August 19 2008 / by jheylin
Category: Entertainment Year: General Rating: 3 New
The most amazing thing about some of the movies hitting theaters nowadays is their uncanny ability to map human movement for special effects. Case in point are creatures such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, the great ape in King Kong, and of course the infamous movie Beowulf which mapped out the actors bodies so accurately that in some of the shots you’d have sworn they weren’t computerized images. It only makes sense that this kind of technology would gradually find its way into the broader consumer market.
Already people are spending hundreds on golf clubs that measure swing speed and trajectory, or gloves that tell you if you’re gripping the handles too hard. In fact there are even devices out there already that can tell you where your swing is wrong, if your feet are too far apart, or if your posture is poor. You can buy equipment and software that can work for just about any sport. Tennis, bowling, baseball or track and field to name a few. Heck, even curling, the greatest Olympic sport in the world, could benefit from video analysis.
Down the road we could see the technology get so advanced that instead of having to carry around 30 pounds of equipment costing over a thousand dollars, all we’ll need is an add-on to our digital cameras. Coupled with expert analysis instead of self-analysis, this product could change the importance and role of coaches worldwide.
Sports are perfect for this technology, but what other applications could this be used for?
Imagine taking tango lessons in your home with a world-class dancer telling you where you’re going wrong and what you’re doing right. A culinary program showing you the proper way to clean a fish or prepare cherries jubilee. If we really expand our minds, how about a mobile program on a sailboat speaking into your ear piece whether you’re on the port side instead of starboard, or telling you how to tie a knot step by step. What would you think about taking karate lessons from Jet Li?
If you enjoy Wii Fit, imagine playing a video game that depends on your every move. When attacking an entrenched bunker you have to lay lay flat on the ground, then jump up quickly to sprint across a mine field. Or maybe you have to dodge a lineman to dive and score the winning touchdown.
The possibilities are almost endless and not all that far from feasible.
But would there be a downside to this kind of technology?
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August 20 2008 / by Marisa Vitols
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 1 New
The Future Scanner Daily Top 5 serves to highlight 5 of the best scans submitted to the Future Scanner during the last 24 hours.
August 19 2008 / by jheylin
Category: Security Year: General Rating: 2 New
The US Navy recently spent 75 million dollars on developing an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) generator. The by-product of a nuclear blast, an EMP fries anything electronic within its reach. In a worse-case scenario, a massive nuclear bomb could be detonated over the Atlantic seaboard, knocking out electricity in cities like New York, Washington DC, Boston and Philadelphia. This could be used as a pre-emptive strike for an invasion, to blind radar to incoming missiles or for some other nefarious purpose. Knocking out electronics for a few weeks might just be enough to send our culture into complete chaos. In effect, we’re hard at work building such a weapon to test its effects on potential military and civilian targets so as to better prepare in case of attack.
Our culture has become incredibly dependent on electronic gadgets and information networks. Land-lines have been replaced by cellphones, the postal system by email and social network websites. Is there any doubt that even just ten years down the line our dependence will grow even more? Our reliance on electronics certainly isn’t going to diminish, it’s going to increase exponentially. With that in mind, how much damage could an EMP do in the near future?
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August 18 2008 / by jheylin
Category: Social Issues Year: General Rating: 4 New
Just about everyone at some point in their lives (mostly childhood) has desired to possess a Harry Potter style invisibility cloak. The boundaries would have been limitless. No candy store would have been safe, no locker room unwatched, and no secret whisperings left unheard. Our infatuation with invisibility has gotten so intense that researchers are working nonstop to try and perfect an invisibility cloak for who knows what market. The military? The budding private eye? What could we possibly use them for?
The civilian applications of such a device all seem to have nefarious agendas. Think about it — What would you do with an invisibility cloak? Would you follow your kids to school? Sneak out to get the mail in your birthday suit? Like a t-shirt with the slogan “I just do what the voices tell me,” the novelty would soon wear off. There just isn’t any reason why the average person should have an invisibility cloak.
What about the military? Invisibility cloaks could come in handy for all sorts of missions and tactical situations. Someone invisible can get a lot closer to a target and disappear a lot quicker than someone without.
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August 18 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Entertainment Year: General Rating: 5 Hot New
By Dick Pelletier
As the 21st century unfolds, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics will change our lives in many ways. We will enjoy better health, a longer lifespan, and new conveniences. But these developments pale in comparison to simulated reality systems projected for future entertainment.
Psychologists list our most enjoyable recreation activities as: visiting family and friends, watching TV, browsing the Internet, playing video games, making phone calls, shopping, eating out, and catching a flick.
U.S. Census reports 98% of American families own 2.4 TV sets per home and watch 32 hours of TV each week. 75% access the Internet from home, and nearly everyone uses the telephone.
Sales drive this multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. Consumer Electronics Association projects more than 18 million TV sets will be sold this year. New models are larger and thinner; some with fancy features such as live-show pause and smart program selection.
Experts believe future entertainment systems will satisfy much more of our recreational needs. In his web article, “Views of the Future,” British Telecom futurologist Ian Pearson predicts by:
2015 – TV, computer, and phone converge into a wall-size, interactive, 3D screen, delivering entertainment and information tailored to our wishes. When idle, it displays beach, forest, or other scenes so real, we think we are there.
2020 – Nano-size electronics inside “active contact lenses” receives TV, video games, Internet, and phone calls; and displays images directly onto the retina. Tune program with pocket keyboard initially; later with thought control. Watch TV; browse the web, or video-phone a friend; all with eyes open or closed.
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August 20 2008 / by Marisa Vitols
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 1 New
The Future Scanner Daily Top 5 serves to highlight 5 of the best scans submitted to the Future Scanner during the last 24 hours.
August 18 2008 / by juldrich
Category: Business & Work Year: General Rating: 5 Hot New
By Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from jumpthecurve.net and dotheimpossible08.com
In 2005, I wrote a book on General George C. Marshall entitled “Soldier, Statesman, Peacemaker: Leadership Lessons from George C. Marshall.” One of my favorite quotes of Marshall’s is the advice he pounded into the heads of his junior officers: “Study the first six months of the next war.”
It was great advice in the 1920s and 1930s (when Marshall trained over 200 officers who would later become generals during World War II), and it is still great advice today. To this end, I’d like to direct you to two news articles from today’s papers. The first is from The Guardian and it discusses how the brain will be the battlefield of the future. Among other things it discusses how drugs may soon be used as “pharmacological land mines,” and how the advances in neuroscience could alter our definition of torture.
The second article reviews how the U.S. may be vulnerable to Internet attacks such as those which Russia is currently employing in its war against Georgia.
Together, the two stories strongly suggest that military planners should be “studying the first six months of the next war” because the next war is likely to be radically different from that which they are currently planning today.
August 18 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Technology Year: General Rating: 5 Hot New
By Dick Pelletier
Futurist Ray Kurzweil, in his recent book, Fantastic Voyage, dubs the 2020s as “the golden age of nanotech”. Nanotech first gained worldwide attention in 1986 with Eric Drexler’s book, Engines of Creation, which detailed amazing wonders to come that would change humanity beyond our wildest dreams.
At the heart of Drexler’s vision is a small machine called an assembler, which, when loaded with nanobots, can build things one atom at a time. With instructions from the Internet, assemblers can extract atoms from raw materials such as dirt, air, and seawater and turn them into food, clothes, and appliances; or any item desired. They can even build another assembler.
Some companies are already creating nano-enhanced products, such as makeup, lotions, and sunscreens, which last longer and look better. But Drexler says by the 2020s, nanobots will do much more. On command they can change hair and skin color, and remove wrinkles and excess fat. Future nanobots will give us great health in a perfect body.
Already in design are nanobots that repair cells, fix damaged DNA, remove toxins, eliminate cholesterol, stop cancer, and reverse aging. You could even mix and match your age: distinguished hairline of a senior, sturdy frame of a thirty-year-old, lusty libido of a twenty something, and sharp eyesight of a child.
In the entertainment world, nanobots promise full immersion of virtual reality systems. By mid-2020s, “neuro-bots” will provide artificial environments indistinguishable from real ones. Enjoy a trip to Mars or a memorable romance – without leaving home.
Scientists predict by the late 2020s, nanobots will enable optic nerves to receive and send information. We will view and understand TV without using our eyes – and transmit thoughts without using our voice.
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August 18 2008 / by Marisa Vitols
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 1 New
In addition to our weekly awards, every week MemeBox releases a Top 10 List of the most interesting and useful Future Scans posted the during the preceding week. This list is a great way to get acquainted with what the Future Scanner has to offer and to quickly digest some great information.
August 18 2008 / by Marisa Vitols
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 1 New
Here at MemeBox, Sunday is the day we look back at all of the Future Blogger posts and Future Scanner scans in an effort to distill and recognize the best of what you, the community, have contributed to the site throughout the previous 7 days.
Future Scanner of the Week: martymcfly for scans including for scans including Nanotech Waterproofing for Planes and Biometric Hacking.
Future Blogger of the Week: futuretalk for posts including Scientists debate human future: biotech vs. nanotech and Experts believe death could be conquered by the 2040s.
Future Scan of the Week: Lessig: Counter Terrorism Czar Told Me There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act
- Scanned by adbatstone80
Future Blogger Post of the Week: The Aurora Concept Browser: Is this the Future of the Computing Experience?-
- Written by Mielle
Congratulations, winners!
August 14 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 6 Hot New
By Dick Pelletier
Biotech – Driven by baby-boomers’ quest for better health and longer life is making headlines with stem cell research and other advances. National Cancer Institute director Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach recently declared, because of biotech, “By 2015, nobody will die of cancer – it won’t be cured by that time, but drugs will be available to prevent the pain, sickness and death that cancer now dishes out.”
Nanotech – By building things one atom at a time, this amazing technology promises “super bodies” that never age, get sick, or die; with vast amounts of intelligence downloaded to our brain.
At a recent Foresight Institute seminar in Palo Alto, CA, Gregory Stock and Ray Kurzweil participated in the “Debate of the Decade: Bio Future or Machine Future?”
Stock, UCLA professor and author of “Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future” faced off against Kurzweil, entrepreneur and author of “The Age of Spiritual Machines: How We Will Live and Think in the New Age of Intelligent Machines”.
Stock began by challenging Kurzweil’s rapid timetable for turning humanity into cyborgs, which Kurzweil sees happening within a few decades. “Biological enhancement sounds stodgy compared to some of the things talked about by Ray,” Stock said. “But I don’t think migration to a non-organic body will happen any time soon.”
Stock believes biotech advances, already underway, will soon give us a body free from sickness and disease with an extended lifespan of 150 years.
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August 15 2008 / by Marisa Vitols
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 1 New
The Future Scanner Daily Top 5 serves to highlight 5 of the best scans submitted to the Future Scanner during the last 24 hours.
