Predictions of an über-modern, depersonalized future have been greatly exaggerated for decades. There’s no telling how society will make use of new technologies, and an ongoing debate has raged about whether we define the invention or the invention defines us.
The potentials of some recent innovations are so great, their impacts will be inevitable, even if their specific uses are still an enigma. Here are 10 technologies that could steer us in surprising directions over the next few years.
10. Oculus Rift
While the concept may never extend beyond its initial purpose of simple entertainment, Oculus Rift will at least surely excel there. Set to be the first affordable, commercially available, virtual-reality video game accessory when it launches later this year, the Rift promises to fully immerse players in gaming worlds.
Sci-fi and fantasy geeks may get excited by the prospect of being immediately transported to Middle Earth-like settings, which will be seen through a headset, and manipulated with motion-control gloves. More questionable social implications arise, however, from titles like Wicked Paradise, a sex simulator. Equally gross and intriguing.
9. Holograms
People were astonished when, after Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, musician Will.I.Am appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 via hologram. However, it was later reported that this hologram didn’t actually appear before Cooper—it was added into the televised image for home audiences, much like CGI effects in a movie.
Nonetheless, the interview proved some basic hologram technology exists. Using cameras that capture people from all angles simultaneously, we could realistically see digital models broadcast live, in real spaces, within the near future. This could revolutionize long-distance conferences, meetings, and even simple phone calls.
8. Biomedical Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is manipulating the building blocks of reality at one of the most basic levels. The science could be used to place machines where no one thought there would be one. From making rugs stainless to making metals stronger and scratch-free, greater prospects are evident.
However, where nanotechnology becomes especially interesting is in the medical field. The next step for these miniscule devices is to reach cell size or smaller. At this level, machines could enter the body, and act the same way our biologically-existing structures do: fighting disease and making repairs. Successful demonstrations of this microscopic computing are not there yet, but could easily be the greatest pharmaceutical endeavor of the 21st century.
7. Electric Roads
A tangible, near-future innovation that could single-handedly reroute environmental concerns, electric roads will charge cars as they drive.
The curent issue with electric cars is their charge runs out quickly, and takes a long time to replenish.
Even if only certain portions of road were redesigned to work with electric cars, the hope is that these vehicles could sustain their charge until they reach the next such road. A similar technology from Bombardier, Primove, is already being applied in Germany; transit vehicles, like streetcars and buses, are charged from beneath at their intermittent stops.
Thanks to simultaneously flourishing technology in electric cars themselves—the new Tesla Model S, which closely resembles an ordinary car—this social revolution could be a reality by the end of the decade, with carbon dioxide emissions lowered drastically.
6. Remote Physical Projector
This technology, currently being developed at MIT, allows movement in one spot to physically affect objects in another. A person moves their hands or body in front of a camera, and elsewhere, these movements alter a solid pinscreen.
Something that kind of has to be seen to be fully understood, the potential would be to create models, or even full-sized structures, by slight movements of your hands through the air. It’s the kind of technology you would see Tony Stark playing with in an Iron Man movie, but entirely real.
5. Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System
We now live in a world in which vision can be partially restored, even to people who are completely blind. The device was built from the ground up, using computing technology.
In short, the user wears a pair of glasses, which visually captures the world with a small camera, and reads it as computer code. The code is sent to a device that is on the user’s eye itself, and is then converted into mental information and passed along the optic nerve, completing the final step in the visual-identification process.
The Argus II has not yet been extremely effective—its results are mild at best—and it has reportedly caused various side effects. Yet as the first commercially available visual prosthesis in the United States, it should be regarded as a promising step towards a new aid.
4. Google Glass
Love it or hate it, Google Glass was an inevitable gadget in a world of increasingly impersonal interaction. Just a decade ago, this seemed to be a fantasy, but in 2014, it will be a marketplace dream-come-too-true.
A computer that can be worn as a pair of glasses, the product will put a transparent screen in front of the user’s eyes, at all times, in all places. The social trend of watching concerts through your camera, and looking at vacation landmarks on your smartphone screen, will get a massive bump with this $1500 wonder.
If you want an idea of what life will look through these Google goggles, check out the “How it Feels” promo on YouTube, which shows an everpresent temperature reading, which can be swapped for recorded video displays, text messages, or online searches, nestled in the corner of your vision. All this while you go sky-diving and bungee-jumping, because apparently that happens very often when you wear Google Glass.
The product is the most notable in a wave of upcoming devices under the “augmented reality” umbrella, which foreshadows a future where everyone’s reality is customized with digital enhancements.
3. Atlas
For years, we’ve known that artifi cial intelligence is no longer Isaac Asimov material. There are plenty of machines that can accomplish basic tasks; the public has been able to purchase Roombas since 2002. The world was introduced to “Atlas,” a six-foot tall, bipedal, eerily humanoid robot, with extraordinary capabilities in 2013. Developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Atlas can analyze its surroundings and react to them.
“Basic” functions include push-ups and treadmill running. But its repertoire also includes climbing a ladder and driving a car. Atlas can walk on very complex, rocky terrain too, and map the settings that it steps through using lasers.
Atlas’ use in war zones could be unprecedented. The machine can clear heavy debris, walk through walls, and withstand light projectile fire.
If you’re thinking this innovation could get real scary real fast, you’re not the first to draw comparisons to The Terminator.
2. Mind-Reading Computers
The technology, as it stands now, is pretty simple. Your brain operates differently when you’re thinking about different people, objects, and basic intentions. Computers can now register these processes and “understand” them. So, technically, computers can read your mind. Imminent evolutions of this technology, however, could involve the ability to read more complex, subtle thought processes, including ones about relationships.
The connection between mind and computer could also allow communication with people in comas, as a Canadian study recently revealed.
1. 3D Printing
Many may think this is nothing more than a cool device far outside their price range. But while the current capacity to print off toys and blueprints designed in a computer program seems cool enough, the full potential of 3D printing makes it the most innovative, important invention of the last several years — and maybe the next hundred.
3D printing will soon be used to print food. Even more impressively, scientists are hopeful that it will become common practice to “print off” replacement organs in vital operations. Basically, there doesn’t seem to be any physically touchable object that is out of the question to design digitally, and then Ctrl-P into reality.
The idea that 3D printing will shape the world isn’t speculation; it’s already in progress.
Dustin Dyer
Features Editor
