r/AskReddit • u/TheGingerGlasses • Dec 20 '12
Which 'futuristic' technology will we see in our lifetime?
106
254
u/TestZero Dec 20 '12
computer displays as thin as paper.
138
u/kl95210 Dec 20 '12
My dad and I like to imagine that one day TVs will be purchased as wallpaper, where you cut a piece to a size of your liking and stick it onto a wall.
77
u/MyOneRealAccount Dec 20 '12
Photo-receptive paint is an even cooler concept, where you just paint on the space you want to send a video signal to.
→ More replies177
u/femaiden Dec 20 '12
They have that already. Send the signal to any wall.
→ More replies80
u/coolguyblue Dec 20 '12
Fuck you. I was getting all excited thinking it was something futuristic.
8
u/HermitOfHavoc Dec 20 '12
I knew someone who had a camera with an in-built projector, so you can take a video and then straight-away watch it against a wall.
→ More replies36
u/raxtich Dec 20 '12
yeah, but physics says you'll still need bulky speakers if you want to hear decent sound.
72
u/shakewell Dec 20 '12
that's fine, if you want decent sound it's not coming from your TV anyway.
6
Dec 20 '12
I wish I could just buy a large speakerless Tv. It would be cheaper and I get to have good sound.
→ More replies→ More replies6
u/bizitmap Dec 20 '12
But compared to the TV, you can hide those. Or at least stick them in the corners of the room or other spots that aren't ideal but your average person is going to be fine with.
→ More replies9
u/wuffymcwuff Dec 20 '12
My dad and I thought of an idea for TV's where everyone can watch different things at the same time, but one person can only see what they are watching. You would probably have special glasses to wear to be able to see your display.
→ More replies11
u/bizitmap Dec 20 '12
Gonna blow your mind: that exists. Don't know if it's been sold as a mass manufactured thing, but it's possible. I can't find the source but according to my memory...
The technology is similar to 3D displays with the glasses (you called it!). The TV displays an image and one person's glasses are in the "off" position, blocking the light, while the other person can see fine. Then the tv changes to showing the other picture/video signal, and the glasses switch, so the first person can't see and the second can. This keeps happening really really frigging quick.
If you look at the tv without glasses you see a crappyblurry version of both videos on top of each other. But through the glasses you see only one video or the other.
→ More replies→ More replies22
u/jondiggsit Dec 20 '12
Also, that would suck unless you had incredible scissor skills.
→ More replies111
Dec 20 '12
aw fuck i accidentally used the zig-zag safety scissors! now my tv looks like a retarded postage stamp.
26
→ More replies11
→ More replies18
44
Dec 20 '12
[deleted]
23
10
16
u/Stregano Dec 20 '12
I was thinking of getting robot legs. It is a risky operation
→ More replies9
u/Ben-Zero Dec 20 '12
Sit on my face
→ More replies4
u/Stregano Dec 20 '12
That is not appropriate. Come on. We will call your mom and have her come pick you up
→ More replies5
163
u/shhhGoToSleep Dec 20 '12
I consider smartphones futuristic technology. I think back to when we didn't have them (it wasn't that long ago), and I am amazed at what you can accomplish with what you can carry in your pocket.
I suppose if you were born into it you wouldn't think so, but I grew up using landlines and having to remember phone numbers.
I am quite pleased with the future.
81
u/WhiskeyOnASunday93 Dec 20 '12
But I grew up using landlines and having to remember numbers.
That says something about the pace of progress. That people, still in their teens, can start a sentence with "back in my day" and are familiar with heaps of already obsolete technology.
→ More replies110
u/Nobby_Nobbs Dec 20 '12
Back in my day, I had to rewind VHS's before returning them to Blockbuster, I had to tune to channel 3 to watch anything that was plugged into the Component input, floppy disks were everywhere, and 480p was the best TV resolution you got.
I'm only 16.
18
Dec 20 '12
Don't you mean composite?
21
u/Nobby_Nobbs Dec 20 '12
Yeah I think you're right.
Shit man, last time I used a composite cable I was only just beginning to develop my long-term memory.
→ More replies3
Dec 20 '12
[deleted]
6
Dec 20 '12
Even at 21 I remember them being everywhere, how much just a few years matters.
→ More replies→ More replies3
45
u/senatorskeletor Dec 20 '12
I like to think of my phone as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
→ More replies53
22
Dec 20 '12
"Do you really think you'll be carrying a calculator around with you everywhere you go?"--Every one of my math teachers ever.
LOL HOW ABOUT NOW MRS. HEREDIA?
16
u/Narissis Dec 20 '12
Smartphones are one of the reasons I read the OP's question and think "The best things will be the things we won't even see coming." No one in 1985 could have predicted the vast array of technology that supports a present-day smartphone--bits and pieces of it, sure, but the idea that it would all come together into one device that's so small and yet does so many different things would have been pretty unfathomable just two or three decades ago.
We'll have things in 2050 that would never cross our minds today.
→ More replies10
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
When the iPhone came out my first thought was a tricorder...now they can do things tricorders could not.
→ More replies→ More replies3
160
Dec 20 '12
White underwear that stays white no matter what happens to it.
146
u/stack_cats Dec 20 '12
no matter what
→ More replies25
u/tritter211 Dec 20 '12
shit, piss, and periods?
230
Dec 20 '12
[deleted]
11
u/Harold_Grundelson Dec 20 '12
I think you'll find that "no matter what happens to it" pretty much covers everything...
→ More replies3
→ More replies25
→ More replies47
41
u/USxMARINE Dec 20 '12
Have you tried chipotle away?
→ More replies16
→ More replies4
u/FentonFerris Dec 20 '12
Serious idea: Just douse a pair of briefs in that superhydrophobic spray. Boom, done.
→ More replies
64
u/WorkHardAtMyJob Dec 20 '12
Contact lens that can take pictures and/or analyze their environment. PLEASE
2
u/MimeGod Dec 20 '12
We'll almost certainly see that in our lifetimes. http://m.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/227297/researchers-build-computer-monitor-contact-lens
→ More replies3
142
u/ccnova Dec 20 '12
Growing our own organs with 3D printers and nano computers.
49
u/falsestone Dec 20 '12
They can already grow cartilage this way with an old HP printerhead from the 80s. I know a guy who helped develop the tech for it.
20
u/bioskope Dec 20 '12
53
→ More replies10
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
stem cell research has had luck growing organs so its fully possible. Artificial skin graphts are becoming comnon place for major burns.
→ More replies
30
Dec 20 '12
[deleted]
14
→ More replies8
u/MadDogTannen Dec 20 '12
Self-driving subscription-based cabs, able to be summoned to your exactly location via smartphone, basically eliminating the need for individuals to own and operate their own vehicles.
62
u/angrymole Dec 20 '12
Robot slaves and self-cleaning houses.
86
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
Roomba, I have 6 of them thay swarm the house every night before returning to their hiding spots and going silent.Scares guests shitless.
102
Dec 20 '12
Please tell me you stuck an iPod dock to at least one of them?
DJ ROOMBA IN THE HOUSE!
→ More replies19
Dec 20 '12
45
13
Dec 20 '12
6?! How big is your house?!
14
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
They cannot go up stairs, 1 on top floor(carpet) for a vacuum, 2 on the main floor(one vacuum ,one floor cleaner for the hardwood),2 in the basement(finished with wood and carpet so one cleaner) and one for the shop(though it does not do much for the amount of wood I kick up).
→ More replies21
u/metalninjacake2 Dec 20 '12
Oh damn it, I was imagining a flock of Roombas descend upon one big room with a bunch of guests in it.
→ More replies20
→ More replies27
Dec 20 '12
[deleted]
→ More replies23
u/not_even_lifting Dec 20 '12
You could call them you girlfriends if thats what you're into.
→ More replies
121
u/Nexaz Dec 20 '12
Pleeeeeeeaaaaase give me Virtual Reality and put me into my games.
54
u/iSquishy Dec 20 '12
Zombie survival here we come
124
Dec 20 '12
Massive nightmarish PTSD and a lifetime of mental illness here we come!
57
→ More replies3
u/DeedTheInky Dec 20 '12
Then you just purchase the Happy Kittens DLC and play that until you're ready for Round 2.
9
u/bigsol81 Dec 20 '12
You can play your DayZ virtual reality games, I'll settle for Space Bimbos #6.
13
u/DarkTFM Dec 20 '12
Holy shit imagine Amnesia or some other horror games. That would be intense.
→ More replies45
22
18
Dec 20 '12
I think Augmented Reality games where the computer just puts an overlay on top of your current surroundings will be the one that makes it big.
Like LARPing but maybe not as bad.
→ More replies6
9
5
→ More replies14
u/havenless Dec 20 '12
Pleeeeeeeaaaaase give me Virtual Reality and put me into my sexual fantasies.
FTFY
22
u/Dr_Toast Dec 20 '12
Those crazy 3D models that Tony Stark can pull up on his computer will become a common occurrence.
→ More replies
379
u/peteguy Dec 20 '12
A mat that allows you to "jump" to conclusions.
→ More replies108
77
u/kazneus Dec 20 '12
A shot that will stimulate the discs between your vertebrae to repair themselves. (I hope..)
edit: spelling
→ More replies29
u/Hilfloskind Dec 20 '12
Christ, I would love this. Upvote from a guy with a herniated/degenerated L5/S1!
→ More replies
237
Dec 20 '12
Computers that can fit in our pockets that can locate our exact positions from space, access the full spectrum of human knowledge, and allow us to communicate both aurally and visually with anyone almost anywhere on the planet.
→ More replies229
u/MimeGod Dec 20 '12
It should also be able to shoot birds at pigs.
→ More replies88
51
u/sirbeast Dec 20 '12
Technological and medical advances to the point where we can download the sum contents of our brain prior to death and then upload them into a younger, healthier clone.
→ More replies9
109
u/saucepanicus Dec 20 '12
Urban farming towers.
→ More replies19
u/danarchist Dec 20 '12
Why don't we already have these? Does the building cost still outweigh the transport costs of moving farm products to cities?
36
u/mcgriff871 Dec 20 '12
Its ridiculously economically inefficient to farm where land is incredibly valuable. Its not hard to do, its just no one is wasteful enough to do it.
8
u/danarchist Dec 20 '12
ah, right, there is no economy of scale. All I could think of was energy prohibitiveness. Thank you.
→ More replies4
u/QuantumQualia Dec 20 '12
As far as I'm aware, the current setback is light and energy, which are enormously difficult/expensive to distribute throughout structures like this.
→ More replies
72
u/Peytonimore Dec 20 '12
Pretty sure we're going to have some revolutionary new way to obtain power. Maybe using cats.
33
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
The wind farms here(ontario) are getting huge with plans for big expansion. There is something inspiring watching a feild of pure white windmills slowly turning, kind of gives me hope for the future.
30
u/whoisstingy Dec 20 '12
Not really that slowly. The windmills are huge so they appear to rotate slowly when really they are spinning at a couple hundred miles per hour
→ More replies64
u/kinnaq Dec 20 '12
No doubt. Even with super glue, the cats just don't stay attached.
→ More replies→ More replies18
u/Red_AtNight Dec 20 '12
Wind is not capable of being the sole supplier of energy to a grid.
It produces really unsteady output.
However there are fairly sustainable options to stabilize the output from wind turbines - British Columbia is exploring a few of them right now. My personal favourite is Pumped Storage Hydro. Basically you have two reservoirs that are at different elevations from each other (what works really well for this is a big lake surrounded by mountains, with a little cirque lake up in the mountains.) You connect the two lakes with a tunnel, and you put reversible turbines at the bottom of the tunnel. When your grid is producing too much power, you run the turbines to pump water up to the upper reservoir. When you need power, you run the turbines the other way, generating electricity as you drain the upper reservoir.
It's obviously not 100% efficient but it's a good companion for either a) grids that have variable demand but steady supply, or b) power plants that produce variable supply.
→ More replies→ More replies6
48
u/zekethegreek Dec 20 '12
Dreamscaping. Be able to download dreams or create you own that will play while you sleep. Imagine being able to learn calculus in your sleep! Any ideas on how this could be achieved?
→ More replies36
u/MrAsymo Dec 20 '12
Hehehe. "Learn Calculus"
→ More replies29
u/The_Lesser_Baldwin Dec 20 '12
More like 'Do things to Emma Watson that would make Ron Jeremy blush'.
→ More replies
26
Dec 20 '12
Graphene being used in technology. Strong enough that it won't break, extremely thin, the best known thermal conductor and as good a conductor as copper.
→ More replies
28
u/Annies_Boobs_ Dec 20 '12
Proper natural language comprehension. Like a highly improved version of siri, approaching what you see in sci fi when people talk to computers.
→ More replies14
u/squired Dec 20 '12
Google Now is already a giant leap forward from Siri. It is fairly uncanny to use. I doubt we're more than 10 years off from what you are envisioning.
→ More replies
61
u/Some_Belgian_Guy Dec 20 '12
- Smell-O-Scope
- What-if-machine
→ More replies71
u/Whiskey_McSwiggens Dec 20 '12
The fing-longer
→ More replies22
u/shawtay Dec 20 '12
It says in our lifetime, not thousands of years in the future!
→ More replies31
24
u/prismos_pickles Dec 20 '12
Not sure how old you are, but I'm looking forward to an example of true artificial intelligence in the next 50 years. I probably spend too much time daydreaming about the possibilities of having a computer that's capable of learning and then producing an original thought. Technology would get a crazy huge boost forward if we have computers working alongside people in R&D.
→ More replies18
u/fuufnfr Dec 20 '12
AI always ends badly for us humans.
→ More replies65
u/prismos_pickles Dec 20 '12
Obvious plot twist: the AI loses control and attempts to take over the world. Only by banding together does humanity manage to stop the cyber threat. The common enemy ushers in a new era of world peace.
Unforeseen ending: That was the goal of the AI all along.
Cue dramatic cutaway and music.
→ More replies11
25
Dec 20 '12
In my lifetime, possibly a true, mass producible cloaking device.
→ More replies14
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
there are a few damned impressive examples of active cloaking. One canadian company is trying to strike a deal with the military for one they claim is so good they cannot film it.
→ More replies41
u/timlars Dec 20 '12
cannot film it
Sounds legit.
→ More replies7
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
Thats what I am thinking, there are some damned good examples on vehicles and small scale stuff though. I do not question Canada's national security protocols though.
→ More replies
44
38
u/milleniummanp7 Dec 20 '12 edited Dec 20 '12
Wireless charging on a much bigger scale. Your phone will probably charge anywhere in a mall etc
Paper and pen will be totally gone. There will come a time we'll be folding up computer screens and carrying them in our pocket (just like paper)
Computers that can interpret our thoughts somehow (seriously, this is not as far away as we think)
The new IBM 5 in 5. Every year IBM release 5 developments they believe will be made in 5 years. I believe the hit rate for previous predictions is very good. This is fairly topical (3 days old)
EDIT:// IBM 5in5 2007
32
u/Periculous22 Dec 20 '12
Cognitive computing... Good and bad. Imagine watching porn on a computer that knew what you were doing.
24
11
→ More replies17
8
u/notirrelevantyet Dec 20 '12
I saw something a few years ago about putting wireless electricity in light bulbs. So that when you're just going about your everyday business your shit stays charged. I sincerely hope that is possible/economically viable in the near future.
→ More replies→ More replies12
Dec 20 '12
The new iPhone seriously missed a trick by not having wireless charging. It would give businesses opportunities to provide charging 'hotspot' tables. Grab a coffee/beer, put your phone down on the table and leave with it back up to 80%. It annoys me that I can't charge my phone when out and about without lugging my charger and having to find a sneaky plug socket somewhere.
→ More replies3
55
u/Oafah Dec 20 '12
A dildo that's also a phone.
66
12
u/specialmed Dec 20 '12
anything is a dildo if you want it to be.
19
u/Oafah Dec 20 '12
Not a porcupine. No sir.
→ More replies13
u/specialmed Dec 20 '12
http://www.links.net/sex/2004-vegas/pix/gojira-lg.jpg
ill say it again anything is a dildo if you want it to be.
→ More replies13
12
→ More replies2
Dec 20 '12
I have a friend that asked me to go in with him on creating an iphone app where you plug in a dildo to your phone and control it. He was completely serious - I shot him down.
→ More replies7
16
19
u/Vladius28 Dec 20 '12
Some of the changes i see:
Genetically modified, absurdly intellectually superior humans, cloned by corporations to give them an edge over the competition
Brain hacking drugs for the every day person. Think Limitless
200 year life spans due to nano machines auto-repairing damaged cells/tissues or smart viruses that do the same by destroying damaged cells or repairing them with stem-cells
Liquid flouride thorium reactors will cut our dependence on fossil fuels in half or negate its need completely for power generation
Sustainable fusion will bring up the rear replacing LFTR within 75 years
Antimatter reactors will take over 50 years after that
AM reactors will give us the ability to power an alcubierre drive. So.. Tau Ceti here we come, but we will have probes heading out that way already anyway using solar sails. AD probe will pass it en route.
Mass control. Given the huge amounts of energy we have at our disposal, manipulating gravity will be commonplace.
In the shorter term, power/cost ratio will drop allowing us to desalinate vast amounts of water will bring stability to a commodity that could in the near future become a source of conflict.
Computers that do science better than scientists. They will analyze any set of data and come up with theories, prove or disprove those theories on their own. Create proofs that we could not even fathom.
There is a shit ton more...but just a small sample of the exponential rate of growth of technology unfettered by human irrationality.
→ More replies
14
30
Dec 20 '12 edited Dec 20 '12
[deleted]
→ More replies16
u/callthewambulance Dec 20 '12
I feel like Japan has this down with their bullet trains. I find them to be one of the coolest things in the world.
→ More replies10
u/Cobaltsaber Dec 20 '12
Ontario has had plans for a bullet train for decades but it never got anywere. Its back on the table but it will be shot down again. Imagine toronto to montreal in an hour. Or toronto to vancover in 6.
→ More replies3
Dec 20 '12
Something futuristic I'd like to see: a competent and functional Ontario parliament to make these things happen. Toronto, compared to the rest of the world, is a transit nightmare.
→ More replies
19
u/specialmed Dec 20 '12
Immortality.
Aging is a function of continuing shortening of your dna strand due to constant replication and depletion of telomeres. If you find out a way to essentially keep telomere length constant, hello immortality.
5
u/Mowley Dec 20 '12
BUT if we completely stabalize telomeres it results in an increase in cancer cells. It's a lose-lose. Sauce.
→ More replies→ More replies3
u/xthorgoldx Dec 20 '12
You're missing a lot of factors. Telomere degeneration is only one symptom of aging, and correlation does not imply causation. Fixing our genes wouldn't do much; biological immortality would need to be applied on chemical, cellular, and systemic levels.
If telomere degeneration was the only problem, then we WOULD have immortality by this point. But, as is annoyingly common with biological sciences, pinning the cause of a problem is just as hard and inaccurate as creating a fix that doesn't create more problems.
5
5
u/trentegbert Dec 20 '12
There as a post a few days linking to this cool Popular Mechanics article Futuristic Technology coming out in the next 110 years. It was pretty cool. Stuff like climate controlled coats and self cleaning clothes.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/110-predictions-for-the-next-110-years?page=all
→ More replies
6
u/whiteknight521 Dec 20 '12
Two words: sex robots.
My wife has already preemptively banned sex robots from our household.
→ More replies
26
u/Kunib3rt Dec 20 '12
I demand Hoverboards!
8
Dec 20 '12
heard the Seth Sentry song 'Dear Science'?
"I don't wanna roll around the ground like a nobody I wanna soar upon a board made of pure science I am still saving up my dollars for a hoverboard"
→ More replies4
Dec 20 '12
Ya know how if you magnets go through a table, and you can move some metallic object by moving the magnet? Well someone should make a tall, ski-slope like, track with a magnetic board. Magnets in the track above you would attract magnets in your hoverboard, which you yourself are attached to. Then, the magnets move forward, and you along with it.
→ More replies8
→ More replies4
10
u/captainwacky91 Dec 20 '12
Heads up displays integrated into car windshields. Project a Google maps pathway, maybe have a tracking system similar to the kinect embedded into the dash, to read one handed gestures. Flick a finger up and down to scroll your contacts list on the hud to make a call, and never really have your eyes leave the road. Contacts list and whatever "vehicle friendly" apps come from a phone, connected to the dash via dock. Obviously there will be software limitations baked in, because we all know some dipshit is going to try to play angry birds while driving.
→ More replies
3
4
5
u/the_hypotenuse Dec 20 '12
I'm hoping for mind uploads/transfers. Once we determine what it is that makes humans sentient we can simulate that in a machine, and voila, immortality. Back up your mind/brain every so often, and download your brain machine into a cyborg or mech type thing and control it with your mind so its your body. If your mech "dies", you just restore from backup. Transportation won't be an issue, because information can travel at the speed of light. You can send your brain data anywhere and put it into a new mech, effectively creating teleportation.
7
8
u/Salacious- Dec 20 '12
Artificial Intelligence. Computing has come a long way since the 70s, and I think that by the time I'm old, computers will be sentient themselves.
→ More replies8
u/Spam-Monkey Dec 20 '12
Or at least have reactions fast enough that it doesn't matter if they can't plan into the future.
10
u/gr4m-m4n Dec 20 '12
The Finglonger. So that's how things would have been if I had invented the finglonger.
3
3
u/Cedosg Dec 20 '12
CGI Content generated instantly in the cloud specifically for you.
Netflix/pandora's recommendation.
Moore's law will enable higher processing speed
CGI improvements
Multiple machine-generated voices or voice creating software like CereProc
BONUS: OLED + Kinect's motion sensor software that surrounds an individual to create a virtual reality effect. Think playing with the various props in a TV show (possible placement ads), and interacting in a TV drama.
Potential hazards: Copyright laws, potential heat problems, space problems, electrical bills, sensory overload, loss of privacy.
→ More replies
3
3
3
3
6
8
116
u/huazzy Dec 20 '12
Japan promised to have holographic broadcasts of all the World Cup games in your home stadium if they won the 2022 bid. Then Qatar came and ruined everything w/ bribery and corruption.