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124 Comments
- Rhapsodys, on 10/11/2007, -3/+118Reality happened.
- geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -10/+85"I'm kind of tired of the whole "Wheres the flying car I was promised?!"."
I'm not. Where's my damned flying car?! For that matter, where's my electric car? - phatcactus, on 10/11/2007, -3/+45Male mammary implants? Who promised that, and why?
- onionizer, on 10/11/2007, -4/+45Actually, I'm using my star trek communicator (we call it cell phone or videophone) to call my brother.
- sishgupta, on 10/11/2007, -15/+49Exactly. A lot of the "future" gadgets that were predictable lacked practicality.
I'm kind of tired of the whole "Wheres the flying car I was promised?!".
As if driving on two dimensions isn't dangerous enough. Theres drunk drivers, speeders, people who simply disregard driving laws, etc.
Do you really want to add a 3rd dimension to consumer traveling?
I could see maybe government controlled flying busses (shuttles) but I have enough trouble on the road with grandma driving infront of me breaking 200 meters earlier than everyone else because she can't see over the steering wheel. I really don't need her flying a car. - AntBing, on 10/11/2007, -2/+35Actually, many of the everyday products you use were offshoots from military technology developed to fight wars. GPS is just one example.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -4/+31Its true. We don't even have a talking banana yet. You would think they would have thought of that by now.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -15/+36Spending-money-on-war-instead-of-research happened.
- chazzy, on 10/11/2007, -4/+25This is an outrage. We should file a class action suit.
- onionizer, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18ah, and I forget to mention that we also have a sort of KITT thing from Knight Rider in our cars, and yes, it talks too. we call it GPS navigator.
- PabloIV, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18that's what I was thinking. A lot of things that were supposed to be invented, have been, they're just not practical, or at very early stages, but there they are.
Flying Car- Moller
RoboDog- Aibo
RoboMaid- Roomba
Videophones, Jetpacks, VR, etc...
They exist, they're just not practical.
Give thanks for the stuff that we do have, like decently powered computers that fit in your pocket, a huge international repository of free human knowledge, wireless connectivity to this repository from almost anywhere, bi-pedal robots, artificial blood, nanotech, new materials, the list just goes on and on. Humanity has grown in leaps and bounds even if it doesn't Look like it, if you want future land just go to disney... oh wait. - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -6/+20Commercialism happened. A new invention is created, followed by a highly profitable model that sees us getting this new invention piece by piece over as many products and years as possible.
Great example - releasing an 8gb iPhone, which will *inevitably* be followed by 20/40/60/80/???gb models. Instead of just using the storage already in iPods and building *from* there, Apple will build *to* there first.
Another example - processors. Multicore technology is created, so now we get to sit back while that hits the market with as gradual an increase as possible in each processor. Core Duo, superceded quickly by Core 2 Duo, superceded quickly by Core 2 Quad, which will of course be superceded just as quickly by an 8 core and so on.
Hard drives are another great example - Dell's started offering 32gb solid state drives in some of their laptops, while solid state drives are already offering more than 200gb of storage. SimpleTech expects to have a 512gb model available by the end of this year. Dell can build *towards* that for years, instead of just offering it when it's available and moving on to the next innovations. - JDenigma, on 10/11/2007, -8/+21@stevealford
I know. I don't understand why you were buried either. I dugg your comment. It amazes me to see some of the reactionary luddite like comments in this thread.
Hmm, how much are we really living in a world like 1984 where we're like Winston Smith? The government outlaws and regulates everything to death and stifles innovation all the while the government education system stunts childrens inspiration and imagination, and one wonders why everything seems so stagnant? Some of the lefites on here would bury me for this just because I'm promoting that evil free market approach yet they're the same types who would squeal about the RIAA and the government stifling innovation online for music. They would scream that we need all these government protections from the dangers of technology yet at the same time they would ridicule right wingers for being ostriches sticking their heads in the sand seeking all these government protections to protect us from those terrorists while taking away our liberty. Its hypocrisy all around. Just look at the computer industry and the Internet everyone. There has been such great progress and innovation at remarkable speed there yet it is practically void of any government intervention. Coincidence? Put 2 and 2 together. Contrast that to the government and NASA with space exploration. It's a joke. NASA is dead. Privatize space exploration if you want real progress! If you want to see sci-fi like advancements in our lifetime get the damn government out of our lives! We'll get better advances in space exploration, in medicine, in travel(no more government mercantilism subsidizing and propping up the oil industry).
Ok, I'm through. Now all you nerd leftists can proceed to bury me. I guess I'm just a naive libertarian. Excuse me for having the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit of the founding fathers. I don't expect government to protect me all the while ruining progress. - mhockey14221, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13Regardless, who would have thought 40 years ago that so many people would have their own computers, 5,000 songs could be on a portable telephone, and satellites could tell you where you are anywhere on Earth accurately?
- stevealford, on 10/11/2007, -19/+31Your damned flying car has been available for decades: http://www.moller.com
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Probably few. It's interesting how this all plays out. In past times we had dreams of more flying stuff and all sorts of bizarre gadgetry.
Now, a lot of people remark that these things have failed to materialize and some even go as far as saying it's a dissapointment. But the truth is, while many envisioned jetpacks and houses in the sky, no one (except their creators perhaps) seemed to envision things such as the iPod, the PC, and the internet. They really are cool things, it's a shame they pass under the radar. - mattmcm, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13@gcnaddict:
Too much information... - mb3581, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1320 years ago the year 2000 seemed to be an eternity away with promises of flying cars and an endless supply of cheap energy. and now its a passing memory but we are still what seems like an eternity away from such advancements. However, the world and technology has made a lot of great advancements in the past 20 years, we just have a long way to go. IMO, the entire future of the world rest on the development of technologies along the lines of cold fusion. that is where we should be shoveling money, not into bio-diesel and ethanol. I think these are great alternatives to dependency on oil, but they are merely patches and not solutions to the worlds growing hunger for energy.
- donkeyshow, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11screw convenience....i want my deathray and i want it now.
- thatsmyaibo, on 10/11/2007, -3/+10I don't remember being promised anything...
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9@limezor
I see what you're trying to say, and I wish war money could be spent on stuff other than killing people, but consider that war isn't a new thing as well, and that, a good number of the technical feats we have accomplished have come through war. It's very sad, I guess, but you can't deny that we all benefit from wartime advancements. - mrASSMAN, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7Many of the promises held true, but never made it into mass production.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8@stevealford & JDenigma
moller gets buried because moller is a popularly known as a fraud/scam/fantasy, which has hit quite a few people for cash.
This has all done the rounds on digg, /. and everywhere else numerous times over the years.
Here's an example: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp17987.htm
I guess you guys just didn't get the memo. :-) - jokerthief, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6We're not in the future yet.
- cjvos1, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6forget all of the future gadgets, i want my monkey butler. admittedly there would only be one at first, but i believe he could train others,
- modifiedbears, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7I don't want flying cars. Left or right seems to be too much for a lot of people to handle.
- tech42er, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5We have videophones, but no one really uses them.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5World War 2 and the militarisation associated with it advanced modern technology at an incredible rate.
Everything from nuclear technology to our understanding of all kinds of electromagnetic waves, to metallurgy, to engineering, to medicine, to aviation, to computers, to motor mechanics, to petrochemicals, and so on and so forth.
World War 2 really did pull our technology out of the dark ages in many fields. - synaesthesia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I was going to post something similar. I can videochat with my girlfriend in Asia, talk on my candy-bar sized cell phone with my mom in the UK, play xbox (w/ voice chat) alongside a global group of friends, zoom in on satellite imagery of my house (or anywhere on earth) with a few clicks of the mouse, then come online and laugh at people bitching about "where the hell is the future". The communications and information advances we've made in the past few decades more than outweigh the dim-sighted predictions from the past.
- swordphish, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4The big thing they told us in elementary school was that we'd be living on the moon by the time I was in High School.
Fast forward to post-college years...I can barely afford gas to drive back and forth to work everyday. - didgital, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4We actually almost had smell-o-vision. If anyone remembers iSmell, it was an internet based scent printer-like device. I experienced one at an internet convention back in the day. It was amazing. But the dot com bubble got the best of it.....
- hplasm, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Who said anyone else could have a flying car. It's "where's MY flying car?" for a reason!
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4No one is lost in space yet, and that was supposed to happen 10 years ago.
- etnu, on 10/11/2007, -4/+7@fkr3
Huh? Do you have any idea what the costs are for this stuff? The only way that the iPhone could support more than 8G or so of storage right now would be to either triple the price (have you seen how quickly the cost of flash escalates as capacity increases?) or add a hard drive, making the batteries not last as long, making it bigger, and making it hotter.
The same is largely true for multi-core machines. As the cost of each individual core goes down, they'll add more to the machines. If it costs them $25 per core and they want to have a price point of $100-150, they can't exactly put 16 cores in there. They could either raise the price and put more in there (but most people wouldn't need that much power anyway, so wouldn't bother buying it), or keep the price as is and use fewer cores until the price comes down.
Solid state drives have the same issue. Just because the technology exists doesn't mean it's affordable. 32G solid state drives cost over $500 retail, and dell is paying a minimum of $400+ for that. Do you have half a clue how much a 200G SSD would cost today? Samsung estimates that it'll still cost 3x as much per GB for SSD as it will for traditional hard drives by 2010 -- it's about 10-15x as much now.
Yes, prices fall rapidly as economies of scale come into the picture and as improved manufacturing technology comes into existence, but it's not like they can just magically make the best technology available to everyone for dirt cheap. - rhoadesb, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4 In 1969 when Armstrong took his famous step, I remeber thinking for sure we would have bases on the moon by now, and likely would have taken at least one trip to Mars with humans aboard.
What happened? I have little idea. But whether one considers a moon base for military reasons (the "high ground"), scientific research, or industrial reasons, we should have had a base there long ago. I find that we do not very strange. From Kennedy's speech in 1962 it took 7 years with old computer technology. Now we hear from Bush that it will take 20 to do it a second time? Come on. - BlackAdderIII, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4and portable videophone, popular in science fiction books - we actually forget how outlandish that seemed at the time.
In fact, I was shocked reading some old sci-fi recently (Asimov), to find how much of the tech from the distant future is obsolete right now. - hamstu, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6Reminds me of this Threadless t-shirt:
http://www.threadless.com/product/63/Damn_Scientists - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -5/+7I partially disagree. While I agree we need a good energy source (cold fusion is nice), I don't think we should necessarily be shoveling money into that instead of bio-diesel and ethanol, and I don't think the 'entire future of the world' rests on development along those lines. There are plenty of other things to be developed that don't hinge on that premise. For example, we still have a ways to go in terms of the medical field.
Remember in Star Trek IV (oh god...) when the crew snuck into the hospital to rescue Chekov, and a woman asked McCoy to help her with her dialysis. He quipped, "Dialysis? What is this, the dark ages?" and handed her a little blue ball. Upon passing her in the hall on the way out she was cured. Remember the scene where they beamed that device onto Chekov's head to repair the blood vessel? We might not ever have those things, but look at stem cell research and the amazing things it could bring. - typecase, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4What amazes me is that in the early 70s we had a supersonic passenger transport, the Concorde. Today we still have the 747 we had ages ago and amazingly, we're even worse off--no supersonic passenger plane. It's one area where I wish we'd make progress. A 2hr flight from London to New York should be reality by now, methinks.
- hplasm, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3"I can't believe it's not Udder!"
Some people will buy anything. - HolyCrapYo, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5Imagine watching a porn with Smell-O-Vision.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Someone above set it; when you let people's greed and paetty needs get in the way, they can only do the small things, not the grand challenges. That is why our Gov. sponsors grand challenges; because if left to itself, capitalism cannot address them. Well worn examples- highways, electric, or the space race.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Well I have to say that anyone who thought that is a bit ignorant. It's a pleasant thought but it is too optimistic. In fact, I'm not even sure how you manage to say that, seeing as 2007 - 20 = 1987 = Still in the Cold War. Maybe 30 years ago, but even then, the Cold War was still there and we had just gotten through Vietnam.
Consider that many people truly believed World War I was 'The Great War', which many considered to be the last war. - kingcam, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Everyone just needs to learn a little bit of patience, just look at how far we have come in the last 100 years. In the year 1900 there were no airplanes, no computers, no televisions, basicly no cars, no telephones and no widespread electricity. In the last centry complete economical sectors have been born and have reached fruition; in less than 100 years we have gone from kittyhawk to space, from the write brothers to the B-2, from the post office to the internet.
By the middle of the century academia accnologished this and was full of unbridled optimish, they were excited and, decidedly, unscientific. Their predictions did not come to fruition and that is bad for more than just the odvious reason. Now, fearing backlash, the scientific community fears to speculate and dream of large consepts on the scale that they once did. Scientists are afraid of being riticuled if they make even a small prediction or say they are sure about something. This reluctance to hypothesis has left the general public disenchanted with science, "They got it wrong" has emmerged as a prevailing maxim to explain everything from the existance of desiese to the resergiance of critisim against evolution.
However we must have faith, when reflecting on the last 100 (or several hundred for that matter) years of human development we see an acceleration, a trend that we still see (in computer technology for instance). Weither you believe in a technological singularity or not great changes will be experiance in the lifetime of the living generations, greater than those of the last century; increase in life expectancy compounding the change.
I may not have my Jet pack or flying car but I am glad, I am willing to trade in those things for this moment in time. The 21st century will be the greatest time in all of history, past and future, those who live in it will experience a technological singularity, we will live durring perhaps the most thrilling time in human history, a time when man will do great things, unless of course man kills himself (or forces the planet to do so). - andrewpmk, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I don't want a flying car. I just want cheap, good quality, ground based public transit.
- MrTea, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2or with Taste-O-Vision
- Kyderdog, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Sadly the future arrived but the batteries where not included
- vertinox, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I would argue economics happened.
No one predicted the internet or cell phones back in the day (actually a few uknowns did but they weren't as popularized as flying cars and ray guns because they were too complex for the average person to understand the need for something like the internet), but it turned out that the internet was more economically viable than say flying cars... Considering all the hazards involved in flying.
In that respect the internet itself is extremely futuristic compared to the 1950's and if you showed average person from 1907 a computer running Half Life 2 he'd scream witch carftery and run out of the room. Its not that we are creating futuristic technologies, it is just that people from the past didn't understand technology as we do today.
I'm sure that even today we are making assumptions about things that will prove to be wrong in the next 10 or 100 years. - airship, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I want my airships. They promised me lots of big, slow airships. Where the heck are they?
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Larry Niven invented "organ legging" which is criminals kidnapping and killing people to steal their organs. That has come true.
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