18 replies to this topic

[ecator]

I have kind of been behind on technological advancements the past few years and catching up with the things going on more recently is completely staggering to me. One of the more recent was from watching https://www.youtube....h?v=-5KLTonB3Pg Just the sheer potential for that technology is both amazing and borderline scary. Once this technology is fully harnessed you have to ask, what are the limits?

 

It is an amazing time period to be alive and to see first hand. The changes that have been made in technology and computing just within the last 30 years has been nothing short of miraculous. We have went from a computer being something that few people can use that takes up the space and size of a building to creating computers out of folded strands of dna.

[Kicken]

Watch some of Michio Kaku's videos/docs on Youtube. He is absolutely amazing. 

[Fred]

that video is both amazing and scary as hell at the same time.  Thanks for sharing it.

[thatoldlimey]

As a child of the 70's, when video games and computers in the home didn't exist, black and white tv's were the norm, I am constantly amazed with how things have progressed. I often wonder how much things will change in the next 30 - 40 years and that excites and terrifies me at the same time and I can't wait

[Cozax]

What amazes me now is all the new things that people are doing with 3d printing, there's some seriously awesome stuff that has been done with it, and its a relatively new technology.

[RomanticsWes]

What amazes me now is all the new things that people are doing with 3d printing, there's some seriously awesome stuff that has been done with it, and its a relatively new technology.

This is what freaks me out the most. 3D printing is super futuristic still to me lol. Blows my mind.

[ecator]

Yeah the 3d printing is amazing, once that takes off and gets better people like UPS and FedEx will be hurtning. Why bother to ship something when you can just send digital instructions for how to fabricate it from a printer?  Just wait though till they get some advanced nano bots which start munipulating and assembling items on a moleculer level. It will be those replicators from star trek in your living room. Swarms of them in your blood stream that automatically fix and repair injury so you can basically have the recovery of wolverine from xmen. Some that attach and enchance muscle tissues when needed to give you super strength. It's all amazing stuff and the technology is doing nothing but coming faster with each new advancment. Soon enough no one will be able to keep up with it.

[Cozax]

 Just wait though till they get some advanced nano bots which start munipulating and assembling items on a moleculer level. It will be those replicators from star trek in your living room.

What's funny is that some of the technology from Star Trek is now a reality, when it used to be some crazy invention in a science fiction show. I can't imagine what kind of stuff will pop up that was just imagination before.

[PCX64]

Yeah 3D Printing is something I'm into myself, I have built a couple of printers, well... not that they are currently working, though :-)

 

Btw, quadcopters are simply amazing... https://www.youtube....h?v=w2itwFJCgFQ

[Kaldo]

Frankly I'm still impressed by smartphones. I only recently "upgraded" to one from my brickphone before and I'm constantly amazed with variety of things you can do with it, and with all the apps there are on the market. I've never felt so connected to the rest of the world before, I mean... I can sit in a coffee shop and talk or correspond with someone from the other side of the world or across an ocean with practically no delay. And all of that through a small device that can fit in my hand and costs around 100-200 $.

 

Not to mention the technologies currently in development, like the fusion generators, genetic modifying, nanotechnology, space exploration. There are already companies interested in mining asteroid belts in space! We are also constantly discovering new things about physics, currently the old model we though was correct is falling apart and everyone is trying to find a new one that fits and includes quantum mechanics. I mean, imagine what will people say in few centuries about us at this time! We live in a time of free Internet, when it's only starting to spread to wider audiences. We're practically in a golden age now, both in terms of culture and in terms of science. I just can't wait to see what happens in 10 of 20 years from now.

[Cozax]

Frankly I'm still impressed by smartphones. I only recently "upgraded" to one from my brickphone before and I'm constantly amazed with variety of things you can do with it, and with all the apps there are on the market. I've never felt so connected to the rest of the world before, I mean... I can sit in a coffee shop and talk or correspond with someone from the other side of the world or across an ocean with practically no delay. And all of that through a small device that can fit in my hand and costs around 100-200 $.

Yeah it's insane how much we have been able to size down parts to be able to fit them in stuff.. My crappy phone that can barely google something without freezing probably has like 200x the RAM of one of the computers on the spaceships of the Apollo missions. 

 

We are also constantly discovering new things about physics, currently the old model we thought was correct is falling apart and everyone is trying to find a new one that fits and includes quantum mechanics.

Even our perceptions of Black Holes are all wrong, Stephen Hawking even said that they don't exist  which makes me very sad.

[Kaldo]

Even our perceptions of Black Holes are all wrong, Stephen Hawking even said that they don't exist  which makes me very sad.

That is fascinating (even though the article is just click-baiting - they never actually say there are no black holes, only that there aren't event horizons as we imagine them and that black holes might not have cores of infinite density, if I summed it up correctly). The article is really interesting and only further proves the point that we live in an age of constant discovery! It's amazing how little we actually know. Many people say we live in a world where everything is known and there aren't any new frontiers to discover but I think we're just getting started ...

[ecator]

That is fascinating (even though the article is just click-baiting - they never actually say there are no black holes, only that there aren't event horizons as we imagine them and that black holes might not have cores of infinite density, if I summed it up correctly). The article is really interesting and only further proves the point that we live in an age of constant discovery! It's amazing how little we actually know. Many people say we live in a world where everything is known and there aren't any new frontiers to discover but I think we're just getting started ...

Yeah basically we know just enough to fully realize how little we actually know. It is really amazing if you think about it for the stand point of an individual human. We really have it easy. It is not really that long ago that to have things such as bed sheets and the ability to sleep off of the ground was something that only the elite of sociaty got to do. Now poor people can like like past kings because we can mass produce things. We dont have to work all day in a field just so we can grow stuff and if were lucky and the bugs dont get all of it we get to eat and not be hungry instead of just pop down the road and buy something in a store or call someone up and have thing bring you food. The written word and knowlage is no longer some magical thing that monks or the elite of sociaty get to see. We are bombarded with words and knowlage almost every minute of the day through the internet or phones. If you wanted to take a picture of the earth from space you would need to have the backing of an entire nation to do that, now you can just buy a weather ballon online and send your camera on up with GPS to track it. Individuals are empowered to past the power that entire nations of old had.

 

Technology is amazing and empowering but we will soon be coming to a boundary if we havent allready past it to where the use of our technology changes what it means to be human. It will be long gone when the blood stream of even the poor members of sociaty is filled with nanobots and they have mechanical apendages, with brains that are linked to the internet. But for right now in history for the most part we are still human. I think that we will cross that line and change the very definition of what it means to be human with our technology within my lifetime. That thought is both scary and exciting at the same time.

[PCX64]

Fascinating.

 

We are definitely taking bigger steps in the great suffering ages humanity still finds itself in. Only relatively recently did we discover that there was Space! around our previously flat earth idea that we realized wasn't flat, so we assumed that it was a sphere earth, but now we know it's an elliptical sphere-shaped earth. There's still an unimaginable amount of things to discover and still do, because our brains haven't yet evolved to the point where we can start to even imagine the transcendental technology beyond the rim of our current human imagination that we may discover if our sun doesn't explode before we have moved on to different solar systems. The next big discoveries may allow us to survive and live in deep space for long periods of time, discover the cure for cancer, human cloning, and eventually cure aging, and what not.

 

Every field is progressing forwards, faster every year, maybe there will be a technological singularity with lightning-fast computers?

[Kremmel]

Nanobots exist. Mind Blown.

[LOOPYDOG]

I tell every ne that I'm going to live for ever, I'm going to get robot parts. couldnt load you tube vid try again later:)

[WildCard]

This week I discovered the existence of "Powdered Alcohol - Palcohol", not just so teenagers can get drunk, but if it has the same germ killing properties as liquid alcohol, will be handy on the battlefield..

Also Graphene, 1 atom thick graphite sheets......applications for use are amazing..

[PCX64]

Yep, graphene definitely looks like the next step. I read that, unlike the good old conventional semiconductors, graphene cannot be switched off, which sounds like a problem... but it seems that we got a solution to that :-p From what I've read, Graphene Transistors can reach 400+ GHz...
and enables simpler XOR gates! Nice!
Some problems to be solved, are teh creation of good graphene, and the creation of good graphene transistors that don't waste power, etc.

 

But now we might have a rival... Phosphorene, ultra-thin like graphene but made of phosphorus atoms instead, it's a natural semiconductor.

http://www.engineeri...is-in-town.aspx

 

I can't wait for the first commercial graphene desktop computer processor. Graphene might just kick silicon's butt! :-)

[Deckard]

I have kind of been behind on technological advancements the past few years and catching up with the things going on more recently is completely staggering to me. One of the more recent was from watching https://www.youtube....h?v=-5KLTonB3Pg Just the sheer potential for that technology is both amazing and borderline scary. Once this technology is fully harnessed you have to ask, what are the limits?

 

It is an amazing time period to be alive and to see first hand. The changes that have been made in technology and computing just within the last 30 years has been nothing short of miraculous. We have went from a computer being something that few people can use that takes up the space and size of a building to creating computers out of folded strands of dna.

Couldn't agree more. My head spins thinking about how far we have come, especially for someone my age when high tech was an electric typewriter. Yes I am an old fart. And does anyone remember that high tech game called PacMan. lol. Yep, we sure have moved along. But it may not always be for the better now that computers are able to read your mind - at least basic images and emotions. Pretty scary stuff. And then there is the singularity. I guess technology will always be a double edged sword.