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The medical tricorder in ST:TOS has that detachable piece that seems to have some sort of wireless connection to the main unit. That is not unlike a bluetooth device.
The two-way Seashell radios in Fahrenheit 451 are similar to bluetooth earpieces if not superior as they do not need cellphones to operate.
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I would say in most incarnations of Trek they generally miss the interoperability we would expect from the technology they carry around. IE, tricorders, communicators, and other devices don't seem to work together as a group through wireless connections in most cases. Unless specifically set to stealthy modes for discrete operations, I would assume all those things would be in continuous contact with each other as well as the ship's systems through the communicator. Which should also mean, if my tricorder breaks but I have the scanner wand and my communicator working, I should still be able to scan something with it using the ship's computers, just with a higher latency results and maybe not a convenient visual interface for me to see on site.
And some things, like the screens in Alien, I have to lean on the cultural metaphor at the time the show/movie was produced. The goal wasn't to show what computers might be capable of in the future, the goal was to have the audience immediately recognize what they are seeing as a computer and to read information it displayed. Now with visual magic even in the 70's they might have been able to make something that resembles our computer interfaces of today, BUT... it would have taken audiences when it was made longer to realize what they were supposed to be seeing AND the interface would have distracted them from what was important: the data on the screen.
That's common with a lot of screens in movies and tv, they have a LOT less information on them than we would expect and it's for a reason, they are being used to tell us something specific and not cluttered with unnecessary bits. (That, and they often don't want to pay royalty fees for showing real interfaces.) But I don't take that as any more "unrealistic" than I do the dialog in tv/film... which tends to be much, much more direct and far less tangential than real world conversation.
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Hence big blinking "FTL failure" pop ups.Originally Posted by JCoyote
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regarding minority report, i find it hilarious that it failed in making a credible prediction for the 2060's regarding computer interfaces precisely because it provided immediate inspiration for a whole trend of interface design that is becoming too common to be considered futuristic... more so considering the self-fulfilling prophecy theme to the plot. when i saw the old multitouch presentation in TED for the first time that was all i could think of while i laughed my way out of my chair.
but now people who will see it will think "meh a giant Iphone", and in a year or so kids who have played with NATAL won't even notice it, instead perhaps thinking why the movie didn't try to design any futuristic interface, probably some having the same reaction i had when i wondered why ST:NG computer interfaces look like my microwave controls, and by the time something new will come up (i'm thinking this) it would be thought of the same way we think of the green computer interface in Alien.
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There's nothing worse than being screwed by your own brilliance.
I like your comment about NextGen computers. Roger Ebert remarked in his review of ST:N that the bridge of the Enterprise, while once looking futuristic now looks like a control center for security guards.
Seriously, the bridge of the Enterprise is one monitor resolution setting above the control room on the Magnus, a platform built in 1983 (although the current control system was installed in the mid 90s).
Order of Kilopi
It's nowhere near 2060 yet. Don't be so sure it's not futuristic.
You think that's new? Eye displays and/or display goggles/glasses are the "flying cars" of display technologies. We've been waiting......by the time something new will come up (i'm thinking this) it would be thought of the same way we think of the green computer interface in Alien.
I'm still waiting for the cell phone/mouse/computer. Instead of carrying around a bulky laptop, you just have a mouse-shaped computer which wirelessly communicates with any standard display and/or keyboard. The mouse-puter may also include a projector so all you need to do is point it at a wall to use it.
Instead, people apparently like browsing the internet on a puny screen with an awkward touch-sensitive interface.
Or maybe the technology is really that hard to miniaturize.
IMO, if your imagination can't dream beyond what's technologically possible within a decade or two, get your imagination checked.
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i thought the ST:NJ<->microwave anecdote was pretty clear on preanswering this.
thin & light? done.
transparent? done.
imbued eye tracking? done.
the software? 6th sense tech is prefect for it.
all that's left? reaching the required screen resolution for the near-eye image to be competitive with a distant image display (to the extent the human eye can notice) without loosing the above attributes, after which it only has left to pass the first-buyers market to cut down the price tag.
and we don't have the input device to make full use of it.
Order of Kilopi
Not to my satisfaction. One example does not prove a principle in general.
Anyway, it's not like the ST:TNG interfaces were designed to look futuristic. They were designed primarily to provide production flexibility while also keeping set budgets reasonable. The more typical interface with lots of buttons, blinking lights, and doo-dads is relatively expensive.
No, what's left is for the technology to be both affordable and accepted by the mass market.thin & light? done.
transparent? done.
imbued eye tracking? done.
the software? 6th sense tech is prefect for it.
all that's left? reaching the required screen resolution for the near-eye image to be competitive with a distant image display (to the extent the human eye can notice) without loosing the above attributes, after which it only has left to pass the first-buyers market to cut down the price tag.
and we don't have the input device to make full use of it.
Eye displays have been around for decades. IHADSS has been used in the field since the 1980's.
The technology exists, and has existed for a long time. That doesn't mean it's a viable mass market product.
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the principle i was referring too was that you don't expect technology in the future to look like current technology, and more so like past technology, especially not when that specific technology changes rapidly within the time of viewing. for UIs - whether its eye-tech or anything else - i do expect it to be something else then what it is now, the same as i do with cars - because there has a lot of progress lately with cars - i probably wouldn't 10 years ago, but i do now. on the other hand i wouldn't expect much advancement in let's say, dining furniture design, because there hasn't being much progress in that. it doesn't mean that there can't be, that trends don't shift - they do all the time & maybe in 10 years dining tables will be the new frontier of innovation - but we observe current velocities and form our expectations accordingly, and the one thing we don't expect them to do is to not move at all.
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Well, I don't find your point clear.
Are you saying that Minority Report looks like current technology? It doesn't. We don't have floating holographic displays. We don't have gesture based user interfaces (btw, these have been available in the lab for decades also).
UIs have not evolved much, other than eye candy and gimmicks. The keyboard and mouse is simply a very efficient and convenient interface system.for UIs - whether its eye-tech or anything else - i do expect it to be something else then what it is now, the same as i do with cars - because there has a lot of progress lately with cars - i probably wouldn't 10 years ago, but i do now.
And cars? What do you expect that's going to be so different about cars?
Are you expecting, say, electric cars to make a comeback? They've been around longer than gasoline cars. Or biodiesel? Back before diesel was refined from crude oil, it was all biodiesel.
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Technology not keeping up:
- Atomic rockets
- Off world colonies
- Flying cars (although, given the way most people drive, this may be a good thing)
Overtaken by science:
- Venus as a jungle planet, full of life.
- (Current) Martian civilizations
- The fifth (terrestrial) planet destroyed shomehow, forming the asteroid belt
- Vulcan (the one in the solar system, not Spock's homeworld)
Not sure where this goes, but: Efficient personal transportation leading to the end of cities
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How about socially? Most scifi authors seemed to extrapolate from the society of the late 60es and 70es.
Today we seem to have a backlash in some areas (sexuality suddenly seems to have a lot more taboos again), but on the other hand a bit more gender equality than is given in most scifi "classics". We can't go into politics and religion here, but it also seems to have been neglected by most scifi people who suggested a globally unified humanity. Do you think that actually will ever happen, even if we are trading with alien races later on? Or will they have one contract with, say, Eurasia, and another with Oceania? And we will have to be careful to notice whether we trade with a bug-eyed alien of the purple faction or of the green faction?
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Hopefully it isn't straying to far to say this.We can't go into politics and religion here, but it also seems to have been neglected by most scifi people who suggested a globally unified humanity. Do you think that actually will ever happen, even if we are trading with alien races later on? Or will they have one contract with, say, Eurasia, and another with Oceania? And we will have to be careful to notice whether we trade with a bug-eyed alien of the purple faction or of the green faction?
It is common to make all planets a single political entity, but that's probably more laziness than anything else. It takes extra effort to conjure up a complex geopolitical scenario for every planet when most times just have a single planetary government will suit the story. There are of course notable exceptions.
The tendancy in the past to portray a unified Earth is partly due to the above, but also partly an idealism for world peace borne during the age of the cold war. What has changed is that we are coming to realise that world peace is not contingent upon a unified polity. Relatively speaking, peace in the world is at an all time high despite there being more individual nation states than ever. It is probably because peace is at a high that the number of nations is at a high. In the days of old, including the cold war, aligning with a military power seemed to be the key to success and survival. It must have seemed to people that rivalry between national powers was inevitable and eternal and so peace would only be met with the absence of rivals aka unification.
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i'm saying that it seemed like a big leap forward when MP was released, today it will seem like a giant iphone, and when project natal comes out in a year or two then it wont seem like a leap forward at all.
the very fact that those options are being explored now - not only in concepts but in commercial successes - a lot more then in the past, means that whatever it will be, exactly like things are now seems an unlikely option.
why not one contract with virgin airlines and another with pharmaceuticals?How about socially? Most scifi authors seemed to extrapolate from the society of the late 60es and 70es.
Today we seem to have a backlash in some areas (sexuality suddenly seems to have a lot more taboos again), but on the other hand a bit more gender equality than is given in most scifi "classics". We can't go into politics and religion here, but it also seems to have been neglected by most scifi people who suggested a globally unified humanity. Do you think that actually will ever happen, even if we are trading with alien races later on? Or will they have one contract with, say, Eurasia, and another with Oceania? And we will have to be careful to notice whether we trade with a bug-eyed alien of the purple faction or of the green faction?
for the most part i agree with glom but i think there's another motive:
sci-fi and space opera in particular have an thing for large scales.
often planets are nations, other times they are like local cities under a larger government, and at the extreme a planet has some specific specialization like "farming planet" or "factory planet" or "city planet"... more then it likes making things interesting, space opera likes making things big.
in reality we are seen the exact opposite IMO - globalization is allowing a larger diversity of non-state organizations forming more disunity within local cultures & communities that aren't getting any less divided, instead increase population allows them to be more divided. society is developing more dimensions to be fractioned through. this doesn't go against world peace, but it is going against world unity.
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That allows them to talk about how the farms of Aerilon are burning and the beaches of Canceron are burning and the harbours of Picon are burning and the courthouses of Libron are burning and the forests of Virgon are burning and the plains of Leonis are burning and the pastures of Tauron are burning and the oceans of Aquaria are burning and the cities of Caprica are burning and the jungles of Scorpia are burning.
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An iPhone's screen is too puny to do the sorts of things shown in Minority Report, even if it did float in the middle of the air with a holographic display.
You think project natal will "come out" in a year or two. Or maybe not. It's a lab project; there have been many other lab projects. Every once in a while something from a lab project is adapted into a viable commercial product. More often than not, it does not.
Like I said, you're assuming too much.
What makes you think that these options are being explored now a lot more than in the past? The big push started in the 1970's, due to the 1973 oil embargo. That was a huge wake up call which prompted massive government investment into alternative energy technologies. Among other things, you can thank the 1973 oil embargo for flex fuel capability and the widespread adoption of biofuels across the country (for better or worse, ethanol mixes are in wide mainstream use).the very fact that those options are being explored now - not only in concepts but in commercial successes - a lot more then in the past, means that whatever it will be, exactly like things are now seems an unlikely option.
Anyway, you were saying that we shouldn't expect things in the future to be similar to things today or in the past. But if we go to biodiesel or electrics, we will indeed be going back to technologies which used to be prominent in the past.
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perhaps, but i doubt it - the Zcam technology microsoft bought was working very well before project NATAL started, or before the IDF privatized it for that mater. i find the possibility of it being bought and then announced just to be thrown out of the window... well, ridicules. do you have any comparative examples of lab projects whose technology was fully functional prior to purchasing then getting invested marketing and then being thrown out?
you mean where experimented with prominently in the past. or did drive a hybrid in the 70s while a battery exchange network (project better place) was getting finale full-coverage national construction licenses?
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You haven't been paying much attention to Microsoft or any other tech company for very long, have you? Microsoft has a well worn history of failed products and products which Microsoft supported poorly and then dropped. Microsoft Bob is the most famous example; Windows CE is perhaps the most unfortunate example. (Had WinCE been supported well, it could have been the lean, mean OS suitable for low end computers that Win9x and WinNT+ never were. And Microsoft could have been ahead of iPhone and netbooks.)
The Tablet PC seems to be following in the footsteps of Windows CE. It was supposed to be the "next big thing", that would replace the traditional laptop and kill the palmtop. Instead, the traditional laptop remains popular, the decidedly non-Microsoft netbook has exploded onto the scene, and the palmtop format was revitalized by the iPhone. The Tablet PC didn't take over the way Microsoft had hoped, so it's likely to just sort of languish in second string support the way WinCE did...ultimately to get quietly dropped in the future.
I mean that if you go back a century, electric cars were more popular than gasoline cars.you mean where experimented with prominently in the past. or did drive a hybrid in the 70s while a battery exchange network (project better place) was getting finale full-coverage national construction licenses?
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I rather think cars will continue to be fueled by hydrocarbons for quite a while, well after fossil fuels have run out.
We'll be making petrol-oil directly with genetically modified bacteria and algae. Sugar or sunlight straight into oil. Incidentally, these critters already exist.
Now, how the cars use the fuel will change. I imagine the cars of the future will have something like a Stirling engine that runs on diesel, kerosene, whatever, and generates electricity that powers drive-motors on each wheel.
Hydrogen gas is a pain; it leaks out of everything, given time. You can inefficiently store it chemically bonded to different things, but why bother when you can just fill up with user-friendly, liquid-at-room-temp, non-blow-up-in-your-face hydrocarbons?
Given how wildly computer interfaces have changed in the last forty-four years, I imagine Minority Report may be somewhat off in this regard.
By then, those who don't have qualms against it, may control computers directly with an implant in their head. A primitive version of this has happened in the lab already, with a quadriplegic man moving a computer cursor around and clicking on icons by thought alone.
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For such basic interactions, you don't even need implants.
Non-invasive brainwave interfaces can do that just fine.
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It's a promising approach, especially since harvesting biofuel from the ocean would not impact land agriculture for food. Of course, if we go back a century we see that the main source of fuel oil was biofuel harvested from the ocean. (Hint, we were indirectly harvesting krill.)
Computer interfaces have significantly changed only twice, and only one of those was a paradigm shift.Given how wildly computer interfaces have changed in the last forty-four years, I imagine Minority Report may be somewhat off in this regard.
Computers started off with off-the-shelf teletype interfaces (the teletype predates commercially available computers).
The first major change was the shift to CRT based teletype interfaces. This wasn't a paradigm shift, but it sure saved a lot of paper.
The second major change was in 1984, when the Mac popularized the mouse and keyboard interface with windows, buttons, menus, cut-and-paste, and so on. This was indeed a paradigm shift, and every commercially successful computer interface since then has either used the Mac's paradigm or the even older teletype interface.
Possibly. It's also possible that the keyboard/mouse point-and-click windowed interface will still be the most popular method due to it's efficiency.By then, those who don't have qualms against it, may control computers directly with an implant in their head. A primitive version of this has happened in the lab already, with a quadriplegic man moving a computer cursor around and clicking on icons by thought alone.
The big difference I see is augmentation with voice commands. This functionality has long been highly desired by gamers because you could do a lot of auxiliary actions without diverting fingers or attention from movement/shooting. But of course, it needs to be accurate enough and fast enough. I think it will be gradually perfected for gamers, and then generalized across consumer devices.
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And in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", from Lunar Authority's viewpoint, Mike was evil
I am fairly certain Vernon Vinge ("True Names") was the first to think of hacking and malicious software in modern sense. Before 1981, nobody.Howevfer, the idea that people would create things to practice minor malice, and just plain annoying stuff . . . did anybody think of that?
I think there were several reasons for these blinders. First, SF writers (American ones, anyway) tend to think of people, especially smart people, as rational, and writing a computer virus is a sophisticated yet irrational act. Virus writer gets no tangible benefit -- it is nothing but high-tech vandalism. Not something you often find in SF until it actually came to be. Vinge overdid user interface part (you don't NEED a fully immersive brain interface to hack a bank!), and also made Internet insufficiently distributed (too much data flows through one 2,000 ton satellite, for instance), but he got vandalism right, and hackers' being motivated by admiration of their peers rather than by money. But that was in 1981 when PC's with dial-up modems were already coming into fore. By then it did not take THAT much of imagination.
Second, minor malice (phishing, identity theft, etc) is closely related to "minor" uses of computers in general, such as doing your shopping and banking from home. And that's another thing about computers SF writers completely missed before it actually happened -- how much they would be used for trivial stuff. Most Golden Age SF envisioned computers as huge machines controlling important things, and while some writers did envision computers in homes, they could not think of any use for them other than (more or less) interactive encyclopedia. They never thought of using computers to commit minor malice for the same reasons they never thought of using them to commit minor benefice.
Last edited by Ilya; 2009-Dec-17 at 03:27 PM. Reason: Finally thought of word meaning opposite of "malice" :)
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well, here project betterplace has already got the construction license for a full national coverage of battery exchange stations.
and israel is meant to be just the first experiment, - there competent coverage range results directly from the payback of there current coverage and doubles every 3 years (battery size). in other words, it has both a (slow) exponential affect from the technology and an exponential coverage capacity - using the total of covered traffic islands as the return from which to build the infrastructure in the next island...
so even if the size US or china seems far right now, a slow starting double-exponential growth rate is still a double exponential growth rate.
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I don't think you'd want oil-producing algae in the ocean. They'd make the Exxon Valdez disaster look good.
I'm not talking about algae that is made into oil by human technology, I'm talking about genetically modified algae that poop oil out, while they're alive.
They'll need to be kept contained in aquaculture ponds etc.
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Batteries are even worse than hydrogen.
I think all-electric vehicles will eventually become very good, but it won't be with batteries. It'll be with ultracapacitors, CNT flywheels, or something like that. Batteries just don't have the energy density per kg to compare with hydrocarbons.
Cars now are very wasteful with their fuel. Something like 80-90% of the energy in the fuel is wasted as heat, instead of pushing the pistons. Reverse that situation by using a heat-engine that always runs at the same speed, directly off of temperature differentials. Stirling engines can be >90% efficient at converting heat to mechanical power. There'll be some loss in converting the mechanical to electrical, but even if that's 30%, that's still a huge improvement.
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Even that wouldn't be good enough. Production of scale would absolutely guarantee they WILL get into the wild eventually.
I think the best solution would be to engineer them to require something that is NOT found in natural bodies of water that we can control, and also to engineer them vulnerable to something we could use to control their spread anyway.
Last edited by JCoyote; 2009-Dec-18 at 12:47 AM. Reason: grammar
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ok that's ridicules: i'm talking about what is happening and your talking about what would be better? since when does the world works like that?
batteries are going to be used because they got the capital, the political push and the business model. which technology gets used has nearly nothing to do with which technology is better, and the only world where that is the case makes the issue of traffic irrelevant because they grow ultrasonic Pegasus and there insurance covers unicorn accidents.
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Batteries are going to be used because they're good enough for some purposes.
An intra-city micro-car powered by lithium-ion batteries is viable and has a market.
People who actually want to take their vehicle long distances without having to stop every 200km to charge up won't put up with that when there's something better.
You're not going to be running semi-trucks on batteries, freight trains, commercial airliners etc., etc., etc.
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Right.
The good news, though, is that even if some escaped into the wild, in time they'd be outcompeted by au naturel algae; because they'd not be putting their biochemical machinery into use producing an energy-dense chemical that doesn't aid their survival.
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see it's intra-city for america's scale, but for us its the whole country - which is a traffic island - if your an israeli and your car is outside of israel then your car is stolen. next inline? Hawaii, a literal traffic island.
both Hawaii & israel supply the income that gets invested in the next traffic island's infrastructure (probably Sweden), whose potential size doubles every 3 years relatively to the infrastructure investment.
will it reach the size of american interstate? by linear logic says no, but consider its growth in coverage capacity relatively to its investment capacity combined with the investment capacities multiplier?
now you may say that americans who drive on the interstate aren't going to be willing to stop so many times along the road, but with the rising price of oil, for how long will that last? more americans are going to be choosing between stopping more times along the trip and being able to afford the trip.
for trucks i don't necessarily agree since in countries where the battery exchange infrastructure was built for cars the increase in battery capacity (without a deconstruction of infrastructure) will allow the energy requirements for trucks to be caught up with.
but yes: for flight and shipment batteries aren't likely to be the solution.
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