future » Absurd Intellectual

A day in the life of … the future

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 13 January 2011 Modern Life, Vintage/Retro

Jan 132011

For some reason, it seems like people are taking stock of the present and looking around themselves more than normal this year. I don’t know why it took 2011 to do it, but I don’t recall a similar bout of reassessment even during the millennium. Perhaps we were all too busy arguing about whether that happened in 2000 or 2001.

Anyway, I’ve read a bunch of “Look how marvellous things are, we really are living in the future,” posts recently, but it was one on Raptitude that really struck me for it’s faux-retro sci-fi approach:

The sun won’t rise for another hour, but I don’t need to light a fire or candles. I have artificial ones, mounted on the ceiling. Hit a tiny switch and I can see everything, any time of day.

I bathe while standing. The water comes out whatever temperature I like.

I use a few machines in my kitchen to get my breakfast ready. It takes about five minutes. Toasted buckwheat groats with raisins, almonds, dates and sunflower seeds. I don’t know where it came from but I’d be surprised if it was from anywhere near here.

As I eat, it occurs to me that my co-worker has a machine I might need to use at work today, so I want to make sure he brings it with him. We work about ten miles from my home, and he lives about ten miles from me, but that’s no problem. I’ve got a device that lets him hear my voice from that distance. Wherever he is, I can talk to him.

One minute later I’ve solved that problem, and forgotten about it.

(As an aside, the writer of Raptitude, David Cain, is a Winnipegger.)

Then in a Discover Magazine blog, a similar faux-retro look ahead, but this time as if we were still living in 1995:

The year is 2010. America has been at war for the first decade of the 21st century and is recovering from the largest recession since the Great Depression. Air travel security uses full-body X-rays to detect weapons and bombs. The president, who is African-American, uses a wireless phone, which he keeps in his pocket, to communicate with his aides and cabinet members from anywhere in the world. This smart phone, called a “Blackberry,” allows him to access the world wide web at high speed, take pictures, and send emails.

Remember, in 1995:

almost no one but Gordon Gekko and Zack Morris have cellphones, pagers are the norm; dial-up modems screech and scream to connect you an internet without Google, Facebook, or YouTube; Dolly has not yet been cloned; the first Playstation is the cutting edge in gaming technology; the Human Genome Project is creeping along; Mir is still in space; MTV still plays music; Forrest Gump wins an academy award and Pixar releases their first feature film, Toy Story.

The blogger, Kyle Munkittrick, goes on to re-assert that while we know technology will keep improving, it’s impossible to predict quite how.

(Image “We’ll All Be Happy Then” paleofuture, via discover)

Finally, my hoverboard!

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 3 June 2010 Modern Life

Jun 032010

It is a common lament around the Absurd Intellectual offices that the hoverboard dreams of our youth have, to date, gone unrealized. Unfairly, I might add. There is all sorts of amazing technological advances occurring in all fields of science, technology and engineering. For example, I recently heard about a car that has been developed that runs on water. Unfortunately, it only runs on water from the Gulf of Mexico… (too soon?)

In any case, why doesn’t some organization throw some effort and research dollars at hoverboards? I mean I really, REALLY want one.

Wait. What do you mean one has been invented? For real?

Absolutely. It actually hovers!

You can’t ride it. And it’s pink.

But, hey. It’s a start…

Regarding my jet-pack fetish

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 25 February 2010 Modern Life

Feb 252010

I have blogged about my desire to own a jet pack in the past. That pack, as cool as it may be, had some significant drawbacks. First and foremost, it was powered by water which causes some difficulty if I were interested in flying in, say, the Sahara. And if I’m laying out around $130K for a jet pack, I had better be able to use it anywhere I want.

So, move over Jetlev, make room for the Martin Jet Pack.

The 200 horsepower dual-propeller packs can travel at 60mph for up to 30miles on a full tank of fuel. They have been reached heights of 7,800ft in tests.

At 250lbs when empty, the jet pack is not heavy enough to require a pilot’s licence, although users will take part in a Martin Jetpack training programme.

The price will will be comparable to the Jetlev, but with almost none of the restrictions. You can bet I’m saving my pennies…

If this is augmented reality, I’m scared

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 12 February 2010 Modern Life

Feb 122010

“Augmented reality” is one of those concepts that floats around on the periphery of discussions about the future of technology. If the phrase is new to you, or you’ve been too embarrassed to admit you don’t know what it means, Wikipedia defines augmented reality as:

Augmented reality is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.

Think Minority Report. In the movies it seems cool and exciting and gives some sense of “the future.” Having long been denied my hoverboard as promised to me in Back to the Future II, I’m a bit more pessimistic that augmented reality will be as awesome as the movies make it out to be. In fact, I’m afraid that it’ll only serve to make advertising even more pervasive than it already is.

Masters of Architecture student Keiichi Matsuda, as “part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality,” created the following video to give an idea of what everyday usage of such technology might be like.

It might look like fun in this not-quite-two-minute video, but I think it would get very tiresome very quickly.

Newspaper watch: Yeah, right edition

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 8 December 2009 Modern Life

Dec 082009

Good luck, if you think the future of magazines is this touchscreen uber-Kindle. Of course, it might be exactly like this. Except there will be ads you can’t fast-forward through. And you’re going to have to watch that cover animation EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU LOAD THE ISSUE, just like the start of a DVD.

And speaking of DVDs, I hope you like opening a magazine and clicking through multiple pages of copyright notices that can’t be ignored. And “special offers” for other magazines by the same publisher.

And every time a friend shares an article with you, I hope you love the legalese that “Sports Illustrated does not endorse the opinions that may be emailed herein.”

Also, if it is exactly like this, with this much content, and this little annoyance, and this few ads … well, I hope you like paying $500 a month for your magazine.

Space tourism, now one step closer to reality

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 7 December 2009 Modern Life

Dec 072009

Although there hasn’t been a lot of movement on the 2 Guys 1 List front in the past few months, I haven’t forgotten about it. Let’s just say things remain in the planning stages.

One of the more “out-there” items on Grant’s list, the “Go to space” entry, has come one step closer with the very recent announcement coming from Virigin Galactic:

After five years of secret construction, the cloak is coming off a privately funded spacecraft designed to fly well-heeled tourists into space.

The long-awaited glimpse of SpaceShipTwo, slated for rollout Monday in the Mojave Desert, could not come sooner for the scores of wannabe astronauts who have forked over part of their disposable income for the chance to float in zero gravity.

Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo. The whole story abounds with awesome band names. But I digress.

Although SpaceShipTwo has been revealed, don’t start lining up to purchase your tickets yet.

Flight testing of White Knight Two has been ongoing for the past year. The first SpaceShipTwo test flights are expected to start next year, with full-fledged space launches to its maximum altitude by or in 2011.

It remains unclear when Virgin Galactic customers will receive their astronaut wings, but it will largely depend on how the test program fares. Some 300 clients have paid the $200,000 ticket or placed a deposit, according to the company.

Sigh. I can see it now. Climbing aboard SpaceShipTwo and blasting off for a couple of weeks of R&R on the International Space Station. Pure bliss.

Wait. What do you mean that’s not how it will be?

Virgin Galactic plans to operate commercial spaceflights out of a taxpayer-funded spaceport in New Mexico that is under construction. The 2 1/2 hour trips — up and down flights without circling the Earth — include about five minutes of weightlessness.

SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by White Knight Two and released at 50,000 feet. The craft’s rocket engine then burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel to climb more than 65 miles above the Earth’s surface. After reaching the top of its trajectory, it will fall back into the atmosphere and glide to a landing like a normal airplane. Its descent is controlled by “feathering” its wings to maximize aerodynamic drag.

That seems a lot less like “space tourism” and a whole lot like “catch a fleeting glimpse of space.” But, I suppose, it is a place to start.

And a well funded start, too:

Virgin Galactic expects to spend more than $400 million for a fleet of five commercial spaceships and launch vehicles.

Do Blade Runner sounds dream of electric cars?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 20 September 2009 Modern Life

Sep 202009

We’ve got 10 years (and two months) to go until the events depicted in Blade Runner, but in some ways we’re ahead already. No, there aren’t replicants or asteroid mining in our immediate future, but our electric cars should arrive next fall.

And some people are worried. The blind, who rely on the sound of the internal-combustion engine to help navigate city streets, might not be able to detect these new cars, for example. Even for people with 20/20 vision, audible cues can be important — when cycling, for example.

So Nissan is going to give their electric cars a “beautiful and futuristic” sound effect, which is being described as similar to the flying cars of Blade Runner (they’re known as spinners).

You can hear some samples of the “spinner” noise in the Blade Runner trailer below. Personally, I like it, but I wonder what crowded highways would sound like — and what effect it might have on wildlife. It’s spooky, a little.

The future is not now — it’ll be here in September

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 20 August 2009 Modern Life

Aug 202009

Apart from hover-bikes, the only thing I will accept as proof that the future has arrived is video embedded in traditionally paper products. I’m talking about Harry Pottereque moving pictures in newspapers, magazines…heck, even on cereal boxes.

As of this moment, a quick perusal of any newstand reveals that the future is not here (for the record, there isn’t a hover-bike in my garage either). The BBC tells me, however, that the future will arrive in September in select copies of Entertainment Weekly.

The first clips will preview programmes from US TV network CBS and show adverts by the drinks company Pepsi.

They will appear in 18 September editions of the magazine distributed in Los Angeles and New York.

These “special editions”, as I’m sure they’ll be called, will likely cost a fair amount more than their purely paper counterparts. They will also be thicker and have a battery life of about 70 minutes.

I would say that this product is 100% awesome, but for some reason, the idea of a magazine with a battery life gives me a stomach ache.

Things that will make kids think you’re old

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 27 July 2009 Modern Life, Vintage/Retro

Jul 272009

A few days ago, I mused about creating a post listing things that I would never have to teach my kids. I don’t have kids, of course, but someday I probably will. And I’ll teach them life lessons. But I doubt that they’ll ever have to learn to drive standard, say. So they’ll never learn to pop the clutch. That’s already a skill that’s fading away, honestly.

But think about things that are just about on the cusp of changing. I suspect that, unless we visit grandma and grandpa’s house, and an old light bulb burns out, I will never have to teach my kids that light bulbs are hot. I will bet that light bulbs will be exclusively compact fluorescent or LED-based by the time I’m teaching kids how to change them.

So I was thinking about some other things that I might not have to ever teach my (future, hypothetical) kids.

But then I saw that a blog on Wired has already done it. Geek Dad’s list (of 100! I never could have come up with that many!) is heavy on the tech and computer side of things, but it also has a few poignant, nostalgic items.

Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.

Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.

Finding books in a card catalog at the library.

Remembering someone’s phone number.

Yeah — things are changing! I wonder what things I’ll never know that, to my dad or granfather, say, would have just been taken for granted. I know, for example, that when my dad was a teen, he worked as a pin-setter in a bowling alley, before they invented a machine to set them back up automatically. But there’s probably dozens of similar things like that.

Anyone got any examples?

Good news, bad news on Futurama

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 19 July 2009 Modern Life

Jul 192009

I always liked Futurama, and I was so sad to see it canceled. So when I heard that there was a chance it could come back — for 2010 — I was thrilled.

Now, though, Variety is reporting that the original voice actors are asking for more money than the studio is willing to pay, so they’re putting out a casting call. There is some hope that this is just the studio maneuvering for leverage:

It’s not the first time 20th has gone that route during a tough negotiation on one of its toons. The studio previously made a similar move on “The Simpsons” when it couldn’t come to a deal with its stars. Casting feelers were sent out for replacements, but a deal was eventually made with the original cast.

The situation is unusual this time around in that 20th and Comedy Central have been kicking around ways to make “Futurama,” originally produced for a broadcast network (Fox), make financial sense for a cable run. Yet there’s also still a possibility — and a window built in — for “Futurama” to run on a broadcast network first.

It’s believed that the “Futurama” cast members were asking for around $75,000 per episode; it was not clear what 20th was offering.

According to the article, the budget for Futurama has been “dramatically slashed.” I just hope they manage to make a deal with the original voice cast. Unless you want it to end up like this:

The future of the book

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 26 June 2009 Modern Life

Jun 262009

I recently attended the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Summer Conference. In addition to the renewal of old acquaintances, author visits, sales presentations and other sorts of activities you would expect to encounter at a professional conference, there was a panel discussion on the future of the book industry. Although this discussion touched on many of the issues affecting independent booksellers (the fluctuating Canadian dollar, reassessments of returns policies, the economy, big box discounters, etc), the most interesting topic, to my mind, was the mindset of various publishers regarding the rise of the ebook.

Even the idea of the ebook gives me a nasty crawling of the flesh. It isn’t that I am some sort of Luddite or that, as a bookstore owner, I have a vested interest in the survival of the book. My problem is that the ebook may eventually win out over the physical book, despite the fact that the centuries-old format is the superior of the two.

A cursory listing, in no particular order, of my arguments for this position include:

Books have no requirement for electricity, battery or any form of power. Thus, they can be used in even the most primitive of conditions.
Although ebook readers have improved greatly with the latest generation of products, the resolution of the book will be difficult to surpass.
Transferability is less an issue for books than ebooks. While handing a book to a friend is rarely an issue (even if getting it returned is), sharing an ebook across different readers has, to date, been problematic.
Books are a very popular gift. Ebooks do not possess that physical dimension that is often important in gift-giving rituals.
Environmentally, books are superior. While much hue and cry can be raised around deforestation and the pollution resulting from pulp and paper mills, there are alternatives to these industrial practices. Electronic devices, in both production and disposal, are frightening with respect to what is released into soils and waterways.

Certainly, there are additional arguments and just as many counterarguments. Yet, because the general public has a love affair with hand-held electronic devices, publishers are looking to monetizing that small, but growing portion of the market seeking digital versions of new books.

The general consensus among the publishers present at the CBA conference was that ebooks will not likely play a significant role in the marketplace for at least 5 years. In that time, I cannot say how else the book industry will evolve as we are truly in a time of change.

In short, although the publishing industry is in a time of flux, it is almost certain that the book will survive.

(This post has been simultaneously published on both Absurd Intellectual and the Pennywise Books blog.)

‘Star Trek’ technology is just around the corner

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 16 June 2009 Modern Life

Jun 162009

Okay, “just around the corner” in geologic terms. Or, more appropriately, cosmological terms. A noted futurist, Michio Kaku, has released a book talking about how impossible-sounding technologies may be available for us to use in decades or a century — no more than a millennium, for sure.

His book, “Physics of the Impossible“, sounds pretty rad, but he also stopped by The Guardian for a Q&A podcast:

Some 80% of the technologies portrayed in science fiction like Star Trek and Star Wars – including force fields, teleportation, telekinesis, mind-reading and invisibility – will become possible within the next century …. Within centuries to millennia, even time travel, starships and “warp drive” may become possible, says Kaku.

“What we usually consider are impossible are simply engineering problems … there’s no law of physics preventing them.”

I’m jazzed by the possibilities here — and listen to the podcast, he’s pretty convincing. Kaku is an expert in string theory, and no matter what you think about string theory (I’m on the fence, yet) you have to be deadly-smart to understand or master it.

For people who think that Star Trek is too way out there to ever come true, just think about this: Cell phones today are already (in my opinion) better, smaller and more functional than the communicators in the original series. And your iphone? Well, that’s about 75% of a tricorder.

I’ve downloaded the podcast, actually, and uploaded it so you can listen to it here (It’s about 22 minutes long).

Guardian Science Podcast – Impossibility Is Relative

We are living in the (bionic) future

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 5 March 2009 Modern Life

Mar 052009

This makes my day: a guy in Britain has been fitted with a bionic eye.

Now, he can’t exactly switch to X-rays and see through clothes, or zoom in or anything. In fact, he’s kind of limited in what he can see — flashes of light, etc.

But it’s good enough that he says he can sort socks, and follow white lines on a road (though he shouldn’t be driving).

Before I die, I fully expect that everyone will have a camera archiving their every movement, like a dashboard video camera stuck to their temple. It’ll be a real boon for journalists (see: Transmetropolitan) but it’ll be a gigantic memory aid, too.

Bionic eyes! How can you not be excited by this!!

1984 meet 2009

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 10 February 2009 Modern Life

Feb 102009

big-brother Far scarier than any economic downturn or natural disaster or petty crime are ideas out of dystopian fiction that are quietly becoming reality in the world around us.

We all know that, to some degree or another, we are part of a database somewhere — whether it is in a government office, a credit card company’s computer, Amazon or Google, we all leave a trace of who we are and what we like. Imagine the power of an organization that could assimilate all of these databases. How much would they know about us?

Imagine no more:

The National Security Agency (NSA) is developing a tool that George Orwell’s Thought Police might have found useful: an artificial intelligence system designed to gain insight into what people are thinking.

With the entire Internet and thousands of databases for a brain, the device will be able to respond almost instantaneously to complex questions posed by intelligence analysts. As more and more data is collected—through phone calls, credit card receipts, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, GPS tracks, cell phone geolocation, Internet searches, Amazon book purchases, even E-Z Pass toll records—it may one day be possible to know not just where people are and what they are doing, but what and how they think.

The fact that such a thing is being done nothing short of horrifying. Personal privacy be damned — my actions will not only be available to others, but will become part of a machine’s thinking processes. Anyone else remember the premise behind the Terminator movies?

Yet things only become stranger and more like a science-fiction movie than one might think…

Like something out of a B-grade sci-fi movie, CASL is even trying to turn dull minds into creative geniuses by training employees to control their own brain waves: “The cognitive neuroscience team has also been researching divergent thinking: creative, innovative and flexible thinking valuable for language work. They are exploring ways to improve divergent thinking using the EEG and neurobiological feedback. A change in brain-wave activity is believed to be critical for generating creative ideas, so the team trains its subjects to change their brain-wave activity.”

If the super-secret NSA has allowed information about this project to become public knowledge, I wonder what top-secret activities are going on?