August 12 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 7 Hot
By Dick Pelletier
We often think nostalgically of our past as the “good old days,” but projected scientific and technological breakthroughs suggest the greatest and most exciting times are actually yet to come. Today, breakthroughs rush at us with amazing speeds and the golden ages of biotech, 2010-2020, and nanotech, 2020-2035, promise huge advances in health, entertainment and wealth.
Revolutionary biologist Leroy Hood predicts that in the next decade, we will understand individual genetic predispositions for most sicknesses, and develop powerful tools for preventing them. “We’ll move from a mode of medicine that’s largely reactive to one that’s predictive and preventive,” he says.
Experts believe that by 2025, nanobots swarming through our bodies will stave off most sicknesses and zap viruses before we even start to sniffle. By 2030, all diseases, including aging, will be manageable. And as we gain greater health and energy, we will become more actively involved with entertainment technologies.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates says TVs and computers are finally converging into a single media. By 2015, nearly every movie, TV drama and sit-com ever produced will be available from the Internet to your home, and voice-activation will make selecting programs as simple as talking to your screen.
Games will become more entertaining too with expected speeds of over 10,000 GHz. But no matter how far technology advances, certain aspects of gaming will remain constant. Marksmanship, speed thrills, and strategies will improve, but plots and characters of today’s role players, along with elements that charm the heart will remain pretty much the same as today.
Unlike today’s games that stimulate only sight, hearing, and touch, 2015 games will add taste and smell, creating more realism. As TVs continue to advance, flat screens will morph into holographic displays with characters seeming to hop into the room.
By 2020, it will be difficult to distinguish simulations from real people. And by 2030, nanotech advances are expected to create a Star Trek-like “Holodeck” with interactive programs allowing multiple viewers to re-live past adventures, work out personal problems, or enjoy romantic escapades.
By 2015, robot servants will begin to take an active role in our world. We will likely feel frustrated with their lower intelligence; however they will help us interface with our entertainment and keep us organized. We will depend on them for many of our daily needs and by 2020, we will consider them irreplaceable.
Our minds will improve in this amazing future too. Researchers are beginning to unravel the brain’s secrets as they identify how neurons form thoughts, feelings and memories. Forward-thinkers believe that by 2030, all mental illnesses will be eliminated and solutions discovered that could change negative behavior in criminals and terrorists.
Nano-replicators, predicted to appear on kitchen counters by 2025, promise to eliminate world poverty and hunger and create affluence unlike anything the world has ever experienced. Replicators will produce food, clothing, and other consumer goods, at little or no cost, lowering living expenses and reducing much of the need to work.
Thanks to the benefits of these projected technological miracles and the nano-economy; everyone will enjoy enough leisure time to fully appreciate our “magical future.”
Comment Thread ()
