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 Post subject: Gadgets of the Future
PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 1:39 pm 
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What will be the next step in technology? After the cellular phones, mp3 players and hand-held computers, what will be the next big thing?
Allow me to share with you my vision of the near technological future.

I'm sure you all watched the movie "Jonny Mnemonic". I would like you to recall the part where Mr. Jonny assembles a computer platform in some warehouse. He uses some kind of goggles instead of a monitor screen and a pair of gloves instead of a mouse.

This is not exactly what I'm talking about, but it's close. The biggest difference is the usage. The goggles do not only view a preprogrammed display, but can also paste computer generated media on the scenery. The inside of the goggles is really a monitor (or a transparent monitor, if/when they'll be real), a CPU 'sees' what you look at (with the help of a camera), and then display it on your goggles with additions. For example you look at a text written in a language unfamiliar to you. The CPU will translate it and paste the translation on your glasses.
Another cool trick such a gadget can make is to create holograms. For example, a hologram of a keyboard on the table. Then when you 'touch' the keys it is registered as an input from a real keyboard.

Such a gadget would be easy to use (you just wear it and run a program), and extremely versatile. I don't have a timetable for when this thing will become common, but I'm sure that I'll have a pair of those glasses before my 30's birthday. Or at least, I hope so.



That was 60 seconds of Gazing Rabbit blubbering himself silly. I won't be here for the next couple of weeks so I'll ask in advance from you guys to NOT derail the thread more than necessary, and I beseech the admins (whoever they currently are) to make sure of it.

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 3:37 pm 
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Multi-Touch Interaction Research

It seems like they may have started using this for some PDAs already - I didn't really check into that part very much. But a combination of my keyboard and tablet would be pretty cool.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 4:34 pm 
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I don't get the fetish with technology. If it doesn't explode, launch projectiles, or give me porn, I really don't have a use for it.

And I'm still trying to figure out why my iPod doesn't work. It's got, like, three buttons, including the on switch, and no screen. It's not that fucking complicated, so why doesn't it play music anymore?!

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 Post subject: (lol)
PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:38 pm 
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Insane_Megalomaniac wrote:
It's not that fucking complicated, so why doesn't it play music anymore?!

charge the power supply


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:44 pm 
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Insane_Megalomaniac wrote:
And I'm still trying to figure out why my iPod doesn't work. It's got, like, three buttons, including the on switch, and no screen. It's not that fucking complicated, so why doesn't it play music anymore?!


my friend had that problem so he reset it. but as i dont own an ipod i dont remmeber the exact button presses he did

up up down down etc


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 Post subject: Re: Gadgets of the Future
PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:15 pm 
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Gazing Rabbit wrote:
Stuff

Didn't Minority Report use some of these concepts? Except without the goggles/glasses IIRC.

Gazing Rabbit wrote:
...so I'll ask in advance from you guys to NOT derail the thread more than necessary, and I beseech the admins (whoever they currently are) to make sure of it.

There are no admins. HTHHAND.

Kest wrote:
Multi-Touch Interaction Research

Microsoft's "acquired" that... http://www.microsoft.com/surface/


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:59 pm 
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I've got a friend who's working on enhanced reality for mobile phones as part of his Uni course.

And the mini series "2057: The world in 50 years" showed 3d imaging coupled with 3d sensors to give an interactive holotank type effect.

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 Post subject: Re: Gadgets of the Future
PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:42 am 
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Vass wrote:
Microsoft's "acquired" that... http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

what the fuck

I don't want that on some shitty fucking coffee table, I want a replacement for my keyboard/tablet/monitor/mouse....

god microsoft that's lame as hell, it's not even a drafting table you cheap bastards arrrrgh the neck strain is over 9000


:calvin:


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:57 am 
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Personally I'm waiting for nano(bot) technology, things like HUD contact lenses in conjunction with net based com-unit (video, of course) and PDA, self cleaning clothes, sonic showers... You know little things that are just around the corner taking old concepts to new levels. Oh, and e-paper, 'cos black-on-white is better for your eyes than illuminated screen, combined with 'high volume in small package' option of things like iPod. (this one is actually in the works, just needs to get cheap enough)

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:32 am 
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I'm not sure what Technology I'm most impatient for. Most likely I want:

An actual space launch platform that doesn't suck. Kill the shuttle before it kills more astronauts and use the 50 year old Russian POS rockets that have killed about two people since they were first designed to shoot soldiers at Hitler one drunken Siberian evening(the two deaths were from Vodka poisoning by the main designers).

Some way of mass generating power from the Oceans Tide, I think that would be awesome if it can generate more power over time, if only because it would decrease reliance on technologies that need resources.

Things I forsee in the next decade:

A way to get porn to customers faster than ever before.

Self deployed automatic medical units for use in emergency areas(such as wars, earthquakes and floods) expect the humanitarian side to kick in about five years afterwards.

All landline phonecalls are priced as local calls, as land line's die out prices will drop to the point that people only have them for the internet, getting people to talk for nearly free around the planet would be really good.

Actor.

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 Post subject: Re: Gadgets of the Future
PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 5:29 am 
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Kest wrote:
Vass wrote:
Microsoft's "acquired" that... http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

what the fuck

I don't want that on some shitty fucking coffee table, I want a replacement for my keyboard/tablet/monitor/mouse....

god microsoft that's lame as hell, it's not even a drafting table you cheap bastards arrrrgh the neck strain is over 9000


:calvin:


Onscreen keyboard, your fingers are the mouse and the screen's the tablet, but yeah, tilting screen = win.

You'll get people who'll press it like a real button rather than tap it like a sensor, which is amusing to watch, espacially if it doesn't work and pressing harder will make it.

Losing the tactile sense of a keyboard for typing is wierd, especially when typing. Like, wiieerd.... I'm waitng for my digital omni-sentience to come through, get me a robo-bod...


LONG LIVE THE CORE!!!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:28 pm 
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Gazing Rabbit wrote:
What will be the next step in technology? After the cellular phones, mp3 players and hand-held computers, what will be the next big thing?

Either useful self-replicating nanotech or useful self-aware AI. Anyone who says the former is impossible is being a bit silly, as it's essentially how our bodies are made. Anyone who says the latter is impossible is likely not a scientific reductionist, which is fine as it goes but not the most tenable position historically. It's hard say to say which will come about first, but my money would be on the nanotech, due to the fact that milestones for top-down assembly of nanoscale structures seem to be progressing at a decent clip, and the limitations of current computer processing power for AI (which probably won't be solved until the advent of novel nanotech processors).

The potential applications for both technologies are too numerous to mention, but the important early ones would probably be in electronics and materials science for nanotech, and taking over/supplementing some service jobs for AI. Tech support and the like. Such things are already currently handled to some extent by simple decision-tree "AI's" linked to voice recognition software, but they're too inflexible to work with the customer on any non-trivial problem (I should know, I get said customers all the time after they've given up on the automated system :)

I'm not too worried about nanotech weapons in the near future, as I doubt they'll be any more dangerous than conventional biological weapons at first.

Any other technologies I can think of near-term are just incremental improvements to existing ones, not really "next steps" (better touchpads don't really seem like a big deal to me, for instance. Tactile finger positioning/feedback is kind of important for keyboards)

My guess is that self-replicating nanotech will come about first (despite the fact that the whole industry is probably due for a crash sooner or later, before dusting itself off and continuing with less hype and more actual results), but that AI will ultimately be more important for the future. Because as soon as we produce something that's even a little bit smarter than a human, or even with the same problem-solving abilities as an average human but essentially immortal and with unlimited storage space, it's the first step towards all sorts of technological-singularity-type niftyness. Any AI will still be limited by the physical substrate it's running on of course, so it's not like it's going to become godlike overnight.


actor_au wrote:
A way to get porn to customers faster than ever before.

Combine AI's to analyze brain structure and nanotech to interface with it, and we may be able to download interactive porn directly into your brain. Of course by the time it happens you might be too old to enjoy it without radical biological restoration, and just have to deal with all the young whippersnappers laughing at your stories about having to download 2-D pictures of women from the "Interwebs".

actor_au wrote:
All landline phonecalls are priced as local calls

I work in the telecom industry, and I still don't understand why voice-chatting with someone in China in an online game is so much less expensive than calling them, especially as most of the backend telephone network is IP these days anyway. (Not that I've looked into it much, so anyone who knows, by all means elucidate me)

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Last edited by Wandering Idiot on Sat Jul 07, 2007 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:16 pm 
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Wandering Idiot wrote:
I work in the telecom industry, and I still don't understand why chatting with someone in China in an online game is so much less expensive than calling them, especially as most of the backend telephone network is IP these days anyway. (Not that I've looked into it much, so anyone who knows, by all means elucidate me)


Monopoly. It's all about who controls the information pathways (and by that I mean actual physical paths, like copper cables and satellites) and how much they charge for using it.

It's the same reason that in Australia the cost of a local call keeps getting cut lower and lower while the line rental fees go up: All the trunk lines are owned by one provider, and they can charge what they like.

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 Post subject: Re: (lol)
PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:23 am 
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Kest wrote:
Insane_Megalomaniac wrote:
It's not that fucking complicated, so why doesn't it play music anymore?!

charge the power supply


The fact that you think I'm too fucking stupid to charge the battery fills me with such contempt that I am in danger of dying of dehydration as I spit on my monitor.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:49 am 
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:-D


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 Post subject: Re: Gadgets of the Future
PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:34 pm 
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Kest wrote:
Vass wrote:
Microsoft's "acquired" that... http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

what the fuck

I don't want that on some shitty fucking coffee table, I want a replacement for my keyboard/tablet/monitor/mouse....

god microsoft that's lame as hell, it's not even a drafting table you cheap bastards arrrrgh the neck strain is over 9000


:calvin:


I don't get this reaction, and I keep seeing it all over the place: Durr, it's not a keyboard! How wills I manage my typering!

It is (or will be, if they ever get it working right) a slick piece of technology. Good for you, you want a fucking keyboard. You may not be aware, but there are other fucking input devices as well, and good use for them. Are you so damned stupid that you just can't see beyond anything you already know?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:29 pm 
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A coffee table is not in any way slick, more impractical. What I see is technology with enormous potential being thrown away for the moment on some expensive, trashy gimmick.

Have you ever spent an extended period of time looking down at something?


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:51 pm 
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Kest wrote:
A coffee table is not in any way slick, more impractical. What I see is technology with enormous potential being thrown away for the moment on some expensive, trashy gimmick.

Have you ever spent an extended period of time looking down at something?


Books.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:13 pm 
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Sair wrote:
Kest wrote:
A coffee table is not in any way slick, more impractical. What I see is technology with enormous potential being thrown away for the moment on some expensive, trashy gimmick.

Have you ever spent an extended period of time looking down on something?


You.


This is what I originally read.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:18 pm 
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Kest wrote:
A coffee table is not in any way slick, more impractical. What I see is technology with enormous potential being thrown away for the moment on some expensive, trashy gimmick.

Have you ever spent an extended period of time looking down at something?

1. It has to be a coffee table or some other huge thing -- they are using multiple tracking cameras and a backprojection system. There is very little they can do to scale down that kind of hardware.

2. The problem is not that you can't type on it, the problem is it has no tactile feedback. You can't look away from it while you are working and it is probably difficult to tell if your button press or other action registered.

3. Nobody knows how well it works in good lighting. All the demo videos are shot in dark rooms.

Yes, multi-touch input is probably good for something. I have no idea what. Phillips is building <a href="http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/archive/2006/060901-entertaible.html">their table-like multitouch interface</a> around a realtime gaming system with multiple players able to interact simultaneously. But I really can't see staring at a totally horizontal surface for an extended period of time without getting neck strain. I don't know about you, but I prop my books up to read them, not lay them flat on their spine.

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