We live in an age of constant technological innovations. New designs and functions receive patents every day and new products are released in the stores all the time. The top scientific minds of the world work day and night to bring us more and more inventions meant to make out lives easier or more fun.
It is said that technology develops exponentially – when one thing is invented it leads to the development of many new things, which in turn leads to more and so on, and so on. That is why we have seen such a rapid growth during the past several decades and if the pace keeps up we will see a lot more in the next few.
So what does the future have in store for the tech industry?
There are some devices which are already sure to be released in the next couple of years – Google Project Glass, the Solar-Powered Camera Strap, Mercedes’ invisible car, wireless electricity and many others. But what is still being researched and when will science fiction stop being fiction, or has it already…?
According to IBM, the next five years should produce at least an early version of mind-reading technology. Scientists now work on allowing our electronic devices like phones and computers to literally read our thoughts and perform actions without us getting physically involved.
A prediction made by the same company foresees that passwords will soon be obsolete because of the leaps made in biometric security. A combination of fingerprint locks, retina scans, voice recognition and other data will make remembering passwords absolutely unnecessary.
A great prediction includes the lack of spam in the future. Ads will be so personalized, IBM says, that nothing you receive will be considered junk – it will all be useful to you in some way or another.
Constant advancements are also being made in the field of renewable energy. With the pollution and fuel-shortage crisis our world is experiencing today, more and more efforts are being guided in that direction and we are sure to see some results soon.
Another field that is receiving much attention is Artificial Intelligence. AI is being incorporated into more and more devices and systems making human-machine communication an undisputed fact. Our phones, computers, cars and even homes will be able to talk more and more to us in the next few decades.
Many flying car prototypes are being made even today. Though still in research and development stages, getting fed up of the traffic jam and flying off the road is certainly a future possibility.
Believe it or not, results are being achieved even in the field of teleportation. Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China successfully transported macroscopic objects over a small distance in November 2012. Though still a long way from practical public applications like working in New York and living in Rome, teleportation could be slowly becoming reality.
As it was mentioned above, Mercedes have developed invisibility technology for cars using a sophisticated system of cameras and LED lights. But invisibility is not limited only to cars – the invisibility cloak is no longer just a prop from a Harry Potter book; it is a project in development which has already yielded fantastic results.
All these inventions are literally taken out of science fiction stories and brought forth to reality. What else will technology brings us? What unimaginable wonders does it still have to share? Well… we’ll just have to wait and see…