futurism

Will We Have Cognitive Computers That Feel And Smell In The Next Five Years?

At the end of each year, IBM releases its “5 in 5″ — five technology predictions that IBM researchers foresee coming to fruition within the coming five years. These predictions are based on everything from emerging market trends to cultural and social behaviours to actual technologies IBM has incubating in its many labs. And if this year’s predictions are to be believed, many computational systems — from your tablet and laptop to your smartphone — are about to get a lot more sensory, learning to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell in their own digital ways.


New Google eBooks Translation Mark The Beginning Of Deep Cultural Change

Google eBooks just got upgraded with real time translation. This feature is another step towards the destruction of language barriers that limit worldwide cultural sharing. Something that, eventually, will deeply change the core of the human species while preserving our tribal identities.


Flying Fire Fighters (And Other Things That Didn’t Come To Pass)

Flying firemen. Radium-heated homes. Robot-assisted architects, tailors and barbers (eek!). These are the technologies of the year 2000, as envisioned by French illustrator Villemard in a series of beautiful drawings produced in 1910. They are pretty wacky…except when they aren’t.


100 Years Ago, NYT Predicted Cars Would Be Abolished By Today

Back in 1909, a fanciful New York Times journalist decided to spice things up by pretending to describe a futuristic 2009 “centennial celebration”. His portrait of future New York City is surprisingly eco-conscious and pedestrian-friendly.


Singularity University, Where You Major In Immortality

Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a lengthy profile on Singularity University, an incubator for futurists of all stripe founded by Ray Kurzweil. On the highly exclusive school’s curriculum: nanotechnology, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and of course, immortality.


The 22nd Century Garden

This flying greenhouse is the latest project from La Machine, a French street theatre company famous for their grandiose creations. The future of gardening: one part Up, one part Wild Wild West, and two parts, um, plants. [Wired, Jordi Bover]


Beautiful Children’s Books Make Me Wish I Was Born In Russia

I mean, not really, but still! These wonderfully idiosyncratic illustrations, from 1989′s Hello, I’m Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko, render our robot future in a way that conveys big ideas to children and pure poetry to the rest of us.


The Future Of Tourism Is…Robot Sex?

At Australia’s Tourism Futures conference, futurologist Ian Yeoman (of New Zealand’s University of Wellington) forecast artificial resorts with robot staff, and yep, even robot prostitutes could become a reality.


Our Augmented Reality Future

io9 was busy this weekend detailing detailing how the future might look as “augmented reality” takes off in the next decade or so. Personally, I can’t wait for the information overload. It’s just too bad spam will follow us into 2020. [io9]


According Popular Science Magazine, We Should All Drive Humongous Wheels By Now

Scouring the recently-posted PopSci archives on Google Books, reader Wesley Treat has put together a collection documenting the magazine’s odd, decades-long obsession with the idea of a personal monowheel.


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