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Back to the MASTER Table of Contents of the Signposts Timeline
2018 milestone: The developed nations are slowly fireproofing homes, autos, offices, and even citizens themselves...
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The next materials wave may involve metallic foams-- sponge-like metal materials of ultra lightweight but incredible strength, which are also fireproof, suitable for taller, safer skyscrapers, bigger and better planes, cooler re-entries for spacecraft, stunningly enormous bridges, and more.
-- "The Next Plastic", 2-1-99, Office Of Naval Research "Barricade gel", which is a new material for improving fire resistance and/or extinguishing fires entirely. Created with the use of polymers such as those from disposeable baby diapers, the shaving cream-like gel can be a tough nut for flames to crack. It makes for easy cleanup after a fire is out too. --"Gel from disposable diapers proves fire-resistant" By KAREN TESTA , Nando Media/Associated Press, April 26, 1999 -- "Texas company adding ORNL material to portfolio; Uses For Space-Age Carbon Foam Range From Laptop Computers To Automobile Aerodynamics", 8/18/99 ScienceDaily Magazine, http://www.sciencedaily.com//releases/1999/08/990816070501.htm, Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
(Also see items elsewhere in this document about new 'second skin' treatments for individuals)
2018 milestone: "Paperless Offices" and "Wireless Appliances" are becoming reality for many circumstances...But such communications technology as this was available in relatively expensive, unreliable, and cumbersome form way back in the late 20th century. So what's the difference now? It works-- and works well-- is cheap-- and already built-into many devices at time of purchase, obviating the need for costly and difficult installation or retrofitting.
But all that relatively high bandwidth wireless signalling is perhaps less impressive than the new energy storage and distribution systems. New super batteries and much more efficient circuitry are combining to lengthen battery life in appliances to many times what it was circa the 1990's, leading to many more household appliances using batteries for primary operation, or as back ups (the technologies supporting these super batteries include tiny fuel cells burning butane or alcohol or hydrogen, among other fuels). This alone would be a boon to consumers-- but there's more. Many batteries no longer require removal from host appliances-- or the insertion of the appliance itself into a special recharging cradle-- ever. No, many appliances will now automatically recharge their batteries whenever there's a reasonable amount of ambient light available at all, indoors or out. Some batteries use light and air humidity to re-generate hydrogen fuel. Others will digest food scraps into alcohol. The end effect is batteries which seem almost immortal in many cases, compared to their predecessors of the 1990's. Aren't there any modern appliances at all which still require some additional effort for recharging purposes? Yes. But mostly these are the most heavy duty appliances you might own, such as power tools, or an electric vehicle. Modern power tools recharge automatically when placed back into their tool boxes-- or laid down relatively near their boxes (wireless proximity recharging). How do battery manufacturers make money this way? In addition to battery and battery fuel sales, they also enjoy a cut of the charges for power feeds some non-standalone batteries use over their lifetimes to recharge. Power generation companies (both electric and natural gas) are able to track the recharging of appliances from an industry grid, and as more batteries often mean more sales of electricity or other fuels, rechargeable battery makers, electrical generating and natural gas companies make a profit this way. In some instances the revenue stream is reversed, with battery makers giving a cut of battery sales to power/fuel generation companies....
This proximity recharging/power distribution also applies to other household and personal accessories. Many floor and table lamps are wirelessly powered via the hidden electrical grid in the walls and ceiling of a home. On-person electronics are wirelessly powered by electrical grids embedded in the seats of automobiles or aircraft. Despite the luxury of these continuous power feeds, many of these constantly fed devices also possess their own small batteries as well, for brief power outages. That is, your house lamps will still work for hours into a power outage at minimum (yes computer users: ALL PCs/NCs are usually shipping with what's basically UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) technology built-in from the factory now). Wireless power feeds are fast becoming ubiquitous now and in the years to come, much as wired internet access has been for the last 15 years. Remarkably, the economic cost of this power is also declining. However, there IS a privacy cost here: for much non-standalone energy usage is tagged with an ID of some sort-- so the government, among others, easily keeps track of your whereabouts (and actions) by your energy usage patterns (at least in nations like USAmerica anyway). Yes, you can choose a higher level of anonymity for your power usage under some circumstances-- but then you must pay higher fees for your energy, or prices for your standalone appliances. At least 30-40% of the population give up their energy usage privacy in return for lower energy and product costs (both government agencies and corporations consider tracking citizens' energy usage as valuable information in regards to travel and work habits, and personal preferences; this information can then be used to target them with advertisements, as well as sold to other governments and companies too, among other things).
In cases like modern auto recharging, the auto itself usually robotically plugs itself in at recharge stations, or at home, when parked (note that at this time many autos-- including electric-- still use gasoline fuel in many cases; but gasoline usage may be peaking for modern vehicles now).
Another technology somewhat related to all this includes the newly emerging biochemical lighting options. These new devices are genetic hybrids of plants and insect DNA, coupled with a dash of inorganic tech to make for perpetual low to medium light sources which can be used for emergency or low cost long term lighting in many circumstances. They are becoming very popular for certain uses, and among the environmental conscious-- since they typically require no connection to the national power grid.
In some locations biochemical lighting will simply recharge as needed from the local environmental conditions-- but in others, biochem lighting may require additional maintenance, such as an occasional replacement of certain reserve substances-- similar to the refueling required for other types of batteries these days.
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-- Battelle/PRNewswire predictions for 2008 (on or about 2-25-98), "Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Environmental Technology Breakthroughs Forecast -- Year 2008", 20 APRIL 1998, and others
Shirt-button size turbine engines by 2000? Imagine being able to replace our present batteries for camcorders, palmtop computers, cell phones, and other items with more compact, powerful, and doubled lifespan versions which were actually miniature turbine power plants burning butane or some similar fuel. Some MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) folks say it looks possible the technology will be available commercially by 2000 or thereabouts. And around 2003, the new power packs may be improved sufficiently to go into military gear of various sorts. Keep in mind that further innovation could scale up the power and useful life capacities of these tiny engines/batteries, while additional micromachine accessories could make it practical to wear entire suits of such motors and refuel them periodically. For example, you might have a high tech closet where micromachine 'moths' congregate on your micromachine-based suit to refuel the tiny tanks of all its motors nightly. Yep, we're talking vastly improved bionic limbs and even full exoskeletons (for soldiers and/or quadraplegics) approaching super-human physical capacities another two or three decades out. -- "A TINY TURBINE TO POWER YOUR LAPTOP" by Nellie Andreeva, EDITED BY NEIL GROSS, Business Week: July 13, 1998: Developments to Watch |
2020 milestone: Substantial regeneration treatments for various organs and other body parts are now available to the wealthy of developed states; Oil prices have possibly declined to around five dollars a barrel|
-- "The Liver's Secret Of Regeneration" Author: Nell Boyce
New Scientist issue 1 May 1999,
UK Contact: Claire Bowles
[email protected]
44-171-331-2751, US Contact: New Scientist Washington office
[email protected]
202-452-1178]
-- Wistar Scientists Locate Genes Involved In Mammalian Tissue Regeneration, 29 SEPTEMBER 1998, Contact: Diana Cutshall [email protected] (215) 898-3716 Wistar Institute -- Professor says economy still booming, gas prices should drop considerably , 10 APRIL 2000, Contact: David Williamson [email protected] 919-962-8596 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In 2000 the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the crude oil reserves of the world to be around 649 billion barrels-- with still more likely to be found. This was a 20% increase over previous estimates. -- Scientific American: Science and The Citizen: Awash in Oil: September 2000 by ERIC NIILER Tests of precedures to tap the enormous frozen undersea methane reserves of the Earth (gas hydrates) were being performed in 1999 by Japanese researchers. If successful, the reserves could prove an energy boon to future generations. In 1999 a full scale and commercially viable debut of gas hydrate extraction and refinement was expected to become feasible around 2012. Estimates place the recoverable gas hydrate reserves to be equivalent to 80,000 times that of the more familiar fuel, natural gas. -- BBC News Sci Tech: Fossil fuel revolution begins By Damian Carrington, 23 November, 1999, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ Methane hydrates are not only found undersea, but in Arctic permafrost as well. Gas hydrates in the US alone could be equivalent to the natural gas reserves/resources of 200 more Americas, circa 2000. -- House backs study of massive - yet dangerous - energy supply By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press, Nando Media/Nando Times/Associated Press, April 3, 2000, http://www.nandotimes.com Yields of crops like soybeans and corn could be increased to produce not just food but renewable fuels as well, and largely replace crude oil during the 21st century. The fats and oils produced by the plants may offer the best solution, rather than the production of ethanol from same. -- Plant Oils Will Replace Petroleum In Coming Years, 7/7/2000, Source: http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/0007.Tao.biofuels.html, Purdue University (http://www.purdue.edu) Polystyrene-derived batteries may eventually be embedded in mobile phones and other devices to mimick plant photosynthesis by capturing and storing energy from light. At present some 15% efficiency in energy conversion has been achieved with polystyrene molecules. Polystyrene may one day make for ultra cheap solar cells to help power fuel cells. -- New Scientist: Mobile foam by Philip Cohen, From New Scientist magazine, 15 July 2000, citing Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 97, p 7687 |
2020 milestone: Consumer robotics finally joins the mainstream...
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-- "Vision of Wild Robots, Tame Robots" By PETER H. LEWIS, August 6, 1998, The New York Times
Robots capable of improvisation Truly 'smart' robots would be adaptable to changing circumstances much like human beings, rather than being frozen into one standard routine. Now it appears there has been progress in giving robots that flexibility to adjust their behavior. -- "Robots That Think On Their Feet Now Possible", Washington University In St. Louis, 1-27-99 -- Expect rapid, pervasive innovation in 21st century, EurekAlert!, 2 DECEMBER 1999 Contact: Emil Venere [email protected] 765-494-4709 Purdue University |
2020 milestone: Mainstream physical storage media formats are changing now after a lengthy period of stability; DVD-RAM is now giving way to a superior credit-card type form factorSure, lots of new physical storage medium ideas were introduced between 2000 and 2020-- but the growing bandwidth and convenience of the net greatly reduced demand for new physical media. After all, there's no need to store locally when remote files are instantly accessible virtually anywhere.
| -- Business 2.0: COVER STORY WEB FUTURE How Will the Internet Age? Predictions for the 21st century. By Jim Griffin, [email protected], December 1999: The Next 1000 Years, http://www.business2.com |
Plus, the downward cost pressures on net clients of all sorts (including PCs) also tended to keep legacy standards like DVD alive and only incrementally improved over decades. Truly large file transfers simply don't require local physical storage anymore-- instead they are typically maintained in a data warehouse 3500 miles away, and users just open access to the file remotely as required. Thus, the relatively cramped 35-45 Gigabyte DVD-RAM media most users have for local removable storage media is good enough for most other requirements.
However, the DVD format is finally entering its twilight years now, as credit card form factor storage becomes cost competitive with the basically 20th century media standard at last.
| -- Predictions for the new millennium By LANCE GAY, October 25, 1999, Nando Media/Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.nandotimes.com |
2022 milestone: The "Wire head" phenomenon 
Though in the more developed states 'the wire' is seen as similar to previous problems with drugs in decades past, the technology is bringing about much worse consequences in other parts of the world and society. Dictators and totalitarian states which in previous years had often used designer drugs to help maintain loyalty and obedience in close aides, bodyguards, troops, spies, and sometimes even among the general populace, now are increasingly turning to the wire to supplement those tools, making their grip on power even tighter. In several high profile conflicts between the volunteer forces of the developed states against certain other nations of the 21st century, the maniacal obedience of such drugged and wired personnel proves a much tougher nut to crack than the mostly unwilling slaves of earlier despots, such as the soldiers of Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf War of the late 20th century.
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Push-button orgasms could be made available to women with the implantation of a small electrical device under the skin, and wires into a certain spot in the spine. Such a device might also be applicable to men.
-- Push my button by Ian Sample, 7 FEBRUARY 2001, EurekAlert!, New Scientist issue 10 February 2001, http://www.newscientist.com |
2018-2023 Milestones in personal equipment/accessories/capacities: Self-diagnosis and medical care is becoming a real option for many circumstancesThe professional medical establishment has been alarmed by the potential of this issue for a couple decades now, and even pushed for various laws and regulations against it through many national and state legislatures. However, studies exist showing such self-service at least in some cases is better for citizens than more traditional systems-- and total bans only give the issue to the virtual states/economies as another exclusive perk with which to entice new members.
Sufficient 'official' restrictions on this practice do get put into place which strengthen the virtual states at the long term expense of the old geophysical states, as well as the professional medical establishment itself (and many related old line health insurance agencies)
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-- Society for Human Resource Management, January/February 1998, and the Futurist, Technology Development Predictions: 2001-2030
(found on/about 6-8-98)
-- A CYBER REVOLT IN HEALTH CARE Patients are finding new power through the Web By Heather Green in New York, with Linda Himelstein in San Mateo, 10-8-98, Businessweek, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., and others -- "Med-Tech 'Decades Behind'" by Michael Stroud, 21.Jul.99, Wired Digital Inc. -- Predictions for the new millennium By LANCE GAY, October 25, 1999, Nando Media/Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.nandotimes.com |
The medical industry, under intense pressure from these developments as well as facing withering criticism of its own errors and inefficiencies over past decades, has actually been making moves to meet their new, more empowered patients half-way (even as they fought such empowerment in courts and legislatures).
Overhead costs in much of the sector have been slashed 50% since 1999.
| -- Forecast: Internet will significantly change healthcare By Edward Winnick, Yahoo!/Reuters Health Headlines, December 1 1999 |
Medicine is now adopting investigative analysis procedures for mistakes in the industry more like those used by the aviation and nuclear power fields circa 1999. Such techniques focus less on blaming a particular person and more on determining how the system itself might be changed to prevent or reduce such problems in the future.
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As of 1999, 44,000 to 98,000 Americans were dying due to mistakes in the health care industry.
-- Hazardous to ourselves by Bruce Hilton, Nando Media/Scripps Howard News Service, December 7, 1999, http://www.nandotimes.com |
Improvements in technology and medical knowledge, as well as changes on government regulations regarding health insurance, have also helped reduce costs in the sector.
2023 milestone: The first inorganic hardware capable of supporting general purpose human level intelligence AND sufficiently economical for widespread consumer deployment in standalone units becomes available nowThere are AIs aplenty roaming the world at this time, but virtually all of them fall far short of generally applicable human level sentience. There's many 'idiot savants' and 'expert systems' available, superb in certain niche areas and inadequate in most all others, but there's only a tiny number of approximately human level or better general intelligences in the world now, and most of those are unrecognized and under-utilized by their human users, operating via distributed processing involving many separate, standalone resources, to exist-- such as the financial intelligences evolving in the nets connecting central banks and other financial institutions.
Keep in mind the heavy restrictions on the original statement here-- at this time there has simply been another piece of the AI puzzle fall into place. Others are still required to achieve the sort of AI milestones upon which movie blockbusters are based.
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-- "Scientists Demo a Quantum Computer"
By CHARLES ARTHUR, the Independent, London, and New York Times Syndicate, on or about 4-18-98, and others
Evolving artificial organisms on a chip Adrian Thompson's FPGAs act eerily like living organisms-- that is, change the environment in which they developed, and their performance can suffer greatly. Somehow Thompson's FPGAs utilize sometimes undetectable quirks about adjoining circuitry or other elements in the immediate vicinity to perform their feats. Change those elements and performance suffers (sometimes catastrophically). This of course makes FPGA solutions like Thompson's unsuitable for the type of general applications chips are used for today in industry, despite their seeming advantages in other areas. -- "Evolving a Conscious Machine" by Gary Taubes, DISCOVER Vol. 19 No. 6 (June 1998) Single molecule-sized logic gates were created in 1999. New techniques to pack 400 times more circuitry onto a single chip have also been discovered. The 400x tech will reportedly not be patented either, thereby possibly speeding up its adoption by industry. -- Breakthroughs all around by PAUL GILSTER, December 6, 1999, http://www.nandotimes.com |
2025 milestone: A mind-boggling array of choices is now available for on-person computing options; The latest full-powered descendents of 20th century PCs today may process information as quickly as a single human brain; global life expectancy may have reached 73NOTE: computing 'masks' are most preferred by the young; most older users desiring similar anonymity usually opt for large mirrored visors or eyepieces instead. END NOTE.
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-- "Seiko to sell first wristwatch PC"
by Reuters, Special to CNET NEWS.COM , April 8, 1998, ViA Inc. The Flexible PC Company had announced wearable PCs in early 1998
-- "Technology's thinkers get daring at intellectual circus" BY DAN GILLMOR, Mercury News Technology Columnist, July 17, 1998, and others Dig that wild new head gear of the early 21st century Folks, get ready for some big changes in head wear coming in the new millennium. Computerized heads up displays mounted in prescription visors (or alternately a wire-like image projector that simply beams displays directly into the eyeball via laser and is less conspicuous than a visor), are coming. They'll be accompanied by or integrated into the same audio ear piece and microphone headgear that's becoming ubiquitous for musicians performing onstage and workers who need continuous hands-free telephone access today. These things are going to become part of a realtime voice recognition and eye-flick interface for our personal computing and networking devices, over coming decades. Sure, they'll be crude at first, but they'll improve steadily. In only maybe 10-15 years they'll be de riguer in many settings (first, of course, among the young and trendy). At the moment headsets are mainly being used as interfaces to public address systems or intercoms, house/office phones and car phones-- but their functionality will steadily increase as our in-car and on-person technologies expand. -- "Headsets are suddenly ultra cool" BY LIZ STEVENS Knight Ridder Newspapers/Detroit Free Press, 11-3-98, and other sources Some experts expect new $1000 PCs to process information as fast as the human brain by 2020. -- ABCNEWS.com: Man and Machine Blur in Next Millennium By John Lang, Scripps Howard News Service, October 27 1999 Humanity will be suffering more stresses, not less, due to the pace of technological change in the future. People will be forced to endure near continuous re-education and training, among other things. An increasing frequency of mental breakdowns due to such an environment would seem likely. -- The Year 2020, Explained by Chris Oakes, Jul. 5, 2000, Wired Digital Inc. -- Global life expectancy is expected to be around 73 by 2025. -- Good Times By Ronald Bailey; Reason Magazine; April 25, 2001 |
2025 milestone: The deadliest fighter planes in the developed nations no longer have pilots onboard...
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-- "U.S. Trying To Develop Unmanned Combat Aircraft"By Tabassum Zakaria, July 21, 1999, Reuters/Yahoo! News Technology Headlines
Uninhabited combat air vehicles (UCAVs) is one label for the new technology. Such unmanned craft can offer greater performance, longer ranges, more radar stealth, and lower costs relating to maintenance and training. In some of the earliest deployments several such robot craft might accompany/support a single manned aircraft to accomplish a given mission-- and be supervised somewhat by the pilot on-site. -- Robot Aircraft to Dominate Future Air Forces By Bradley Perrett, Reuters/Yahoo Tech Headlines, February 21 2000 Increasingly robust defenses against stealth aircraft will make higher speeds and altitudes more important. Thus, future bombers may need supersonic and even hypersonic (Mach 5-10) speeds as a part of their repertoire. The immediate successor to the B-2 however looks to be a stealthier subsonic aircraft offering greater payloads and range and perhaps the capacity to field smaller robotic daughter-craft. -- PopSci.com | Science | Features | B-3 and Beyond by Steve Douglass, found on or about 4-5-2000 |
Other unmanned planes serve as high altitude circling communications hubs similar in function to space-based satellites but costing much less.
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Despite odd appearance, prototype jet could be next step in
communications By CYNTHIA L. WEBB, Nando.net/The Associated Press, September 23, 1998, http://www.nandotimes.com
Within 24 hours of a major disaster thousands of cell phones could be dropped into the afflicted area, and be enabled via a special long-flying plane around 65,000 feet in altitude, to restore local communications and speed relief, salvage, and reconstruction efforts. The plane may possess transparent wings encasing both upward and downward facing solar cells to catch both direct and reflected sunlight off clouds. At night it will rely on fuel cells. Its speed will typically be less than 100 mph, its flight duration possibly as long as six months at a time. Besides disaster relief, such planes could also play important roles in telecommunications redundancy and stop-gap measures for temporarily relieving normal equipment outages. -- Plane May Revolutionize Telecom, Disaster Relief By Nigel Hunt Reuters/Yahoo! Science Headlines, April 10 2000 |
2020-2025 milestone: Structural electronics/'smart' structures based on semi-conducting carbon composites are becoming generally availableCarbon composite processing is a slow and somewhat bulky option compared to other alternatives, but it is also low cost, and often capable of performing reliably under harsh conditions where other computing technologies wouldn't.
Combine carbon composite's new electronic and data processing capacities with its original attributes of great strength and light weight, along with vastly improved manufacturing techniques for the material, and the result is a boom in its incorporation into many facets of modern life. From many forms of aircraft and automobiles, to home construction and furnishings/appliances, to extremely low cost computers, to many varieties of personnel armor for police, military, and sports purposes, and more-- carbon composites are becoming as common now as plain plastics did decades before.
| -- "Crystal ball shows glittering chameleon in your future -- you" By David Horrigan August 24, 1999, Union-Tribune Publishing Co. |