As we continue to experience ever advancing technological prowess undergirding our society, it is useful to occasionally take time to consider the impact of technologies that have become viable within our lifetimes.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

3) What technologies touted as the "next great thing" do you think are likely contenders for "Great Flops of the 21st Century"?

If possible, provide some links to upcoming technologies.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

Two things - the internet and home video entertainment formats (in movies, first VHS, now DVD and BluRay; and the whole sector of video gaming).

The internet puts the world's largest reference library, entertainment store, and talking shop at almost everyone's fingertips, and is still expanding as a rate which conceivably could connect the whole human race for possibly the first time since our species left the African savannah.

And home entertainment formats have made it possible for filmmakers to become connected with their audiences in some really cool ways. DVD, especially, with it's facility to carry extras and commentaries, puts ideas that were in the sole purview of film school into everyone's living room.

Video gaming is just brilliant, immesrive fun, in a way that board or card games never really have been (to my mind they can be just as fun, but more because of the social aspects than anything so enormously engaging about the games themselves).

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

Digital 3D, as is just starting to become common in cinema e.g. Dolby 3D looks really good. I went to a demonstration of Dolby's technology, which included their then-new 3D process, a couple of years ago (who knew their European headquarters were in my backyard?)

My immediate thought was - wow; just imagine what will happen when home televisions with high enough definition and scan rates (the 3D cinema process uses 100Hz) allow home 3D this good. Then, imagine how video game developers might be able to use 3D in gaming. That is going to be sooooooo cool!

3) What technologies touted as the "next great thing" do you think are likely contenders for "Great Flops of the 21st Century"?

Theatrical digital 3D will, I reckon, be short lived. The economics of theatrical exhibition mean that very few theatres will be able to afford to upgrade to the digital projectors that support it (though they will support "ordinary" HD Digital 2-D projection), and I think the history of 3D cinema is such that it will always been seen as a gimmick.

However, I reckon that someone like Sony has the technical knowhow and content production muscle to be able to come up with a range of domestic equipment (TVs, projectors and consoles) that can both enable 3D home gaming and produce enough content to make it worthwhile buying the kit (nobody, save a few geeks with more money than sense, is going to fork out thousands of dollars to play one video game no matter how good it is).

The minute home 3D (for either movies, TV or gaming, but especially for gaming) is possible, the days of theatrical exhibition of movies (in 3D at least) are numbered.

I think the technology of digital 3D is fantastic, but to date I think the target market is deeply flawed. It needs to be geared to home entertainment & gaming, not just the biggest screen in each of half the world's multiplexes.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

Let's see; we're talking from the mid-Fifties on. My first instinct is to answer the microwave oven. Seriously. It's not the most important thing in the world, but I use it all the time, and it makes daily life a lot easier. There are other "new" technologies that I use frequently -- the ATM, the personal computer -- and they make life easier in some ways, but I don't love them the way I love my microwave oven.

Also trivial, but of personal importance to me, is the VCR. (I'm thinking of the DVD as just a refinement of the basic concept, just as the CD is just a refinement of the LP.) How else would I have a chance to watch Murders in the Zoo or Skidoo or The Trial of Billy Jack without the ability to record these things when they show up on some cable station or other?

More seriously, the ability to create insulin which is identical to human insulin, via recombinant DNA technology, has made the treatment of diabetes (which is going to be an extremely serious challenge to any health care system in the future) safer and more effective. (As a nice side effect, it's one more tiny little nail in the coffin of the idea that human happiness depends on the death of animals.) I could name a lot of other medical stuff, of course. (Not exactly "new," but the way in which aspirin has evolved from something you take for a headache into something you take in order to prevent heart attack and stroke is truly amazing. It's the nearest thing to an actual "wonder drug.")

You didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway, that the "new" technology which I hate with a passion is the cellular phone, and all its mutant offspring. The telephone is, at best, an extremely annoying necessity; there was no need to have people carry it around 24/7, so it can annoy me even more.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

Let's ask the clever folks at Popular Science.

Link

Their "Best of What's New 2008" consists of 100 technological innovations that they thought were worthy of notice.

Here's one that stood out for me.

Link



The other "green tech" innovations are pretty cool, too, so I'd say this is a promising trend for the near future.

3) What technologies touted as the "next great thing" do you think are likely contenders for "Great Flops of the 21st Century"?

Things I don't expect to live to see include real artificial intelligence, truly effective "virtual reality," disease-eradicating nanobots, discovery of extraterrestrial life, and other science fiction dreams. I hope I'm wrong.

Sadly, I think the big disappointment iin practical technology is going to be fusion power.

Link



However, reserach on this scale is likely to pay for itself after we all all dust.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

The breakthrough's in advanced prosthetics for missing limbs. Sure they came about due to a needless war, but at least there is one small silver lining. Advances in medical technology are usually accelerated during prolonged combat.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

Regrowing limbs, making the above prostetics obsolete.

American military researchers say they have unlocked the secret to regrowing limbs and recreating organs in humans who have sustained major injuries.

Using "nanoscaffolding," the researchers have regrown a man's fingertip and the internal organs of several test subjects.

The technology works by placing a very fine apparatus called a scaffold, which is made of polymer fibres hundreds of times finer than a human hair, in place of a missing limb or damaged organ. The scaffold acts as a guide for cells to grab onto so they can begin to rebuild missing bones and tissue. The tissue grows through tiny holes in the scaffold, in the same way a vine snakes its way up a trellis.
Link

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

DNA tech is a biggie. When I was in college ('83-'87), it was in the very early stages. I can remember that in my first lab job, the reference bible was Maniatis, which was basically a polished-up lab notebook. You still made every reagent from scratch, and a lot of people still made some of their equipment from scratch. There were a lot of homemade plexiglass-and-aquarium-adhesive gel electrophoresis tanks (when you see the classic picture of DNA bands, it is this kind of gel) with bare, exposed electrodes back then, because if you could find them in catalogs, they were too expensive. Now, things are a breeze. Everything comes in kits, and what took days or weeks to do back then takes minutes or hours now.

Along the same lines would also have to be the isolation of taq polymerase and the development of PCR, or the Polymerase Chain Reaction procedure. Taq is a unique little thing that made a giant, time-saving advance possible. It is hard to calculate its effect on science, its so big. PCR is what allows us to amplify tiny amounts of DNA (think CSI) to the point where we can study it. It really allowed for a tremendous leap in productivity in research. Jurassic Park would not exist without it, right?

While I sympathize with Victoria's hatred of cell phones, I really appreciate them. I don't use mine much, but I feel helpless without it. Were I to break down on the highway with my two kids in the car, I'd hate to be without it. And sometimes it is just very useful to be able to communicate from your car. The cost is below anything I could have dreamed of a few years ago. You can pick up a working pay-as-you-go phone and some minutes for $20-$30.

Finally, video games. One of the things I used to dream about as a little kid was driving a tank (that was about 1970). Or just flying or driving something, you know? There was not much available at the time that quenched that thirst. Then came the Atari 2600, and Combat!!! I could feel it coming. Good things were happening for kids. I wasted money on a Commodore 64 to play Donkey Kong and such. I played the original Leisure Suit Larry on an early IBM (at work, of course). It was all less than satisfying. But now, games are great. You can fly, you can drive, you can go on a crime spree, you can make music, you can go to war, you can throw a pass and dunk a basketball - you can do just about anything right now, and it looks great. I, personally, have been completely happy in my fantasy world ever since Battlefield 1942 came out.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

I used to keep up with this stuff more, but now I'm pretty limited to things Yahoo sees fit to slap on its front page news.

Out of necessity, there will have to be some sort of alternative energy source that makes the list. I'll take a stab and say that harvesting new energy from the sun, in some form, will be the big advance. I've always been impressed with the simplicity and efficiency of plants - maybe the new energy source will take advantage of plants in a clever new way. I saw a Popular Science or Popular Mechanics article about putting algae in some sort of solar panel, but I don't remember too many details. Right now, it takes too much effort and energy to really make that kind of gadget energy-efficient, but time always takes care of that kind of detail.

3) What technologies touted as the "next great thing" do you think are likely contenders for "Great Flops of the 21st Century"?

Bioethanol from corn. Right idea, sort of, but terrible execution. As I said above, I agree with the notion of harvesting the sun's energy, and I also like the idea of using microbes to do some of the work. But the practice of 1) taking food (or resources once used to grow food) to (2) inefficiently convert those calories into fuel to power cars when (3) it is not cost-effective anyway, while (4) spending scarce tax resources to do so and (5) neglecting better alternatives in the process - well, that seems stupid on a bunch of levels.

A few weeks ago, I tried (unsuccessfully) to find some comparison of the useful, net calories harvested from an acre of corn (food) and the useful, net calories produced from the ethanol itself. I suspect that the loss of calories is outrageous, and a near-total waste of the acre's capacity to produce something useful.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

The home PC, the creation of the graphical user interface, the creation of HTTP and HTML and all of the technology that spun out of their creation. I wouldn't be doing what I"m doing now without them.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

Efficient solar energy technology. It exists and, hopefully, will gain widespread use.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?
Soooooo many options. I think the best candidates relate to materials technology and electronics. Underlying pretty much all the electronics is the integrated circuit, and the advances in materials and production that have allowed ICs to go from 10s of transistors to millions of transistors and climbing.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?
Energy technologies. This is one that may make the list: "Fish Tech" generates energy from low velocity currents.

3) What technologies touted as the "next great thing" do you think are likely contenders for "Great Flops of the 21st Century"?
Technologies intended to slow or reverse global warming.

For those interested in a handy source for science and tech happenings, give this site a gander:

EurekAlert!

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

The PC for sure, but I had been working mainframes for ten years before getting my first PC. Never thought I'd be making a living through it, but here it is.

Alternative energy tech, which got its start in the 1970s, bumped along, and now looks to be heading toward boom town.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

I'm looking toward thin Internet clients about the size of a paperback novel and cheaper than all get out. Already there are small laptops called netbooks for cheap, like here. Under $400 today, will probably be heading for under $300 next year.

As a quickly portable backup machine should we ever have to get out of this place quick, it beats smartphones for keeping up a business that depends on an Internet connection. So this thing is already on my list for early next year.

Solid-state disk based on magnetic chip tech would be nice to see before checking out. Hopefully the magchip (aka MRAM) will have a longer life than flash memory. It has been in the works since 2006, but still very expensive:

Mag Chip Announced

The benefit will be instant-on (or nearly so) computers and everything working fast as if on RAM virtual disk.

Broadband and net storage may do away with PCs and Macs altogether. Do I want to see that? Not sure, but oh what they heck.

3) What technologies touted as the "next great thing" do you think are likely contenders for "Great Flops of the 21st Century"?

Ajax web applications that load up the client with lots of stuff, and I think that's going to go away once Internet thin clients hit the market big time. Thin Internet clients will likely be sub $100 units, not counting monitor, keyboard and mouse -- then you rent applications from a big server farm that has rock solid security, backup and disaster recovery. Or many such server farms. It'd be like the smartphone on steroids.

The providers (server farms) may even give away the thin clients for a 2-year service plan, like they do with smartphones now. Got my BlackBerry for free that way. The Internet capabilities of the BlackBerry turned out to be not strong enough for freelance writing, only good for notifying clients that the Evil Backhoe Operator has once again cut through our fiber. We're a small town -- just one ring, unlike bigger places with redundant fiber.

Here's a thin client meant for enterprise IT: Devon IT

Sun Micro is doing this too with the Sun Ray.

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

PCs and cell phones have been the big ones imo. Let’s also include vehicle “stability control” that will save thousands of lives a year.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

The big one for me is fusion power. Along with cars that drive themselves, and ethanol from switch grass.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0029-5515/45/2/004

1) What technologies that have become viable within your lifetime are you most thankful for, and why?

I never fully appreciated my DVR until yesterday. The Jonas Brothers “performed” at halftime of the Dallas/Seattle game.

I was able to fast forward through the concert in mere seconds without sound.

2) What technologies on the horizon (i.e., in development now) do you think will make your list before you die, and why?

If Thomas Friedman is correct about a green revolution, the possibilities are endless in this area are limitless. If Americans are too obtuse - think Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush - to lead the way, someone else will.

Edited to add:

I'm sure our nation's kids were excited to see the Jonas Brothers. I'm happy for them, even if it ain't my cup of tea.

I kind of like the lowly microwave oven. In our family, it is hard to get us all together for one meal. I remember what it was like reheating food on the stove and how long it took. Now it's a matter of minutes or seconds.

Cell phones are very good, too. They have saved lives, helped solve crimes, provided film footage for news programs, etc.

Of course, the personal computer is the biggie. But the microwave is important, too.

What I would like to see in the future are transporter chambers ala Star Trek. That would be sweet, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it!

Man, so many.

GPS, heads up display, fly by wire, electronic fuel injection computers called "megasquirt".

I am hoping for lithium phosphate batteries to become affordable, and electric motors to drive cars and bikes become even more efficient, lighter and more powerful.

I am hoping for a move away from the internal combustion engine, on to other more efficient use of burning fuels, along with using of renewable fuel.

Safe nuclear power, preferably a good way to dispose the waste as well.

And Bof- my 5 year old boy thought they "were horrible".

You must have an above average 5-year-old.

I disagree with that one totally- since global warming is so devestating up here, and we are working so hard on dealing with the effects of global warming, and there is tech being generated from everything from erosion control to current mapping.

All of it is rolled into the big tent of "slowing or stopping global warming".

Reversing though? Probably a pipe dream there.

I am curious to see if they start applying CURRENT tech to at least dealing with global greenhouse gasses- CO2 scrubbers are old tech, but, build enough of them, they can "fix" CO2 as a greenhouse gas that at least reverts us back to pre-1900s levels of CO2.

Could be a growth industry?



Yes, he must be, he refrained from calling them "gay" as well. My nephews had no such hindrance. IN fact, my nephew said "oh look, even the stage is flaming" (never did actually use the word "gay"- to his credit).

Since there really is no “global warming” – even Gore now just says “Climate Change” and nothing we can pin all on CO2 lets hope we spend out money on new energy and efficiency which will free us of oil dependency and lower CO2 – as a byproduct.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lott/lott59.html

“Top UN scientists have been forced to admit that natural weather occurrences are having a far greater effect on climate change than CO2 emissions as a continued cooling trend means there has been no global warming since 1998.
But despite overwhelming signs of global cooling - China's coldest winter for 100 years and record snow levels across Northeast America - allied with temperature records showing a decline - global warming advocates still cling to the notion that the world is cooling because of global warming!
"Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said," reports the BBC.
"The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer."
"This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory."
The report admits that La Nina and its counterpart, El Nino, are "two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world."
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april...8_cools_off.htm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../INLB14C70S.DTL

http://southdakotapolitics.blogs.com/south...cience-the.html


R

You know, this is going to sound so lame.... and it wasn't really in my lifetime per se....

But boy, I sure am thankful for the toilet. I'm glad I don't have to dig a hole in the backyard, or hang out amongst the flies and stench of the old way every day. Flush... and.... goodbye! [little wave]

Okay, here's one - the CFL lightbulb. I just changed *every* bulb in my house to 11 or 13 watt bulbs. I know my party will never champion green technology until it becomes a "me too" campaign issue, so I'm taking the initiative to be responsible as an individual and an American. I'll save 5 bucks a month, save the equivalent pollution of 1.6 autos on the road every year and be on the cutting edge of... lighting... in... my... house.

Hmmm. It's still cool to me.

Body Scan technology that can accurately assess risk, disease or cancer with degrees of certainty. I think there's a market for it, a demand for it, and it can save time and money in what will no doubt be a fledging health care industry.


The electric car. Electricity is only going to go up, and powering an automobile from your home box is going to tax the heck out of it. Costs for repair and maintenance and "gassing up" will be prohibitive, even for the fanboys.

I also think the Jonas Brothers are contendors for "Great Flops of the 21st Centry".

Just sayin'.

I'll agree wholeheartedly with that (being a Type I diabetic) and add Insulin pump technology, blood glucose monitoring, and the up-and-coming real-time blood glucose monitoring systems that are now coming to market (and are pretty high cost at the moment).

These technologies have made Type I (or Juvenile) diabetes no longer a death sentence for the more than one million Americans (some say 3 million) that have the condition like I do.