total solar eclipse of August 18, 1868 in parts of India. It was the first eclipse expedition in which a spectroscope was used.
* J. Norman Lockyer and Pierre Janssen are honored for their discovery of the nature of the Sun's prominences. They were the first to notice bright spectral emission lines when viewing the limb of the Sun without the aid of a total solar eclipse.

And since, into modern times (in no particular order)? Radio. The vacuum tube. The transistor. SONAR. RADAR. Stealth technology. Television. Integrated circuits. Space travel. Computers (oh, ye gods and devils above and below, computers!). Quantum mechanics. Particle physics. Detection of extrasolar planets. Potential locations for extraterrestrial life, right here, orbiting our very own Sol.

Just think for a moment. Really think. The technology we take for granted today would scare many of our grandparents, and would be considered magic by theirs. And it's all hurtling forward at breakneck speed, without an end in sight- unless we destroy ourselves with it....

Future technology we can reasonably expect in the next 150 years or less:

Quantum computing (currently being researched)
Quantum teleportation (currently being researched)
Gravity manipulation
True holography (currently laying foundations for future research)
Fusion power generation (currently being researched)
Biomechanical enhancement (currently in basic application)
Applied nanotechnology (foundational research currently commercially applied)
The mind/machine interface (Emotiv Headset is one of the first products)
FTL travel? (heavy interest; no credible research- yet)

So, with all of that, what sorts of technologies do YOU predict will be in daily use a century and a half from now? Go ahead. Speculate. Speculation is, after all, the first step toward the "how?"

For those who are curious, the title of the OP is taken from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, during the scene in which Spock is describing to Kirk and Scotty the things he saw while on his solo excursion into the "mind" of V'Ger.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. The great convergence between machine and man will be complete

happy scenario we are capable of working with them.

Not so happy... we are gone.

GenShips will be normal, FTL will near the point of real use.

colonization of the solar system

On the not so good... gender manipulation and boutique babies.

Life expectancy over 150 years, why I cannot fathom but.

Atmospheric control, greening of Mars, and repair of our atmosphere.

Not in the next 100 years, but in the future. worm holes (FTL)

[Occulus]

3. I'm not so certain "boutique babies" are a bad thing in the (very) long term

I don't much care for the phrase "boutique babies", though.

For one thing, such a practice would end with the human species "breeding out" genetic malfunctions/errors, and applied nanotechnology could well fix those errors before they become a problem, either in utero or postbirth. A genetically perfect species (no replication errors, malfunctions, or diseases on the genetic level) could well be a very good thing for the species as a whole.

I do have to say that your point about the convergence between man and machine is a very real problem. It isn't a threat yet, and might not be for over a century hence, but I don't think we'll be prepared for it, ethically, socially, or philosophically. If we aren't careful, we could BE the Borg.... but that's a long way off.

Living past 150 years is totally reasonable, given that we can a: prevent organ failure and b) artificially repair cellular damage and augment the immune system. That alone would necessitate extraplanetary colonization, which would as a matter of course lead to terraforming/colonization techniques. It may well be that advances in aging prevention/aging therapy will actually necessitate space colonization all by themselves.

This is why I love "hard" science fiction. It's all plausible, and we're now far enough along to see how it's plausible.

[txlibdem]

13. repair aging related cellular damage -- already done

Each time a cell divides it loses one telomere. When a cell runs out of telomeres, the cell dies. Here's the good news: we've just found out how to add lost telomeres back to your cells (and turn adult skin cells into stem cells).

Human embryonic stem (hES) cells have the potential to generate all human cell types. Because they are isolated at the earliest stages of the development of human life, the clock of cellular aging located in the telomeric region of DNA is set at a youthful state through the activity of the enzyme telomerase. iPS cells are an alternative technology that begins with adult body cells, such as skin cells, that are modified such that they have the powerful properties of hES cells to become any cell type in the body. iPS cells have the advantages that they can be produced from a patient’s own cells in order to prevent transplant rejection. In addition, since iPS cells never involve the use of embryos, they obviate the ethical concerns voiced by some people in regard to the use of hES cells.

On March 16, 2010 BioTime and its collaborators announced the publication of a scientific paper titled "Spontaneous Reversal of Developmental Aging in Normal Human Cells Following Transcriptional Reprogramming." The article, which was released online in the peer-reviewed journal Regenerative Medicine demonstrated that the aging of human cells can be reversed with potentially significant implications for the development of new classes of iPS cell-based therapies targeting age-related degenerative disease. The on-line version of the article can be found at http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/rme.10.21.

In the article, BioTime and its collaborators demonstrated the successful reversal of the developmental aging of normal human cells. Using precise genetic modifications, normal human cells were induced to reverse both the “clock” of differentiation (the process by which an embryonic stem cell becomes the many specialized differentiated cell types of the body), and the “clock” of cellular aging (telomere length). As a result, the iPS cells became young pluripotent stem cells with the potential of generating young body cell types that may be transplanted into a patient to replace the patient’s damaged or diseased tissues. ReCyte Therapeutics already has licenses for iPS technology, as well as its own proprietary ReCyte™ iPS technology, that it plans to use in this new field of research.

ReCyte Therapeutics plans to develop a manufacturing process for the large scale reprogramming of human skin cells by resetting telomere length and simultaneously resetting the cell’s stage of development to the embryonic state. The object of this aspect of the research and development will be to build a cost-effective manufacturing platform that will be the basis of a cell banking service planned for launch in 2011.

ReCyte Therapeutics will also develop primitive ReCyte™ cell-derived angioblasts and blood stem cells, which are cells believed to be capable of reconstituting and repairing age-related changes in the vascular and blood systems respectively. The young vascular-forming cells (angioblasts) will be tested in preclinical mouse models of accelerated aging to score their safety and efficacy in restoring blood flow in models of ischemia.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110103005392/en/BioTime-Subsidiary-ReCyte-Therapeutics-Develop-Therapies-Age-Related

Looks like the first baby steps toward that 150 year lifespan to me.

[Orsino]

19. Not if the oil runs out before we're ready with some other energy source.

I suspect that our future is more Postman than Star Trek. Johnny Mnemonic may be a best-case scenario.

[qazplm]

26. I firmly believe the oil companies

don't want that anymore than us. I trust in greed, and necessity. Those two things will lead into energy breakthroughs. The rich want to stay comfortable. We can bank on that. Sure, there will be some issues because they won't time the changeover right so we might have a decade of issues, but eventually we will find that when you pour billions of dollars into research surprisingly breakthroughs happen.

[gateley]

2. That's a good point about today's technology scaring our grandparents. Even in

my lifetime, color tv, I was wowed by the push-button phone, hell, a phone you could unplug from the wall, answering machines, DVRs (I remember telling my niece about a guy I worked with who would go to bed and set his alarm to get up and watch the first season of SNL -- we had no DVRs). And since then things have progressed exponentially it seems. I also remember watching Star Trek and Picard had that flat screen on his desk which seemed to have the answer to everything he wanted to know. I though -- that's impossible, there could never be a database huge enough to have everything! And now we can find out the answer to anything in about 3 seconds.

I can't even imagine what's in store for us.

[Occulus]

7. This, for one thing:

Windows 7, yeah. Should work equally well on a Mac.

The Samsung AMOLED display (I think that was taken at CES 2010). 40% transparent, but you just know they're working on 100% transparency, or as close to that as they can get.

Remember that device on Shatner's TekWar series? The little pocket communicator that popped open and stiffened out into a handheld 720x480 display with realtime video communication, internet capability, and real computing power?

Coming. Five years tops, now that we have AMOLEDs. Bank on that one.

[Orrex]

4. Fully functional pornobots

Immediately after which human advancement in general will falter for a few centuries.

[Occulus]

5. "To this Roland did not reply,

but the robot huckster, perhaps startled out of its long sleep by the sound of their voices, did.

"Girls, girls, girls!" it cried from inside the batwing doors of the Gaiety Bar and Grill. "Some are humie and some are cybie, but who cares, you can't tell, who cares, they give, you tell, girls tell, you tell . . ." There was a pause and then the robot huckster shouted one final word- "SATISFACTION!"- and fell silent."

-Stephen King, The Dark Tower, Book VII: The Dark Tower

:D

[Kablooie]

6. It is astounding. Let's hope people playing with finance and tea don't bring it all crashing down.

[Occulus]

8. If that ends up not being the case, what tech do you see coming to market

in the coming decades?

For that matter, what tech would you like to see in consumers' hands?

[Kablooie]

9. Brain controlled machines. Armchair auto exercisers. Flying cars (of course. )

Most of the ideas we can conceive of have already been explored in science fiction stories. Often decades ago.
Machines that build food and objects with molecular construction methods.
Brain pills that increase intelligence. (Needed desperately in the Tea quarters of society.)

But the internet was never predicted.
Robots were predicted but always as humanoid creatures.
I remember Asimov wrote a story in iRobot that described a robot that was a functional machine and not humanoid.
It was presented as a radical new idea at the time.

We are going to have a lot of tough moral questions to deal with once the genetic modeling thing becomes an marketable commodity.

Artificially grown meat is already being developed. Yum. Meat grown on a trellis. What could be more pleasant?

Brand new artificially designed fruits and other foods will probably be a trend sometime in the century.
Might be something you could cook up in your own kitchen.

What would really shake up society would be something that would be a technology that could remotely pinpoint a particular person's brain or genetic patterns. You could find anyone and there would be no where to hide. With remote war technology it would change everything. If a government or police department wanted someone a gps type thing would show exactly where they are in the world in real time.

Along with this would be technologies to accurately read people's minds. In trials it would be used to definitively pull the truth out of witnesses. People would have access to each other's most secret thoughts.
It might become possible someday and once again there will be strong economic forces demanding it become commoditized.

And then - whoops! - there it goes!

We may have a lot of moral and societal conundrums to deal with in the next 100 years.

[Ghost Dog]

11. As regards remote war and police technology there will soon be drones at all scales

from insect-like, through bird-size, man-size, armoured-vehicle and aircraft-size, all the way from in the room with you up to the stratospheric and earth-orbiting levels.

Since full-spectrum dominance is what the coup d'etat is all about.

[Occulus]

12. But those items will be captured

That's a given. Insect-size surveillance drones? Sure, but... why?

We could. There's nothing stopping that from an engineering standpoint. But what's the point, really, outside a few dozen military targets? Watching all 400 (500, 600) million of us?

I kind of doubt it. There's sinister, and there's absurd. That one falls into the absurd category. Note that I do not claim it is implausible...

Miniaturization is already a common theme in our technology. Who knows what the mind-machine interface will be capable of when combined with applied, cellular-scaled nanotechnology...

[Ghost Dog]

16. The insects will be the eyes and ears. They will be the spy drones

flying in the window, crawling through the cracks, lurking in a cobweb near you, watching, listening, transmitting.

An insect bite could also have precicesly-targetted offensive capabilities.

You will find there is already military R&D on this, at least at the DARPA-type level. And for example, here is the April 25, 2003 report (PDF) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress:

UAVs range from the size of an insect to that of a commercial airliner.

...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently
working on a $30 million micro air vehicle (MAV) effort. Funded by DARPA, the
Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, DARPA is producing 350 MAVs
as part of an ACTD due to end in FY05. Unlike other UAVs, MAVs are measured
in inches, not feet, and cost thousands of dollars instead of millions. A prototype
nine-inch wide MAV, called the Organic Air Vehicle (OAV), is being delivered to
the Army in February 2003 for testing as part of their future combat system (FCS).
OAV, which employs a ducted-fan design vice a fixed wing, carries E-O sensors and
could be upgraded to include infrared and acoustic sensors, according to its producer,
Allied Aerospace.140 One operational advantage of a MAV compared to a larger
UAV, is the ability to conduct a “perch and stare” mission. Most UAVs perform
their missions while they are flying; the MAV will be able to land and watch, using
its camera to take pictures of any movements or other signs of enemy activity.141
MAVs are likely to increase in utility value as technology advances, and small,
lightweight cameras become available.

[eridani]

10. When thinking of predicting technological advances, I always think of those

--old magazines from the 40s and 50s. There were large commercial planes and large computers, and prognosticators predicted that people would want their very own small personal planes, but not small personal computers. Go figure.

[txlibdem]

14. Stargates and Space Gates

That would be my most wished-for technological innovation within the next 150 years. Now all we have to do is survive until then...

The societal change we most need to ensure our survival as a species: the end of Capitalism / outlawing greed and money. We already have the technologies we need to ensure an American lifestyle for each and every person on Earth:

• Thorium cycle nuclear power plants (cannot be used to make bombs and we have a thousand years of supply)
  
• vertical farms and hydroponics (uses 1/20th the water and produces food of the highest nutritional value and purity)
  
• robotics (why do we need children to make tennis shoes?)
  
• chemical detectors (to target only ripe fruit/veggies for picking by robotic harvesters)
  
• robotic construction (builds anything from a single house to a skyscraper, autonomously)
  
• self-configuring electronics (a single device that rewires its circuits to do multiple tasks: transceiver, display, data storage, computing, whatever is needed at that moment) -- build an entire wall out of it
  
• gesture, facial and posture recognition (aka Microsoft Kinect) to enable Minority Report style computer interaction
  
• ultrafast communications networks (instant access to the entire world's collected knowledge is a right, not a commodity or a privilege)
  
• digital learning (on video, audio, in text version, and as an interactive computer program, some even on virtual reality with tactile feedback (learn to sculpt clay or play an instrument without actually touching it) --from K-12 and University all the way up to and including a P.H.D. should be a right of each person who is able, free of charge)
  

We could be a planet of inventors, artists, philosophers, engineers and educators. How many potential Einsteins, Marconis, Michaelangelos, DaVincis, Beethovens, etc., have we lost because those children did not get adequate nutrition or a clean environment in which to develop, had no access to high quality education, or was forced into a labor job due to our current system of wealth inequality?

[txlibdem]

25. 3D Printing + Robotics + Computers + Ideas = robots do all the work, we are free to learn and grow

Become a scientist and work on the numerous problems that face us right now and in the future. Or experience life and the world around us as free men and women. Or become artists, painters, sculptors, whatever.

People need no longer work. The only people stopping this transformation are the wealthy and the special interests -- they will say anything and do anything to keep their powerful positions and lives of luxury while the rest of us suffer in poverty or lead wasted lives, never knowing our full potential.

[DavidDvorkin]

15. Gravity manipulation?

That one is doubtful, I think.

[txlibdem]

17. Doubtful? Why? ... ... .. ... n/t

[DavidDvorkin]

18. It requires changing physics

Or at any rate a complete change in our understanding of mass and gravity. That's different from technological change or development.

[txlibdem]

21. Today's computer chips are already bumping up against the limits

That's why the computer chip makers are making CPUs with multiple cores, dual core, quad-core, I've even read about an eight-core processor (but I've never seen where they sell it, might just be for mainframe computer OEMs).

The reason is that the tiny components inside the computer chips cannot get any smaller without quantum mechanics causing havoc inside the electrical connections and pathways within the chip itself. So we need to constantly push our understanding and ability to manipulate matter and energy on ever smaller scales. Current technological development will not proceed without a leap in our understanding in the next decade at the latest.

Our understanding of the exact nature of Gravity is increasing with each new year. My opinion is that the best explanation lies in 11-dimensional space and that gravitons may exist (and travel among) more than the familiar 3 dimensional space as we perceive it.

[qazplm]

27. I probably agree but the only caveat is

we still don't really know if gravity is borne by a particle, or a phenomenon of space time, or another theory is that it is phenomenon of entropy, in short we don't know exactly what causes gravity yet...so you can't say for sure we can't manipulate or that doing so would violate any laws of physics.

[Odin2005]

20. Over the next 150 years we will merge with our technology and become cyborgs.

Mass production will be obsolete because most consumer goods are made by nanotech "3D printing".

the smartest individuals will not be humans, but AIs.

people will be practically immortal from using nanotechnology to reverse aging.

[txlibdem]

22. 3D Printing

We already have the technology to "print" almost everything we need: houses, commercial buildings, skyscrapers, tools, consumer goods, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOlRI_Hm1Po - printing consumer goods, housewares
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7r-qlKkUo - printing houses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yv-IWdSdns - "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okl37F-szew - here's their robot putting in the plumbing lines
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro - this is a different company's effort, shows interesting shaped buildings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Arud2MBhQ - printing ceramics, just have to fire in a kiln

[Odin2005]

23. Thanks for the links!

:hi:

[txlibdem]

24. Even metal objects can now be printed in 3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRrXO9GSUPk
Shapeways also can make things out of glass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnktb4VPeQ - not sure what this material is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_yiUuyj_bo

We're very close to being able to make whatever we need via a combination of the machines in these two posts. I'd be interested in seeing if someone can combine the plastic, metal and maybe even glass into a single machine. At the very least the individual parts should be able to be 3D printed then have assembly robots put them together.

I truly don't see why any humans need to work at menial jobs when there are so many pressing problems in the world that need solving, so much artistic talent that is being wasted, so many potential geniuses that are laboring in factories or fields somewhere. What a waste. Let the robots do all the work!

[Posteritatis]

28. I soooooo wanna get into 3D printing. (nt)

[jdp349]

29. The (almost) automated economy

What fascinates me most about technology is the cultural and social impact it has in the short term and the economic and political impact in the long term.

Our big organizing institutions and the systems/regimes they collectively create that form the core of human society are sufficiently optimal means to achieving our ends given the conditions we as a species face. These conditions however are mostly limitations. Technology allows as to gradually reduce or in some cases shatter these limitations and by doing our old institutions, our means to achieving our collective and social ends, also gradually become obsolete. The process of reorganizing society is not perfectly dynamic of course; much like how there is a constant lag between replacing suboptimal technology with the state of the art (like copper wire and fiber optics) no societies institutions will be perfectly optimized at any given moment but rather moving towards optimization.

The number one culprit of lost jobs in industry and manufacturing is not outsourcing but increasing productivity. While in the short and even medium term this is disastrous for the specific individuals that lose their jobs to efficiency gains there is a potentially important process being activated. Capitalism as we know it is only a sufficiently suitable means of economic production and distribution when the species is bound by a particular set of conditions. As the proportion of humans necessary to produce a given level of economic output becomes sufficiently small the integrity of the economic system begins to collapse. For example one would expect if the proportion of the population earning a wage or salary was equal to those engaged in productive and efficient economic activity than the flow between households and firms would break down. Concentrations of wealth would reach absurd proportions and society would become highly unstable. As this social pressure builds it will either be drained by the implementation of a mechanism that reestablishes the flow or burst if ignored and potentially get ugly.

I think achieving the automated economy would be the single greatest revolutionizing force in on human society centuries.

[gtar100]

30. +1

[txlibdem]

31. The single greatest beneficial force on human society in centuries

I agree with you on this one for sure and have posted my diatribes in other threads.

My question is: why the heck not? The only thing stopping us from being able to make everything entirely by robots is the money-driven society we are all forced to live in: workers protest because they need money to buy food, house, clothing, etc. Why?

Why isn't it a basic Human Right to have clean and nutritious food for all? And clean, pure water to drink and bathe in. And a comfortable, clean and safe place to call home. And clothing to protect you from the elements. And an education to enable you to reach your full potential. And a clean environment in which to develop and thrive.

How many potential Einsteins died from starvation so far? How many potential DaVinci's or Michaelangelo's live wasted lives toiling in the fields or factories? How many of this centuries Shakespeare's live in areas where the pollution stunts their intellectual or physical development?

[sofa king]

32. Space travel will finally reach the expectations of science fiction.

Here's something we're already close to realizing: a solar-system wide communications network.

That's the framework of a solar-system wide economy. I think that well within 150 years there will be a huge industry in traveling out to the Kuiper Belt to recover large icy objects and return them to the inner solar system where the water and volatiles will be used to sustain human life throughout the solar system. And Earth won't be in control of that economy, either.

A lucky few might be able to launch their own tour of the solar system within a couple decades or less. I'm pretty sure I know how to do it for about 150 million bucks, so if you've got that kind of money, let me know. We'll see the rings of Saturn by 2030.

[txlibdem]

33. Solar system-wide communications network: via Quantum Entanglement

In short, two photons can be entangled and then separated by physically taking one photon to point A and the other photon to point B. Then once they are in place where they are needed, whatever is changed in one of them will instantly affect the other, regardless of the distance between them. Using, for instance, a video signal to change one of them then "reading" the changes at the other end and recreating that video signal. There is no "transmission" going between the two photons, it is instantaneous change in one being caused by manipulation of the other photon. It seems counter-intuitive but it has been proven and peer reviewed multiple times.

The two things that they're still working on are the tendency of the photons to "disentangle" themselves (thereby losing the "link" between them) for no apparent reason and the distance that they are able to transport them without the former happening. There has been great progress on both fronts. The distance that has been successfully increased over the years:

2004: 600 meters http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n7002/full/430849a.html

2009: 144 kilometers http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=quantum-entanglement

2150: ??? Maybe we'll all receive 1 million entangled photons at birth and as one fails your personal communicator switches to the next one and so on, constantly keeping communication channels open.

Note that quantum entanglement (aka quantum teleportation communications) cannot be intercepted, cannot be blocked or jammed. Communication would be instantaneous between any individuals or groups of individuals regardless of distance or location. Would nations cease to matter? Would some people choose to connect their brains into this communication network, thus creating a collective mind?
=======================================================
Now there's talk of being able to teleport energy: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24759/
That brings up a whole new ballgame:
... solar power plants that encircle the Sun and quantum teleport their energy either back to Earth or anywhere in the solar system.
... powering a spacecraft without needing to carry fuel.
... ... a VASIMIR plasma rocket can take astronauts to Mars in 39 days, how much faster with potentially unlimited energy?
... quickly bring power back to areas stricken by a natural disaster.

Just a couple of thoughts.