I’ve become a bit of future junkie the last few years. When I was editing full-time, I was reading science and engineering journals all day EVERY DAY and I got a taste of the awesome stuff on our technological horizon.
Some future inventions are big and some are super small, but all mean more and more changes coming for us in the next decades. We are notoriously bad at predicting how tech will change the future (hello hoverboards in 2015–what happened?) but my SF brain loves to mull the possibilities.
Here are a few of my favorite technologies to dream about:
1. The Hyperloop
It’s coming. We will travel super fast in pods because Elon Musk said so and it’s a good idea to do whatever he says. Aileen put this tech in Cipher and pod travel became a thing in the Shadow Ravens world. Can’t wait until we can ride it in real life!
2. Electric Cars
Gas should’ve gone out a long, loooong time ago and the future may finally be arriving thanks to our Space Pharoah, Lord Musk. I want a Tesla in my hypothetical garage so bad. The most exciting part of this tech is the door we’re opening to automated driving and safer roads. Us people suck at the whole motor vehicle thing, and I look forward to the day that the robots inevitably take charge. I’ll feel a lot safer driving around Retirement City, Florida, when I’m not worried about passing 90-year-old drivers who can’t see over the steering wheel.
3. Thin Films
A thin film is a nano-coating, and I’ve read so much on sputter-depositing Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide to various substrates that I could make your ears bleed. Basically, we’re in for a future of nano coatings and layers of nano-stuff on and improving everything. Anti-bacterial. Conducting. Who even knows what else? They’re going to make all our devices thinner, more flexible, and more energy efficient. Plus, flexi solar panels!!
4. Cyborg eyes
These can’t come soon enough. The tech that already exists is helping people with vision impairments improve their sight, which is a beautiful thing, but as implant tech develops, we’re looking at the ability to take pictures with our eyes and so much more ala every sci fi movie ever. I’m personally interested, because it’s going to be killer trying to find and maintain contact lenses after the zombie apocalypse. Better to get a lifetime implant that lets you zoom in and out and take videos. (We’ll pretend hacking isn’t a thing that happens in the coming utopia)
5. AR
This video is a fav of mine–although representing one of the scarier ways AR could go. On the dreamer side, we are totally getting AR Pokémon. Pokemon GO is already happening, but once Google Glass (or our cyborg implants) take off, it’s going to get so much more immersive. I hope we can upload our old Pokémon from Gameboy, because I have a Lvl 64 Blastoise I stole from the kid I used to babysit… And he’s like 24 now, so I’m not giving it back and I can’t wait to battle that sucker in real life.
That’s the short list!
What are you guys looking forward to these next decades??