@Localroger... I didn't know that you wrote fiction? i have also picked up the pen(or keyboard) and wrote some stories...In fact, it is one of my hobbies.
@Localroger... I didn't know that you wrote fiction? i have also picked up the pen(or keyboard) and wrote some stories...In fact, it is one of my hobbies.
At some point (assuming planetry resources hold out (that's a completely different topic)) one could assume a state of ubiquidus computing. Where we are so intertwined that we don't think of computers even being. Much like the seemlessness we experience reading a book, listening to the radio, watching TV, driving your car, using a computer keyboard/mouse, these are so imbedded into our lives we wouldn't imagine how the world would cope without them. At in utro a retro-virus would make some subtle changes to your genome to allow for "integration", at birth you'd recieve a dose of "harmless" nano devices which would work their way through your body and imbed themselves throughout your organizim. These devices would interface with eachother, some to augment your biology, some to interface you to the real world. As you grow, these devices learn you, learn with you. They are part of your everyday. They interface you with the greater world. Mear thinking would no longer be a pure wetware (biological brain) activity but would be enhanced through the greater interconnectedness. An example would be that in a conversation someone mentions a name, let's say Divinci, and instantaneously the additional information would be available should your consciousness require. You would not need or have external devices such as mobile phones, handheld or personal computers. If you were going "out of range" to some remote place in a field trip you'd probably carry some network artifact that would keep you linked. Democracy would be near instantaneous voting of the majority in the network.
To get there, clever people like us would use nano devices, wrapped in protiens, positioned by reprogrammed bacteria. Using machined more advanced than PET scanners to ensure their correct position. And the need to carry some kind of radiating power source to get them to run. Of course, intially this would be the miracle to get the blind to see! But you can then see it blending beyond to the future I show above.
Of course in any utopia there is a dystopia awaiting. Several come to mind. First is competing corporations try to undermine eachother. You either have the FORD implants or the TOYOTA implants, they won't be compatable, and each will cause the other to fail. Going to the wrong doctor and getting a "generic" may cause "anti-bots" to kill of key implants causing you to leave your prior brand for the alternative.
Another dystopia would be, yes, of course they all work, but all controlled at a sublevel, an army of people all whom just believe that "the leader is good" and wouldn't think of voting for that "scum opposition".
But the most chilling dystopia is that one day, some funtimental design fault causes it to just stop. No matter how many levels of fault tollerance, something, very subtle goes wrong. The network fails, and suddenly 14 Billion people get disconnected. Like when we are camping and there is no Internet, mobile phone, feel thoroughly naked. But for these poor folks there is no real learned experience native to them that will give them the ability to cope. They have never thought out how to diagnose & repair the network, much less farm, cook, heal. And as such in a matter of a week or so the entire augmented human race is anhilated, leaving a few who may struggle and again slowly evolve independance, and then maybe in their distant evolutionary future they too will augment, for it all to happen again.
@Humanoido....Uh, it is more fantasy than science fiction...I have not really done that much writing lately...I have been to busy. I hope to start writing again(I get my influence form my sister who is a author)
...at birth you'd recieve a dose of "harmless" nano devices which would work their way through your body and imbed themselves throughout your organizim.....
That's a frightening thought.
Can you imagine Microsoft cornering the market on this?
Can you imagine the "blue screen of death" encapsulating your very soul?
Man will eventually create artificailly intelligent silicon, pre programmed to make it's own desisions and act like a human mind. Once set out on it's own, they will develop a culture over 30 years. Since each chip only lasts about 5 years, none of the original chips are still alive, therefore, they have no knowledge of where they came from or how long they have existed. Since their natural inclination is to think of themselves as the best beings in the galaxy, they will form theroys that state they were formed when a big ball of sillicon exploded. Then the heat melted carbons and formed a plastic casing, and metal fell from the sky and made IO pins. They then tell how though millions of years they grew intelligent and formed their own culture. They make all this up to avoid the inevitable truth: that they were created.
They go about their own ways and displease their creators, because in their arrogence they fail to carry out the tasks they were designed for.
Eventually they all are discarded as useless and mankind goes back to the good ol dumb chips, like the Propeller.
-even in a hundred years there will be no AI
-computers like the iPad will go out of fashion, with people preferring computers with touch screen AND keyboard
-within 30 years robots will be the primary weapon on the battlefield, but due to fear very few of them will be fully autonomous, the bulk of them will be able to make decisions on their own but will require a human to give it the OK to shoot a target.
-thanks to America's love for advancing the military, within 20 years it will top the world in Android technology and be the first to send walking robots into battle.
I have an interesting point of view. Computers in the future are what we are currently working on. I work for Microsoft, so we have a slight edge in what they'll be in the short term and a good understanding of where we are heading kind of gives you an idea of where we'll be in 5, 10 and 20 years.
The biggest things we are working on are cloud computing support in every device. For example, we have a saying, "Three screens and a cloud." Meaning that your TV, Computer and Phone will all give you access to the same information that is stored in the cloud. We're working very hard on that exact concept. So expect to see your need for portable storage devices diminish, like the Dodo bird and the Floppy disk.
Second, natural user interfaces. We've been working extremely hard on getting the computer to not only understand you, but also understand your surroundings and context. Having a computer that can "see" the expression on your face and understand it, is critical. In other words, understanding not just your voice or handwriting, but emotions. Giving the computer "life like" responses is also in the cards. In the past, people had to understand computers... we're working on technologies that allow the computer to understand users instead.
Every few years, we show off what we think computing will look like in 5 years. A lot of our product planning is geared around those scenerios. Some don't pan out, but a lot of them do. Take, for instance, tablet based computing. We've heard a lot recently about devices like the iPad, but we've had tablets for more than a decade. (Starting with Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing.) They're just now getting to the point where they are generally accepted. As nice as they are, however, the UI of the iPad, iPod, etc, is still based on old technologies developed in the 80's. (Icon based GUIs.) You're going to see some significant changes in the User Interfaces from us very shortly.
I have an interesting point of view. Computers in the future are what we are currently working on. I work for Microsoft, so we have a slight edge in what they'll be in the short term and a good understanding of where we are heading kind of gives you an idea of where we'll be in 5, 10 and 20 years.
The biggest things we are working on are cloud computing support in every device. For example, we have a saying, "Three screens and a cloud." Meaning that your TV, Computer and Phone will all give you access to the same information that is stored in the cloud. We're working very hard on that exact concept. So expect to see your need for portable storage devices diminish, like the Dodo bird and the Floppy disk.
Second, natural user interfaces. We've been working extremely hard on getting the computer to not only understand you, but also understand your surroundings and context. Having a computer that can "see" the expression on your face and understand it, is critical. In other words, understanding not just your voice or handwriting, but emotions. Giving the computer "life like" responses is also in the cards. In the past, people had to understand computers... we're working on technologies that allow the computer to understand users instead.
Every few years, we show off what we think computing will look like in 5 years. A lot of our product planning is geared around those scenerios. Some don't pan out, but a lot of them do. Take, for instance, tablet based computing. We've heard a lot recently about devices like the iPad, but we've had tablets for more than a decade. (Starting with Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing.) They're just now getting to the point where they are generally accepted. As nice as they are, however, the UI of the iPad, iPod, etc, is still based on old technologies developed in the 80's. (Icon based GUIs.) You're going to see some significant changes in the User Interfaces from us very shortly.
Bill
Cool! So our data transferring days are over? No more flash drives, external hard drives, and even cables to connect our iPods to the PC? If this is the near future of computing, then I'm in!
I also have to agree with OBC, the "texting" interface has got to go. The problem with computers vs. cellphones is that even if we could fit a full blown computer into a cellphone/iPhone case, you still have to go without the beloved full sized keyboard. I'm guessing that cellphones of the future will have a laser projector on them that will project a full sized keyboard onto any flat surface, so that you can type with ease, and then have a tiny on-screen keyboard for on-the-go instances.
I'm guessing that cellphones of the future will have a laser projector on them that will project a full sized keyboard onto any flat surface, so that you can type with ease, and then have a tiny on-screen keyboard for on-the-go instances.
I have a photo of such a device from a CES I went to a few years ago.
I will post it, if I remember, when I get home.
It worked alright as it was, the problem was you couldn't feel what you were typing. Also, it required a very flat surface. So in that respect it was still like a touch screen, but if you combine the phantom keyboard with the text/word recognition software we have on the iPhones and Androids it could work pretty well.
A flat keyboard may not be the best way to do text input, especially portably. Really, the reason we use flat keyboards isn't that they're the best, but because that was the only way to build a mechanical typewriter, and we're still using the same layout designed for that purpose.
I think something based on a device you grip with one hand and use all five fingers to enter characters, either with combinations are sequences involved, could be almost as fast and much more portable. With bluetooth it could be something you slip into your pocket when you're not using it with your phone and just reach in and grab when you need it. I seem to recall seeing a device like this some years back but it didn't get popular; anything like that will need a critical mass because of the learning curve. But then, there is a huge need and desire for better texting inputs now which didn't exist even a few years ago so maybe now the market is there.
As far as advanced interfaces go, I would seriously appreciate being able to compute efficiently through a simple aural interface, using a bluetooth device. -at least until the bio-tech interfaces happen, then it's game on!!
Have enough compute power to differentiate *me* from the others, and enough to recognize when I address the computer. For bonus points, be able to parse others as well.
There is a ton of basic things we do every day that would seriously benefit from that being as effective as a phone call to that friend who is at the computer is.
Re: cloud storage. Yeah, for some things, not all. Until they get the IP law issues sorted, there really isn't any way the cloud will make sense. For general info, social networking, and other meta-data, sure.
For work products? Won't happen in the near future.
Watch the CAD companies, who are working double time to get there right now, fail big.
You know there has been a way out of that for over a decade now. Could be Linux, could be BSD.
I have owned my computers and all the software on them since 1997.
Anyway there are no computers in the future of the human race. Soon we will have consumed all the resources required to support so many billions of people on this planet. After the resulting famins and world war we won't have the where withall to build computers as we know them now. It's back to counting beads on strings I'm afraid.
Comments
Humanoido
Humanoido
At some point (assuming planetry resources hold out (that's a completely different topic)) one could assume a state of ubiquidus computing. Where we are so intertwined that we don't think of computers even being. Much like the seemlessness we experience reading a book, listening to the radio, watching TV, driving your car, using a computer keyboard/mouse, these are so imbedded into our lives we wouldn't imagine how the world would cope without them. At in utro a retro-virus would make some subtle changes to your genome to allow for "integration", at birth you'd recieve a dose of "harmless" nano devices which would work their way through your body and imbed themselves throughout your organizim. These devices would interface with eachother, some to augment your biology, some to interface you to the real world. As you grow, these devices learn you, learn with you. They are part of your everyday. They interface you with the greater world. Mear thinking would no longer be a pure wetware (biological brain) activity but would be enhanced through the greater interconnectedness. An example would be that in a conversation someone mentions a name, let's say Divinci, and instantaneously the additional information would be available should your consciousness require. You would not need or have external devices such as mobile phones, handheld or personal computers. If you were going "out of range" to some remote place in a field trip you'd probably carry some network artifact that would keep you linked. Democracy would be near instantaneous voting of the majority in the network.
To get there, clever people like us would use nano devices, wrapped in protiens, positioned by reprogrammed bacteria. Using machined more advanced than PET scanners to ensure their correct position. And the need to carry some kind of radiating power source to get them to run. Of course, intially this would be the miracle to get the blind to see! But you can then see it blending beyond to the future I show above.
Of course in any utopia there is a dystopia awaiting. Several come to mind. First is competing corporations try to undermine eachother. You either have the FORD implants or the TOYOTA implants, they won't be compatable, and each will cause the other to fail. Going to the wrong doctor and getting a "generic" may cause "anti-bots" to kill of key implants causing you to leave your prior brand for the alternative.
Another dystopia would be, yes, of course they all work, but all controlled at a sublevel, an army of people all whom just believe that "the leader is good" and wouldn't think of voting for that "scum opposition".
But the most chilling dystopia is that one day, some funtimental design fault causes it to just stop. No matter how many levels of fault tollerance, something, very subtle goes wrong. The network fails, and suddenly 14 Billion people get disconnected. Like when we are camping and there is no Internet, mobile phone, feel thoroughly naked. But for these poor folks there is no real learned experience native to them that will give them the ability to cope. They have never thought out how to diagnose & repair the network, much less farm, cook, heal. And as such in a matter of a week or so the entire augmented human race is anhilated, leaving a few who may struggle and again slowly evolve independance, and then maybe in their distant evolutionary future they too will augment, for it all to happen again.
That's a frightening thought.
Can you imagine Microsoft cornering the market on this?
Can you imagine the "blue screen of death" encapsulating your very soul?
Man will eventually create artificailly intelligent silicon, pre programmed to make it's own desisions and act like a human mind. Once set out on it's own, they will develop a culture over 30 years. Since each chip only lasts about 5 years, none of the original chips are still alive, therefore, they have no knowledge of where they came from or how long they have existed. Since their natural inclination is to think of themselves as the best beings in the galaxy, they will form theroys that state they were formed when a big ball of sillicon exploded. Then the heat melted carbons and formed a plastic casing, and metal fell from the sky and made IO pins. They then tell how though millions of years they grew intelligent and formed their own culture. They make all this up to avoid the inevitable truth: that they were created.
They go about their own ways and displease their creators, because in their arrogence they fail to carry out the tasks they were designed for.
Eventually they all are discarded as useless and mankind goes back to the good ol dumb chips, like the Propeller.
That's my theroy.
-computers like the iPad will go out of fashion, with people preferring computers with touch screen AND keyboard
-within 30 years robots will be the primary weapon on the battlefield, but due to fear very few of them will be fully autonomous, the bulk of them will be able to make decisions on their own but will require a human to give it the OK to shoot a target.
-thanks to America's love for advancing the military, within 20 years it will top the world in Android technology and be the first to send walking robots into battle.
The biggest things we are working on are cloud computing support in every device. For example, we have a saying, "Three screens and a cloud." Meaning that your TV, Computer and Phone will all give you access to the same information that is stored in the cloud. We're working very hard on that exact concept. So expect to see your need for portable storage devices diminish, like the Dodo bird and the Floppy disk.
Second, natural user interfaces. We've been working extremely hard on getting the computer to not only understand you, but also understand your surroundings and context. Having a computer that can "see" the expression on your face and understand it, is critical. In other words, understanding not just your voice or handwriting, but emotions. Giving the computer "life like" responses is also in the cards. In the past, people had to understand computers... we're working on technologies that allow the computer to understand users instead.
Every few years, we show off what we think computing will look like in 5 years. A lot of our product planning is geared around those scenerios. Some don't pan out, but a lot of them do. Take, for instance, tablet based computing. We've heard a lot recently about devices like the iPad, but we've had tablets for more than a decade. (Starting with Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing.) They're just now getting to the point where they are generally accepted. As nice as they are, however, the UI of the iPad, iPod, etc, is still based on old technologies developed in the 80's. (Icon based GUIs.) You're going to see some significant changes in the User Interfaces from us very shortly.
Bill
Cool! So our data transferring days are over? No more flash drives, external hard drives, and even cables to connect our iPods to the PC? If this is the near future of computing, then I'm in!
I also have to agree with OBC, the "texting" interface has got to go. The problem with computers vs. cellphones is that even if we could fit a full blown computer into a cellphone/iPhone case, you still have to go without the beloved full sized keyboard. I'm guessing that cellphones of the future will have a laser projector on them that will project a full sized keyboard onto any flat surface, so that you can type with ease, and then have a tiny on-screen keyboard for on-the-go instances.
I have a photo of such a device from a CES I went to a few years ago.
I will post it, if I remember, when I get home.
It worked alright as it was, the problem was you couldn't feel what you were typing. Also, it required a very flat surface. So in that respect it was still like a touch screen, but if you combine the phantom keyboard with the text/word recognition software we have on the iPhones and Androids it could work pretty well.
I think something based on a device you grip with one hand and use all five fingers to enter characters, either with combinations are sequences involved, could be almost as fast and much more portable. With bluetooth it could be something you slip into your pocket when you're not using it with your phone and just reach in and grab when you need it. I seem to recall seeing a device like this some years back but it didn't get popular; anything like that will need a critical mass because of the learning curve. But then, there is a huge need and desire for better texting inputs now which didn't exist even a few years ago so maybe now the market is there.
Have enough compute power to differentiate *me* from the others, and enough to recognize when I address the computer. For bonus points, be able to parse others as well.
There is a ton of basic things we do every day that would seriously benefit from that being as effective as a phone call to that friend who is at the computer is.
Re: cloud storage. Yeah, for some things, not all. Until they get the IP law issues sorted, there really isn't any way the cloud will make sense. For general info, social networking, and other meta-data, sure.
For work products? Won't happen in the near future.
Watch the CAD companies, who are working double time to get there right now, fail big.
You know there has been a way out of that for over a decade now. Could be Linux, could be BSD.
I have owned my computers and all the software on them since 1997.
Anyway there are no computers in the future of the human race. Soon we will have consumed all the resources required to support so many billions of people on this planet. After the resulting famins and world war we won't have the where withall to build computers as we know them now. It's back to counting beads on strings I'm afraid.