Future is much closer than it appears. It is much closer than our imagination. And certainly it is not going to end 2012.Cutting edge technology is going to change the way people live, work and even think. TECHNOLOGY IS PUSHING FROM EVERY DIRECTION. GETTING FASTER AND BETTER WITH EACH PASSING SECOND.
1)NEXT WORLD REAL-ESTATE
Global warming has really taken a toll on modern era and is bugging scientists and common people alike. Drowning big cities are of prime concern as 8 out of 10 biggest cities in the world are situated near coastal areas.
Cities have to be rethought and re-built from scratch. An idea is in the air to adjust with water rather than fight it. Slabs made of foam and concrete will serve as city- bases for floating cities. On which houses and even complete neighborhoods will be attached and it will be very much like modern day cities. It will be a floating version of the 'world island'-Dubai. Water Studio is a company working on this.
The best part of it all will be the detachable connections so that any person may move his house away from a city and move it to another city depending upon his needs, climate etc.. suppose a person is transferred from London to New York then what he simply has to do is move his house to the new location without bothering about the prices and availability of houses there.
2)SMART DUST
The concept of smart dust(as Dr. Keispiester of university of Berkeley calls them) is very interesting. They are small small microcomputers sensing,computing,communication and power in one small package. Cities will have an entire network of these smart dusts built right into them. The result will be next world smart cities. They will be everywhere, on homes, in work places, in streets everywhere.
And each of them will be interconnected.
To give a rough idea...just think of it....suppose you are entering your office and the smart dust at the building gate withes you good morning and directs you to the then vacant elevator. Smart dust at the elevator will recognize you it will directly take you to your floor. Smart dust at the floor's entrance will communicate with your computer and will automatically boot it up.
On your way back home the smart dust will be 'smart' enough to sense your state of mind and prepare your dinner according to that. Seems fiction doesn't it??? Well there is more...
each room of your house will consist of touch panels depicting your entire room containing a picture of your room. You can turn on lights, TV or even tidy your sofa by just one touch in the panel in the concerned picture.
More...
your computer will be built right into your contact lenses and you need not carry around even i-pads!!! these smart lenses will be connected to your brain and you can surf the net using your mind!!!!
3)TRANSPORTATION-GEN-NEXT
Think of a future where you will fly over transport. Yes you heard it right,you will fly right over the busy streets, avoiding all the traffic jams. This will be made possible by the use of jet-packs and personalized air crafts. You might think about having a jam overhead but NO. These personalized air crafts will be interconnected and will follow pre programmed routes so as to avoid accidents.
Under water transport systems is something which may be considered as the next world transport. It will consist of cars and other auto mobiles capable of running on roads as well as under water. Rimmspeed is a company which is on track in developing these future machines. Keep in mind that ours is primarily an ocean planet!!!!
Leave alone transporting yourself, you will be able to transport your presence to places far away from your home. This will be an improved version of what we know today as video conferencing. The Cisco research labs are working on this very thing about how to transport an entire 3-D model of people over places. Then not only you will be able to hold remote meetings but also remote dates as well!!
The Geo-Browser is something which is being developed at the Google labs, which in future may take you through a walk in streets of New-York while being at your home in Mumbai.
4)POWER, ELECTRICITY, SOURCES OF FUTURE
PIEZOELECTRICITY is the future source of electricity. Piezoelectric crystals are those which produce electricity under application of mechanical force. Pads made out of these crystals may be placed at high traffic points and the people stepping on them will produce electricity. It is estimated that one person walking for as hour will produce 50 Watts of electricity by this way. Doesn't seem much isn't it??? but multiply that by thousands and you hove your footsteps lighting all the street lights of you future city!
In future you shouldn't be surprised to see these piezoelectric panels in streets, lanes, footpaths, cross roads, mall entrances.....everywhere.
5)ADVANCES IN GENETIC ENGINEERING ( can we be immortal?)
In future we may be able to control the biggest problem mankind has ever faced. Death itself!
Aubrey De gray of the Methuselah Foundation is a Cambridge scholar is working on solving this most fundamental human problem. He is working on delaying the inevitable. Delay aging by treating it as a simple engineering problem.
The trick is to find out what each gene in our body exactly does. An hence find the gene that causes aging and trigger it. With advances in medical technology in future each of us well may have a copy of our body's instruction manual. A detailed map of the genome about whats contained in every cell. So that we may fix them just like machines.
In future,parents will go to the doctor before the birth of there new child and will customize there child! His looks, body features, and even brain power will be on sale. Just pay it and get your baby just as you like.
6)THE WORST PART
There is a popular belief that these cutting-edge technologies will be available only to the privileged section of the society which may well be true. It will allow them to become more powerful. Imagine a section of people who are more beautiful, stronger, more intelligent and much more superior than the rest, controlling and dominating the rest...then there will be a new basis of distinction between human beings apart from race and color, there will be a biological basis of distinction which is the saddest part.
What ever it is, you or me cannot stop it from happening and as said before...
“Future is much closer than you think”
