General

I am not a prophet nor do I profess to be one. That doesn't mean that I can't make some guesses on what the future holds in store for us as far as gadgets and such go. I am not about to try and predict what event might take place, only what technology might be around in say 50 – 100 years. I am going to base this on research that is being done today and some futuristic ideas that are beginning to come true. I won't be around to know how accurate these predictions were, but I am hoping for the best.

The first thing that I would like to comment on are televisions. We all know that they are getting thinner and clearer. Soon there will be screens that are only as thick as a piece of paper. These are already being worked on. There is also another parallel breakthrough, a projector that you can carry on a key chain that is able to project a big screen photo on a wall. What I believe will happen, is that a small Ipod type device will be available with a television in it that will also have surround sound and be able to project a large television picture on a wall in high definition. Along with this I predict that non glassed 3D will be available within that time. It was already invented and uses a system of tiny mirrors to create the picture. There will be small devices that will have pull out thin screens and full size television screens that will roll up out of the way.

Waterman Aerobile Flying Car
Photo Source: GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version

Here is a question for you, will we have flying cars? Fifty years ago people thought that we would have them by today, but the problems they present are huge. First of all, a pilot's license would be required. A way of landing and taking off from a person's home would be needed. Think of an airport and how we need all that radar and specific lanes for traffic, just to make sure that we don't have collisions, how is that going to be regulated on such a huge scale? No I predict that the only way we could have a flying car is if it took off from an airport and landed there. That means that you would have to first drive there and this might take as long as driving to work and it might also be quite a hassle with thousands of other people trying to take off.

As for regular automobiles, the ones that don't fly, we are in a transition period. We just don't know yet how they will finally be powered. I think that someday, it will be by hydrogen derived from just filling a tank with water. It could also be electricity from solar cells on the roof of the vehicle as more efficient cells are produced. We have already had a battery breakthrough, this new type of Li-ion battery is something like ten times more efficient than the current Li-ion battery. A car could go 300 miles on this new battery alone. If we don't get electric cars now, that will prove the fact that big oil is controlling the auto industry. Cars will become centers of technology. You can already see the things that have been added. They will have automatic brakes that will apply if an accident is about to happen. This will be calculated by radar which will measure the speed and direction and stopping distance of the object headed toward your car. Maneuvers will probably also take place to get you out of harm's way. Accidents will no longer cause injury since you will be completely protected by new materials.

Graphic Source: Public Domain

Home computers are in for a big change as they become more powerful, more human-like and gain more in capacity. It is only a matter of a few years before your computer will remember all its settings even when it is off and will go on instantly. The memory capacity of the machine will be so great that it will be able to hold all the books in the Library of Congress hundreds or thousands of times over. The Library contains about 10 terabytes of printed text and can now be stored on about 5 two terabyte hard drives. The machines will work like a human brain. IBM is building a computer today that will work at the level of the brain of a cat. People may actually become friends with their computers. Some lonely people may feel that their computer is all the companionship that they need. The big question here is will computers ever go bad? I guess the more human like they get, the more of a chance that one might turn rogue and who knows what damage it will be able to do?

Today we depend on telephones, cell phones, computers, radios and fax machines for sending and receiving communications. This may not be the wave of the future. As your computer gets more powerful, you may be able to send all communications through it, including data from portable cell phone type devices. There will be wireless Internet hookups everywhere by then and it should be an easy matter to route a call through your computer. This is sort of what companies like Vanage do already with standard phones. It may turn out that even cell phone type devices will be such powerful computers that you won't even have to go through your computer to communicate, they will have enough capability themselves. If you keep all your financial records on your computer, you might be able to prepare your taxes with just the push of a button. The computer will figure out the best way to fill them out and just print them, forms and all.

Taking care of our health may become simpler for us. Before this can happen however, there has to be a change in the way drug companies operate. They don't want us to get over our diseases, they want us to take a pill every day to keep it in check, thus allowing for tremendous profits. If we can overcome this, things like cancer may be treated by just taking a spoonful of a liquid containing tiny nanobots, which are microscopic robots that would seek out the cancer and take it away as they left our bodies. Corrective gene treatment may make genetic disease a thing of the past. New powerful machines will diagnose us far better than any doctor previously could and early detection of disease will be the norm. No longer will tubes have to be inserted into us to look for disease, the machine will pick it up right away.

Graphic Source: Public Domain

The way we work today and the way we will work a hundred years from now could be entirely different. It just might turn out that hardly anyone would have to leave their homes to go to work. Even those that would have had to perform manual labor might be able to stay home and control some sort of robot that will perform that labor. It might also turn out that there will be far less jobs in that type of field and one person might be controlling hundreds of robots.

School could become a thing of the past. There is already talk of implanting chips into humans that have everything on them that you would need to know for your chosen profession. This has a lot of people worried however. They are afraid that the influential will get the good professions like doctors, engineers and lawyers and the rest of us might get the chip for store clerk and such. I guess that this is always a worry since when we look at history we see this type of thing everywhere.

It just might turn out that the technological future will be so different that we have no way of predicting it. I guess all we can do is let it take its course.